Monday 29 June 2015

356 NIGHT WAVES by KENNETH DRAPER

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ART SUMMER SHOW

 Night Waves, mixed media, 85 x 40 46cm
"My work always creates a dialogue between sculpture, painting and drawing. The explosions in my new work ...respond to the piercing beauty and ravaged landscapes of my home in Menorca". Kenneth Draper

What is the best use for photography? 
Photographing other pictures says David Hockney  in The Artist's Eye: looking at pictures in a book. It is the only time it can be true to its medium, because, like the photographs that result, paintings are flat two-dimensional objects. People and landscapes and nearly everything else in the universe, are uncompromisingly three dimensional, full of knobbles and curves and inlets and complexity.

Nowhere is this more true than in trying to use a photograph to capture the beauty and strength and freshness of sculpture. Sculpture demands not just a visual but a physical engagement, only coming to life when you walk round it. You cannot see it all at once. It's like chasing shadows.

Night  Waves is displayed on a white plinth, roughly at table height.At first I took time to linger on the complexity and beauty of the base; then the dancing curls and whirling curves, captured and poised as lightly and briefly as birds or waves. At the top is magical space. The artist talks of 'frayed edges' in his works. Here they fizz and vibrate as if solid metal melts into the surrounding air.
 
Wohl Central Hall. Royal Academy of Art

To feature this work - and a few others - I have broken my rule of never writing about art which is only accessible by paying to see it. This summer's Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition, a selection co ordinated by Michael Craig Martin, is the best I've seen,  It starts in the courtyard where visitors are confronted by a towering formation of steel ‘clouds’, created out of 8,000 tetrahedrons by Conrad Shawcross, before climbing Jim Lambie’s kaleidoscopic stairs leading up to the Main Galleries. which I'll feature in my next blog.

www.kennethdraper.com/current_exhib_text.html
www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/summer-exhibition-2015
www.michaelcraigmartin.co.uk/
www.hockneypictures.com/
conradshawcross.com/
www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lambie-zobop-t12236

Wednesday 24 June 2015

355 MAGNA CARTA EMBROIDERY (Wikipedia version) by CORNELIA PARKER

BRITISH LIBRARY




Question: What is this man doing?

Answer: Stitching a section of an embroidery 13 metres long and 1.5 metres wide which  replicates the Magna Carta's Wikipedia article as it appeared a year ago  on the charter's 799th anniversary.


2015 is the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, a treaty setting out joint rule between Bad King John and  the Turbulent Barons - or so the story goes. One version of events is that the King outfoxed the barons by reneging on his promises. But the story never ends. There was a report yesterday that a letter found in Lambeth Palace Archives shows 'the truly revolutionary nature of what happened in 1215' and that the king did not take sole charge of the new peace - the first glimmer of shared power showed through..
Cornelia Parker with a section of the tapestry (photo) Tony Antoniou

The British Library chose  the brilliant  Cornelia Parker to celebrate the event. She has the ability to transform some of the most ordinary objects into something compelling and extraordinary (for example a garden shed in Cold Dark Matter: an exploded view at the Tate). Sometimes she contains things beyond our control and makes them into that which is quiet and contemplative. In this case she turns a unique, revolutionary charter into somethng as commonplace as a piece of embroidery.

 Over 200 people helped to create this piece. They included over 40 prisoners supervised by Fine Cell Work, a social enterprise group which trains prisoners in paid, skilled creative needlework;  members of the Embroiderers' Guild who tackled the the detailed pictures, emblems and logos; civil rights campaigners, MPs, celebrities, the Royal School of Needlework, Hand and Lock - and some present day barons.

Jarvis Cocker who stitched the words "Common People" (photo) Joseph Turp
The artists says "These very different people each have their own opinions about democracy today and I thought carefully about the words they should stitch. For instance Baroness Warsi, Eliza Manningham-Buller, Julian Assange and numerous prisoners have stitched the word 'freedom' but each has their different relationship to it". Jarvis Cocker, above, stitched "Common People".

