Reflections : Final student project

Coffee at Tilly’s.

Today I met up with a retired gentleman for coffee whom I have known for a while…I got aquainted to him through my work and then eventualy we discoverd we had a creative connection which came about through getting onto the subject of art and the course I am on, and I discoverd John had a career creating and casting small scale images.

On previous occassions when we have chatted he had mentioned a friend and aquaintence Josephine de Vasconcellos, a sculptor. Today John brought along some small scale pieces of her work to show me, ones that he had cast for Josephine… some which she had given to him, they are very beautiful. there is a serene and peaceful quality within the works, to my surprise John intended to give me one as a gift, it is made from copper and was cast by John. He said the works were to do with the elements of earth, wind fire .

Also today I have been reflecting on my work toward the final degree show. I have had thoughts about the way forward, the road I am on has become a burden and increasingly heavy this leaves me feeling in a dark place (the hardest experience so far on this course)…I am in need of some directing so need to speak to David, Jane, Sarah, about this.

I looked on line a-n and read an article by an artist called Tamara ……….. on how writing about a thing changes it , she talked about Allan Kaprows work on imperminence of performance art pieces,and Kaprows writing about his work, this seems to tie in with writing a blog on ones artistic reflective journey concerning the critical review.

Writing this blog has heightened my awareness about what I am attempting to convey through visual art, and it is bringing to the surface subconscious aspects, I am finding it increasingly challenging in that it is revealing certain aspects such as confronting ones dilemmas, motivations,perceptions concerning the reasons behind the production of a work, communicating of ideas, resolving issues,the challenging of what one understands – why,? the moral implications… getting a degree on the premise of what one produces. dilemma verses what… ethical responsibiltiy, morality…. awareness etc…stop.. stop.. stop… stop.. STOP!. I need to regain an equilibrian as there is a fair degree of internal dissonence and am in need of regaining a peace and balance I must discover a way in or seek an alternative way out … problem solving is part and parcel of finding ways forward.

Doing this blog has become like a mirror it reveals ones internal by making it external therefore visible…like looking into a mirror it is exposing …it exposes the flaws in ones understanding as well as enhancing the qualities of what one is attempting to convey through art.

Through writing this blog one becomes doubly aware it is also seen publicly … and to be honest at the moment there is a part of me that feels wretched but also saying the word wretched allows a release which is also rather cathartic!, it is like a confession!! there is a vunerability about revealing especially when one is having to confront issues and find ways forward … At the moment I crave to do something beautiful calm, serene, like the gift of the sculpture given to me today is this a sign to me to change direction? Said again with elements of desperation and humour.

I came across Eric Fromms writing which I now consider apt and timely.

-“If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being “asocial” or “irrational” in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to “explain,” which usually implies that the explanation be “understood,” i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.” ― Erich Fromm, The Art of Being

Keep moving…

Today was a continuation and a pushing forward into exploring new ideas after renewing my last studio work space yesterday… feeling at a loss..so time to look at a different perspective… Not sure where it will take me I am hoping through the exploration and constructing of form to get inspired !! By looking at a more abstract form, having aquired interesting waste material from a photo machine with the faint echoes /imprints of images from peoples everyday lives on the waste material itself….As can be seen from the last post I started to explore angle, shapes and colours how they interacted, when I placed the material in certain postions in my studio, having hired the white space felt it time for a new large scale experiment yet as can be seen from the photo with myself next to the experiment this was quiet physical… the work itself reminded me of “barriers,” having the images on the material alerted me to the political and economic structures that, although for the most part are not perceived do shape, constrain and dictate our choices and the shaping of our social lives. We imagine we live in a free society but that freedom is exercised within very limited parameters that are constucted by one dimensional systems, and social norms. This socialisation enables the structural powers in society to control.. from a distance as we subconsciously internalise … ( this was something that Foucault had theorised over concerning prisons, schools etc)… and perform that make us conform to certain structures this reminds me of Herbert Marcuse’s words,”One dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information ,their universe of discourse populated by self validating hypotheses which(when) incesantly and monopolistically repeated become definitions of dictations.” Herbert Marcuse 1991,p14 One Dimensional man . London:Routledge.

I have just reread my last two posts in an attempt to give myself a boost and a belief that what my work has dealt with and what I am attempting to communicate is something I can continue to address…Today we had a group studio crit which went really well alot of positive encouragement helpful suggestions and feed back .Talking in a group doesn’t come natuarly to me but I feel I have grown more in my confidence as time has gone on. The thing I am finding difficult at the moment is what I am trying to address ,say, and communicate through my work. Through the summer of 2013 I read a book called the Abu Gharib Effect which was a powerful portrayal of the imagery that broke out from the Iraqi prison 2004 not an easy subject matter to handle- which made me realise how artists that do deal with and respond to difficult subject matter probably do so from an informed and sober perspective. Susan Crile is an artist who has researched on Abu Gharib and went onto produce powerful pastel images.Crile talking about her work said”First you are drawn to something akin to beauty and then you feel the despair, the cruelty.” http://www.artnewsnviews.com/view-article.php?article.

