Bringing it all back home

It really has been an odd few weeks (months?) and to have sudden realisation and clarity can be a bit of a shock to the system. Wake up call even…

Today I have been on the receiving end of “a bad review”. I have been doing a writing course to fill in some time and the marker on my latest efforts has bought me back to earth with a bit of a crash. Not a bad crash, but a great lesson on reviewing and being reviewed and thankfully not cutting in a CK Stead kind of way. However I shall in future try not to be so flippant in my opinions here now that I partially understand the effect!

Also another sharp reminder of how small NZ is generally and hence the art world village here came today when in my internet art searches I came across a ‘new’ artist doing interesting stuff and then found they had a very personal (if once removed) connection to me. It was quite startling and because of the connection I can’t quite bring myself to “showcase” the work here. Life is so complex! It reminds me of a hospital administrator who once said “it would all run so much smoother if there were no patients”.

Enough of my day of personal revelations. How about “we need more happy art” as a discussion topic? Don’t you find a lot of art is very serious, stark and angst ridden? Full of deep half-hidden meanings and symbolism and dark thoughts and concepts? Then when something with a bit of humour arises, it’s dismissed as flippant or lightweight? So what about this then (from an artist)

“Art that makes you HAPPY. Not just art with deep meaning. If it brings you joy when you walk in the door, brings you a smile when you’re down, I’ve made something so much more meaningful. I’ve given you something to bring you life! We can’t be serious all the time. We cannot bear the weight of the world on our shoulders 24/7.”

Lastly this art (design/fashion statement) should NOT make me happy - but it does…

“Who Killed Bambi?”

Afternoons and coffeespoons

I was at my favourite cafe today when I noticed that a painting I really liked that had been there for an age (and I was quietly thinking of saving up for) had gone. I didn’t think so much of the replacement. Anyway the painting I liked was called “Motu Motu” and by the artist Jon Stevenson
Jon in front of Motu Motu

The thing that is good about a regular cafe is that they almost have your long black waiting as you walk in the door - or a Romano in the weekends! Casa Java also serves fair trade coffee which totally blew my cutting down plan by drinking only fair trade. Now if only they had fair trade Ethiopian Yirgacheffe my life would be complete.

I’ve been reading some design books this week. Firstly “Crown Lynn: New Zealand Icon” by Valerie Ringer Monk. I just keep thinking that I grew up with this stuff and some of it is gross. My mother would be amazed that it is now so collectible. She got a set of ‘Autumn Splendour’ as wedding gift I believe or maybe a little later - anyway it was slowing disappearing when I came on the scene and replaced with Fleurette.

Fleurette

The other book is 40 Legends of New Zealand Design by Douglas Lloyd Jenkins and its a bit of a revelation. Again its very familiar territory but the significance of some of these people had been a bit lost on me. Another book to add to the “must buy one day” list. I might have to start another page here for that - or at least a link to an Amazon wishlist. Actually forget Amazon - I’m trying to buy books via Goodbooks if possible now but to be honest, I don’t buy very many books at all. Thankfully my library has accepted another list of recommendations from me recently (including the new Angus one).

Speaking of books I picked up two good 2nd hand ones today Below the Surface: words and images in protest at French testing on Moruroa  and Landfall 208. Both have inscriptions, which is something I love. I suppose unless its from the author they devalue a book, but don’t you ever wonder who “Ethel, Christmas 1947″ was? Anyway the copy of Landfall had an inscription on the cover from Fiona Kidman which is funny considering the contents.

My recent obsession with Plischke houses (still haven’t located Eve Page’s) led someone to point out to me the latest “Home New Zealand” magazine which features two quite amazing mid century houses - worth a look!

 

Nobody told me there’d be days like these

Strange days indeed…I’m having one of those “I have to accept I am never going to learn how to skateboard or surf” days. Even looking at surfboard and skateboard art is depressing. Its almost as bad as those days when you realise you are never going to trendy - or even funky. Lucy Jordan can have her sports car in Paris, I’d just like to be ‘hip’ for 1/2 a day :-)

I also wonder if I’ve missed the contemporary art bus (now there’s a visual image for you). I can’t even come up with a good definition of ‘Contemporary Art’ and I am finding Wikipedia annoying. The word/concept ‘Design’ is also proving challenging today. Does it really mean 1960’s orange German Pottery and $220 a roll modernist/atomic themed wallpaper? Actually the wallpaper is almost acceptable as it meets that ‘form and function’ criteria that I have in my head - but what is the function of art pottery? I guess there in itself, is the art/design delineation. Art does NOT have to have a function (maybe its a bonus if it does?). So is art just ornamentation then?

