all over bar the shouting..... an MA visual art show goes up

installation in waiting

The annual MA show is nearly ready. Tonight is the night.

Blood, sweat and tears makes it's debut, and then I will gracefully bow out.

No more do I wish to get three hundred Whats-app messages daily about when I might like to sit in a room tucked away at the end of the corridor that no-one will find, as the invigilator for a show that is just work in progress for those who have another year of this game before they become famous.

No more trekking to London to find my route barred by builders, or the library closed for a staff meeting.

moving goods and workmen

But before the term is ended we must put on a show, and before we can put on a show we must paint the walls and make our shelves, and mop the floor.

Plug sockets must be hidden under paper and painted over the top.

roller practice

 Works will, by tonight have found their way out of bags and onto the newly painted plinths.

I got out of being a carpenter/painter by showing a piece of messy work that needs a messy plinth that had been discarded by a previous student.

not quite ready yet

floor art

not a mop - art not yet on the wall

plastic and scourer

hopeful shelf

not quite ready yet 2

tools are in short supply

not quite ready yet 3

white paint is de rigeur

but pink is more fun

now we are carpenters and decorators too

 As you can see, the floor is a mess. No one can clear all the splodges of white paint.

But I made a very good job of sweeping the floor, having carried a dustpan and brush all around London for a day.

floor sweepings

I am getting into dust big time, after seeing the fabulous show A Handful of Dust that is currently on at Whitechapel Gallery.

a proper gallery - Whitechapel Gallery

The show was all about dust.

I can sell you a bag if you come along to the MA show.

I will be helping to run the shop, where books that people have laboured over for hours and hours are being sold for about £5.

That's art for you....

You will find the dust considerably more expensive.




Anyway, the signs are up, so you won't get lost.

One work sums it all up nicely.

I will be the one in the tennis mask, too embarrassed to show my face.

Apparently Chris Evert looks like this.

Roll on Sunday and the Wimbledon tennis final.

He's the only one left in it.

Time to learn art speak.... in which I start a new chapter

from 'Revealing Something new' by Anita Carnell

what do you see here?

raindrops from heaven?

a broken sun?

beads on black?

gold thread on leather?

It is by Anita Carnell and represents 65 hours of work. Anita's work is an abstracted reimagining of the historic traditions of gilded leatherwork.

'Revealing Something new' by Anita Carnell

I only know this because I talked to her and she explained her processes and ideas to me.

Which gets me thinking about how we interpret art, and different levels of meaning.

I spent an hour or two at the MAVA (MA visual arts ) show at UAL, Camberwell this week, and inside my head a little voice kept saying

what would OH ( my other half) say about this?



There were no artist statements and there was nothing in the catalogue to explain any of the work. It was only by talking to the artists that I could understand the work.

If the artist wasn't there, I couldn't ask the questions.

So I thought about what OH would say instead.

First some prints by Grizelda Kitching.

Add caption

'why isn't it finished'?

 'no idea what that is'

  is it the boiler?

 'compost on a book art course?

  are you serious?

  I can't repeat what else he said.





Recycled coffee capsules by Xiamiao Wu

    nouveau

    i wouldn't buy it 




Printmakers Council Award winner 2016  ....

Fractal series by Inma Berrocal

    

spotty; is it the seawall in Camber


You get my drift.

Conceptual art is difficult to understand unless you speak the language.



This author of this piece by Lena Wurz (below) has been awarded the London Centre for Book Arts Residency Award.

I would really like to know what it means. I am guessing that it is something about materiality.


I got on better with Charlotte Rimmer's very sensitive series about her grandparents frailty. A few words underneath the title of this work were enough to allow a good understanding of the sense of loss that dementia brings to those still living in the present.

Then there was work about air pollution in China. Not too hard to get.

Printed on beautiful textured paper.

I also had no difficulty with the small and playful book by Ling Li titled

'The person taking the photo is also being photographed'

After all this intense trying to 'get' stuff I went for a cup of tea.

Obviously I wished I was a student.

My favourite work in the show was by Clara Duran.

'Hail Radiates across the Ripple" 

I didn't fully understand it until I watched a video about the making of it later in the day.



So much underlying meaning.

And lovely to discover how she works in such a conceptual way.


So lovely that I went home and got my portfolio together and went for an interview to join the MA book arts course.

They offered me a place.

I accepted.

I will learn how to talk art speak.

And then I will try to teach it to OH.

It might take a while.....