quote:Originally posted by Saveloy:
I reckon it's an underused medium with a lot of potential ..... a relatively easy way for imaginative people to get creative.
the materials themselves will suggest things to you, and you can muck about to your heart's content trying out all the different possible combinations, things you would never have thought of unprompted (I love 2-D collage for the same reason).
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I'll have to find a friend with Photoshop so I can post some of my my recent work, I'd be really interested to see what anyone thinks of it in the light of the above comments. I've been making wall pieces, very pictorial but in 3-d relief, by grabbing a load of cardboard and sticking it together to form basic shapes and then covering it with all sorts of found objects and paint to complete the form. Another thing I like about this is the democracy of the use of materials - cardboard is free and a lot of the other stuff I use is either found in skips or charity shops or is stuff I had lying around anyway. Regarding materials suggesting uses, while making my Ganesh thing (no pic here, just an ill-conceived rant in the Magick forum), The sleeve of a houndstooth suit jacket from the charity shop in Hackney just screamed 'trunk' at me, while his one tusk was made by glueing together plastic cups that I had bought for mixing paint. Big sloppy amounts of PVA glue - I love it!
I haven't read any of the Chapman's comments on Hell either, I have to say I was disappointed to hear them hiding behind their usual glibness in that radio interview. It seems like they're relying on their old catch - all of "Well it's shocking isn't it? So it's pushing the boundaries of taste and what art can be for or about. Oh, you weren't shocked? Well, in that case it's a comment on desensitisation." I honestly got a lot out of Hell, but thinking about it, its intellectual/moral content may well not have been any more substantial than that (I do remember being shocked, then desensitised, then aware of my desensitisation, while looking at the piece). Perhaps the sheer scale and effort that has obviously gone into it are the redeeming features; with the "disasters of war" and "fuckface" stuff it was a lot easier to imagine them just ordering a bunch of mannequins and then snickering into their black - rimmed glasses before heading off to a backslapping session at the new Saatchi opening.
Which reminds me - that "New Labour" show they had links to what we're talking about. Saatchi unsuccessfully trying to jumpstart a movement again. There was a lot of emphatically handmade/ craft - based stuff doing the rounds a little while ago, such as michael raedecker's stuff in the turner prize 2000. It seems to be considered a bit of a joke aesthetic now though - maybe it's too close to 'outsider art' to ever be real sexy and glam enough for the 'proper' art world (in smug London anyway) |