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ptsjd       (Jarvis Cocker)

All these people have their own opinions about democracy today and I thought carefully about the words they should stitch. For instance, Baroness Warsi, Eliza Manningham-Buller, Julian Assange and numerous prisoners have all stitched the word ‘freedom’, but all have different relationships to it.”
The bulk of the text of the Wikipedia page has been embroidered in various prisons by inmates under the supervision of Fine Cell Work, a social enterprise that trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework. The detailed pictures, emblems and logos that punctuate the text have been fashioned by highly accomplished members of the Embroiderers' Guild, a national charity that promotes and encourages the art of embroidery and related crafts, alongside embroiderers from the Royal School of Needlework and the leading embroidery company Hand & Lock.
“I love the idea of taking something digital and making it into an analogue, hand-crafted thing”, says Cornelia.
- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2015/may/cornelia-parker-unveils-13-metre-long-magna-carta-embroidery#sthash.m9x78lrP.dpuf
All these people have their own opinions about democracy today and I thought carefully about the words they should stitch. For instance, Baroness Warsi, Eliza Manningham-Buller, Julian Assange and numerous prisoners have all stitched the word ‘freedom’, but all have different relationships to it.”
The bulk of the text of the Wikipedia page has been embroidered in various prisons by inmates under the supervision of Fine Cell Work, a social enterprise that trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework. The detailed pictures, emblems and logos that punctuate the text have been fashioned by highly accomplished members of the Embroiderers' Guild, a national charity that promotes and encourages the art of embroidery and related crafts, alongside embroiderers from the Royal School of Needlework and the leading embroidery company Hand & Lock.
“I love the idea of taking something digital and making it into an analogue, hand-crafted thing”, says Cornelia.
- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2015/may/cornelia-parker-unveils-13-metre-long-magna-carta-embroidery#sthash.m9x78lrP.dpuf
355 MAGNA CARTA EMBROIDERY by CORNELIA PARKERCornelia said, ‘I wanted the embroidery to raise questions about where we are now with the principles laid down in the Magna Carta, and about the challenges to all kinds of freedoms that we face in the digital age. Like a Wikipedia article, this embroidery is multi-authored and full of many different voices. - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/05/magna-carta-an-embroidery.html#sthash.6Zrdqeif.dpuf
Cornelia said, ‘I wanted the embroidery to raise questions about where we are now with the principles laid down in the Magna Carta, and about the challenges to all kinds of freedoms that we face in the digital age. Like a Wikipedia article, this embroidery is multi-authored and full of many different voices. - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/05/magna-carta-an-embroidery.html#sthash.6Zrdqeif.dpufvcvncncm,n
Cornelia said, ‘I wanted the embroidery to raise questions about where we are now with the principles laid down in the Magna Carta, and about the challenges to all kinds of freedoms that we face in the digital age. Like a Wikipedia article, this embroidery is multi-authored and full of many different voices.’ - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/05/magna-carta-an-embroidery.html#sthash.6Zrdqeif.dpuf
Cornelia said, ‘I wanted the embroidery to raise questions about where we are now with the principles laid down in the Magna Carta, and about the challenges to all kinds of freedoms that we face in the digital age. Like a Wikipedia article, this embroidery is multi-authored and full of many different voices.’ - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/05/magna-carta-an-embroidery.html#sthash.6Zrdqeif.dpuf
Cornelia said, ‘I wanted the embroidery to raise questions about where we are now with the principles laid down in the Magna Carta, and about the challenges to all kinds of freedoms that we face in the digital age. Like a Wikipedia article, this embroidery is multi-authored and full of many different voices.’ - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/05/magna-carta-an-embroidery.html#sthash.6Zrdqeif.dpuf
Cornelia said, ‘I wanted the embroidery to raise questions about where we are now with the principles laid down in the Magna Carta, and about the challenges to all kinds of freedoms that we face in the digital age. Like a Wikipedia article, this embroidery is multi-authored and full of many different voices.’ - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/05/magna-carta-an-embroidery.html#sthash.6Zrdqeif.dpuf