And yesterday after months of pretending it wasn’t there, I spoke to the OU to talk about resuming my study with them. So, I’ve now signed up for a second year course in Art History – Renaissance to present day. Thats a whole lot of time to cover. The course starts in October, so some time to do pre – reading and thinking.
I have this photo of Rauschenberg above my desk as of today. What a guy.
Seems to be a lot going on at the moment. After the excitement of BlankExpression, many things to do. A really productive meeting last Friday with artist Dan Fox and Jonathan Best who is commissioning Dan and I to make a new piece of work for this years’ Holmfirth Arts Festival in June. The piece uses the river Holm as its starting point, with the final piece being a sound and visual installation in the Church in the centre of town. At the moment we are thinking about making a walk of the river as the source of the material for the installation.
So it looks like I’ve given myself the task of learning a fair amount about film / video, including editing between now and then. Exciting stuff….
Meanwhile, a new project has been informally confirmed, which will be quite high profile, and a really interesting departure for my work.
The schools half – term this week, although in no way a holiday (for me) at least gives me something like a bit of breathing space.
Really great time at Blank Space last night for the first of their In_Tuition sessions www.blankmediacollective.org open events at BlankSpace where artists meet to talk and discuss their, and others work. Last night’s event focussed on the BlankExpression exhibition. About 15 people showed up including five of the exhibiting artists. After a walk around the show we took time to discuss and explore the work by the artists there.
My first experience of what was effectively a group crit. I managed to keep my nerves to a fairly minimal point, and to enjoy the experience. I was surprised, and majorly delighted by the discussion around my work. People seemed to draw a lot of information and insight from the work, bringing a whole new layer of meaning and background. There was some mention of ideas around vulnerability, but also of a progression through the series of photographs. The idea that the pinholes were ‘real’ events, and the lager digital photos a ‘re – staging’ of the event, but remembered (by me) in a different way. Interesting point from one of the other exhibiting artists that she was relieved to see the figure (me) was male, as the sense of fragility or vulnerability would usually (from an art historical perspective) be shown by a female figure.
Other people picked up on the figure as being a part of the whole landscape, rather than a central focus to the photograph, and also making links to how the pinhole pics were displayed, making a line through the frames from one photo to another. Interesting discussion of how the presentation of the pinhole photographs (traditionally framed) gave them a more ‘precious’ or ‘serious’ feeling.
Topped off by (I think) a degree of surprise that this is my first gallery exhibition, and indeed the start of my practice in terms of producing work for exhibition. Inclusion in the exhibition has been such a high, and a fantastic spur to continue.
Oh, and BlankMedia ROCK!