I have a real sense of unease at present about how to communicate issues that affect me and go on to produce art round my chosen subject in someway. I find a real sense of searching and questioning of this subject matter going on within me … this sense has culminated over the last month or so, I am not sure of the way forward though having the student crit today was helpful in one way as it has confronted me with my growing deep sense of unease..(about what I was hoping to produce for my end of year show) I know I now have to confront these issues and make some decisions concerning a way forward. Having researched and produced my dissertation looking at art with social meaning, particularly Golub and Roslers work emerging from the Vietnam war, I found I had a definite passion for the subject matter and found it impacted my understanding immensly, it was benificial toward furthering my understanding of art with social meaning. In the context from which the artists (whom I chose)… works emerged the dissertation has greatly impacted and informed my understanding of state and media portrayl of issues that arise concerning state policies, through researching sociologists such as Judith Butler and Herbert Marcus (also a philosopher) along with writers Dora Apel, Suzi Gablick, John Bird,I have learnt a great deal this will stay with me but I do need to take stock and plan a way forward, I probably need to have a chat with tutors. I am going to explore a more abstract perspective. See studio space work before exploring new ideas.

It is a fact that as time has gone on in modern warfare those who are most effected are the innocent civilians, more civilians than ever are victims of war.Being reminded of Picassos Guernica 1937 painting which emerged from the impact of the air raid Bombing of Guernica. Leon Golub and many artists in the late 1960s protested at the MOMA in the US comparing the My Lai massacre of civilians to Guernica In effect one could also compare the bombing of civilians in Baghdad, where at the time of the Baghdad bombing the mean age of the civilians was 15 years old, knowing this leaves one lost for words. Susan Sontag wrote in her book ‘No one after a certain age has the right to this kind of innocence of superficiality….to this degree of ignorance, or amnesia’ (Sontag,2003,p102, Regarding the pain of others.New York , Farrar,Strauss and Giroux..Also Sociologist Judith Butler states “There is an ethical responsibility to respond to the appearance of others especially to their cry of suffering.” ( Butler ,2010 ,cited in Apel , 2012,pp8-9) War Culture and the Contest of Images,New Brunswick,NJ:Rutgers University Press. This sums up the belief in a humanity that defends and upholds the rights of others. I have seen in the works of Leon Golub , Martha Rosler, William Kentridge, Kathe Kollwitz, Barbara Kruger,and Susan Crile a passion to express through their work a need to make social comment through visual art, to communicate alternative perspective to what is told and portrayed. Sociologist and philosopher,Herbert Marcuse observes the control of the one dimensional portrayal of the dominant discourse, in his book One Dimensional Man .Marcuse points out, ” One dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information , their universe of discourse populated by the self validating of hypothesis which incessantly and monopolistically repeated become hypnotic defintions of dictations .” (Marcuse,1991,p 14) One dimensional man. London,Routledge. Hope springs up when one remembers the collapse of the Berlin wall,The fall of the Romanian dictatorship in the 1980s, Nelson Mandela and the fall of apartheid, Martin Luther Kings stand for human rights, Ghandi and Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma the on going move towards a better place.

Leon Golub’s art work has been particularly influential over the last couple of years on my understanding of how art can communicate social issues that deal with difficult subject matter. His large scale works depict the effects of power structures in society, the work often has focused on both perperator and the victim,take for example The Vietnam Series, 1970s. The dark subject matter has content that has a challenging and sobering effect when viewed. Golubs work emerged from the impact of events culminating from America’s involvement in the Vietnam war and consequently thereafter his work has gone on to depict, unveil and reveal the one dimensional structures of power within his society. John Bird said, “Golub understood violence, not as an isolated inhuman phenonomen but as an expression of power and powerlessness…all too human conditions (Bird ,J, 2011, Echoes of the Real. p11). London; Reaction Books. These words concerning power and powerlessness reminded me of an event at UCS this week when on 27th January people gathered for the Holocaust memorial service,(a now yearly event) whose motto was,” We will not forget, We will understand and learn,We will raise the aiarm and protest, We must guard the future.” this motto to me sums up what Golub attempted to do within his work -” to raise the alarm”- to draw people’s attention to the way power was used and abused, using art as a vehicle to protest about events firstly concerning the Vietnam war, along with his with his later works in the 1980s – Mercenaries Series, which Golub produced to draw attention to the way state power structures used coersive forces in Nicaragua and other south American countries that were deemed a threat to the American way of life. This again reminded me of the Holocaust memorial service where a UCS lecturer Dr Packard gave a brief talk on the historical background to the Holocaust one aspect of the talk that struck me was when he expanded on the word Genocide the phrase was coined by Professor Raphael Lemkin who emigrated to the USA a Polish lawyer of Jewish decent, Genocide was not heard of before 1943. Genos – greek for tribe /race. Cide -latin for killing.The word Genocide was killing based on destroying a culture and destroying memory-in a sense a wiping out.Dr Packard also touched on how ordinary people got caught up in also being perpertrators and the reason given was not that they were following orders but that they were taking part in an ideology and also reasons of peer pressure dynamics and the brutalization of war. At the end of the Nuremberg trials justice R Jackson said ” The very essence of the Nuremberg Charter is that individuals have international duties which trancend national obligations of obedience imposed by the state” Jackson Cited in Pilger,2003,p27).By Miller.D.(ed)Tell me Lies:Propaganda and Media Distortion in The attack on Iraq. London.Pluto press. In essence this is what strikes me about Golub and his work he was an artist who expressed these values of his obligation as an individual, his duty was to express visualy issues that troubled him concerning a states authority to control public opinion via mass media, his intention to alert people to the abuse of power in society particularly concerning states military actions. He considered himself a painter who depicted historical events through his work.

Martha Roslers- work also emerged from the Vietnam war and the previous war in Iraq. The Gray Drapes, (2008 ) a photomontage work, the medium Rosler used to communicate and critique the states violence, abuse, and horrors of war on civilians, caught in war conflicts.