- Venue
- Nottingham Contemporary
- Location
‘The exhibition is an archaeology of abandoned thought systems.’ [1]
Throughout my work a recurring theme has been the pursuit of the knowledge, what is an artist? And what inspires them? Therefore, when I saw Weber’s show at the contemporary it stood out to me like none of the London exhibitions had. Going to the Tate and Whitechapel gallery, left me feeling very cold towards the experience of looking at art, it was so commercial, a factory of putting people in pumping them round and hoping at the end they’d seen something ‘inspiring’, amongst the endless parade of artists lined up in front of them. The Klaus Weber show is in two parts, a solo exhibition ‘If you leave me I’m not coming’, and a compilation of collected works entitled ‘ Already there!’. I found this one of the most interesting parts of the show, it maps through not only the artists work and outcome of thought processes, but the thoughts themselves, the catalysts of inspiration and a contextual backdrop to the pieces in the show.
Apart from looking at the ‘foundations’ of Weber’s practise, the work itself also really interested me. Within my own practise I’m motivated and inspired into using different mediums to achieve what I want and visualise my ideas, this seems to be true also of Weber in his own work. The solo show consisted of sculpture, installation, text work and ‘paintings’. I hate being pinned down with the assumption that everyone has to be a ‘kind’ of artist, and I love the fact that Weber does not restrict himself in such a way. In his work Weber questions underlying assumptions and belief systems, acting out the continuous conflict occurring in society between nature and science. There is an open-endedness about this, and it allows him to explore, push the boundaries of his work whilst staying under the ‘umbrella’ of his theme. This means that although many of the pieces within the exhibition are very different they are still tied together through overriding ideas of disruption and maverick forces within nature.
Two of the pieces that particularly stood out to me were held together in just this way, not at all visually but conceptually. In the centre of the back room of the solo exhibition hung ‘Large Dark Wind Chime’ (Arab Tritione). It was a striking ominous presence within the room, playing with not only visual scale but aural, as it sent sinister vibrations throughout the gallery. What particularly made it a symbol of the dark, was that it was tuned into the ‘diabolus in musica’ or the ‘tritone’, spanning three musical tones this was avoided for centuries the Medieval church banning it believing it to have the ability to stimulate carnal urges and even summon the devil. The piece is a romanticised play on the fear of the ‘other’, confronting stereotypes in a very physical way that demands attention. The two fans set up use science and nature to create the movement and are essential for the piece to work adds to this confrontation, it’s a very tense piece, putting to rest the idea of the simple wind chime as a soothing melodic device.
The second piece of interest to me comes into play on the wall directly opposite the musical installation, these were Weber’s ‘Bee Paintings’, they provide such a stark humorous contrast and yet they still seem fundamentally linked with the subversion of the obvious and the assumed. They initially look like abstract paintings however it was in fact the bee’s themselves that created them. Every year on their ‘cleansing flight’ they excrete on the white clean surface and create the ‘art’ shown. Weber is giving up control over his work to nature, its pure, straight from subject to object with no interruption from artist, and it changes the way we perceive painting and what ‘painting’ and art is. Even the way the paintings are laid, different sizes, freely spaced out, it feels natural and loose rather than too planned out.
Both pieces have a set of rules and a sense of freedom simultaneously, the regimented lines and presence of the wind chime, the borders of the canvas, but there is also the lack of control the artist has over the wind that pushes the bars and the way the canvases look after they’ve been changed by the bee’s. It’s all about give and take, discovery and knowledge. Constantly question, because this is the only way we can move forward.
Gavin J R refers to the show as ‘a humorous tribal tapestry of human development’,[2] and this is what the second half of the show consists off, Weber’s development and self-discovery as to what he and his work are about, he has left the door ‘ajar’ for us to see. It’s hard to pick out something in particular to concentrate on as there was so much that interested me, however something that did stand out was the ‘Shape of the Ape’, a collection of kitsch copies of a 19th century sculpture of an ape squatting on a stack of books contemplating a human skull, Hamlet like. The end of the room is dark, and walking between the sculptures feels like walking through an old bookshop or the recesses of the artists mind. The original sculpture was a satirical comment on Darwin’s theory of evolution that was so profound that it is still contested to this day. The smaller pieces surround a larger shattered sculpture in the centre; it’s a physical representation of the clash between science and nature, a symbol of frustration and fracture. The Hamlet reference also reminds of the constant state of flux that we are in as individuals, always asking questions, always in conflict, however generally not knowing which decision is best.
Weber’s show is darkly humorous, there is the sense of someone constantly questioning, searching and demanding something different from the world, what has been and what has the potential to be true. This freshness is what I think makes it so successful, as an artist he is not afraid to make mistakes, and to experiment. He shows us into his mind, into what makes him tick, and shown us something of ourselves, how humans tend to stray away from what does not conform to what we know, what does not fit with our stereotypes and assumptions. It has shown me that the most important asset to have as an artist if the ability to question, to find and not always to understand, but to carry on regardless.
[1] Taken from page 9 of the Exhibition notes for the Klaus Weber show at Nottingham Contemporary.