With all the gloomy talk of a recession I’ve been thinking about about art in that context too (as have others out there who are blogging). I somehow doubt there were schemes in NZ similar the Federal Art Project in the US in the Great Depression, but I think it was an interesting initiative. “New Deal arts projects were guided by two novel assumptions: artists were workers and art was cultural labor worthy of government support.” Didn’t Jackson Pollock (and Lee Krasner) come out of that? Some of the murals are pretty amazing - inspired by the Mexican mural movement and Diego Rivera. Of course there is the infamous Rockefeller Centre Murals incident (ahh - political art in its prime).

Rivera at work on the Rockefeller mural

I guess even in a depression there was money for art and I don’t think that will change much. Prices may drop, collectors may be more conservative, but art will continue to be made. On a slight tangent are the 1930’s murals anything similar to today’s bombing or throw ups or whatever you call it? Intent might be similar but there is the issue of permission - mind you, Rivera’s mural was quickly removed when “the man” didn’t like it.

More discussion on artists, families and sacrfice continues, so what about the aforementioned Lee Krasner? Obviously there was a Pollock influence but look at the earlier works.

Gouache Number 4 ( Study for Lavender)(1942) Lee Krasner

“although she acknowledged Pollock’s superior gifts, she did not become his follower. More than three years his senior, she was a mature artist when they met and throughout her aesthetic evolution retained elements of her early analytical skills and structural sophistication.”

Way to go grrl!

Outsourcing

In the world of contemporary art there seems to be a trend of ‘outsourcing’. For example, if Michael Parekowhai had actually made his 10 Guitars himself, then the work would have taken an age to create, so he outsourced much of the work and then just did the assemblage. Which is the same as Billy Apple and his sign-writer.  A good explanation I found was likening it to an architect designing a house but employing a builder to construct it - which makes perfect sense. To some this is anathema, as the artist is also supposed to also be the craftsman. It takes fine art into a design arena, where the artist as the conceptual designer (writer/director) who may not be directly involved in the execution (the actor).

Patriot: Ten Guitars (1999) Michael Parekowhai

But its not that much different to the studios of the great masters where perhaps you could never be sure by whose hand a painting in its entirety was done. In that case sometimes the ‘master’ was just an overseer or quality control. For example works completed in the main by Rembrandt are actually quite rare.

The applied arts (and crafts) we assume are different where the artist IS the craftsperson, but maybe not. I stumbled upon a new concept (to me) this week of Ponoko “the cutting edge of the post-industrial revolution that is changing the way products are created, traded and distributed…bringing personal manufacturing of individualized products to the masses.“

What intrigues me is their use of the term “mass individualisation“. OK so a designer probably isn’t too worried about making their product and just producing it en-masse and this is a space to try things out before demand is going to require outsourcing to China or somewhere for economic reasons. The advantage here is for people like me who think “I love that lamp but I’d like it 2 inches shorter and in mauve, with maybe a atomic motif” and you can just alter the design to fit your requirements.

For conceptual artists it could be used to make elements of an artwork to be customised and individualised later, or even limited edition works to be hand numbered.  If the materials and techniques available were expanded I think Ponoko could get wider use in an artistic sense. But for the applied artist or craftsperson is it valid to be outsourcing, even just elements? And if it isn’t valid then what about craft made from ‘found ‘ or recycled objects. Then the craft is accepted as being how these items are used.

I am putting a bob each way. I like an artwork that has had life breathed into it by the artist, a hunk of canvas smeared with paint with a finger print or two, a sculpture that’s been bled over. BUT from a design point of view getting someone else to do the ‘tricky bits’ can make sense too. I don’t love Apple’s work any less knowing he didn’t do the painting himself, but I perceive it on a different level.

Personally, I am just waiting for someone like Ponoko to allow me to design and build my own giant inflatable animal art.