Fiona Connor - Wallworks

 

The idea of representing or re-creating real life in the form of art seems to be coming up a bit in contemporary art lately. For example, Kenny Pittock's ceramic objects immitating things like chip packets, chocolate bars, and the desk piece he had at ACCA earlier in the year. Connor's 'Wallworks' however, akes this even further by attempting to recreate entire sections of walls from around MUMA. It's extremely impressive and I think will be looked back on as quite an important step in that 'everyday' kind of field of contemporary thinking, if you will. As well as re-creating the walls, the re-presentation (literally RE presenting) the artworks from around MUMA campuses is clever too. It poses questions around how far you can go in terms of using other people's works in your own artwork, and what is considered art! I think once an artwork makes you think of the question 'is this art?' it can either go two ways - the viewers will either think 'what the hell, this is bulshit, this isn't art, pfffft'... OR they'll day 'oh my god this is BRILLIANT HOW CLEVER WOW'. Which makes the artworks instantly controversial and provocative. It's so subversive. I love the freedom of art in that respect. Hearing about Fiona's journey in talking to the people who usually work around the real wall sections, and how much the project brought people who maybe don't usually think about art together made it even more impressive and inspiring!

Personally, I really like this work because of how many different ways you can look at it. I hope she gets the credit she deserves for it.

PS - (Updated section:) Recently I saw the 'Don't Kurt Cobain' closing show at Slopes, and there was a work there where the artist had pulled out a section of her old bedroom wall with a Nirvana poster on it, and then put it under glass and in a frame. I wonder whether this work could have been inspired by Fiona Connor's work?

Art is a verb

Jean Paul Gaultier

The Gaultier exhibition was pretty amazing, mostly in terms of it's overwhelming over-the-top aesthetic. He's clearly got an incredible eye for detail, and is interested in trying heaps of new things and pushing the boundaries about what you can put onto clothes. There were heaps of little details that made every seem a little more special too - and it was well set out that you could walk up to them very closely and examine each piece closely. I also liked the big difference in styles from room to room - it was a nice surprise seeing something totally different when you walk around the corner.
I took way too many photos. Here are some of them:

Trocadero - Awesome Repeat x infinity bonus ; - 0 awesome repeat x infinity bonus ; - o

CCP/Simone Slee Talk

I went to CCP on Wednesday afternoon, and photographed my favorite pieces. This video by Kelly Wellis I found particularly fascinating. The drawing was soothing, perhaps because of the pencil going up and down, and I liked how in synch the girls were. At first I thought they were lovers or something, and then I realized they looked super similar and were probably just twins. Moving so close to each other in such a small space made it seem very intimate, but at the same time they had such blank faces and were doing such harsh movements with the pencil that it didn't seem beautifully intimate at all - it seemed quite cold really. But that's probably just me. It was odd, I don't entirely know how to explain why but I just really liked it.

I really connected with Vivian Maier's super 8 footage too. It was just her walking around taking videos of things she found visually interesting, something that seemed part of her everyday routine (that's not that surprising, she is a photographer after all). I guess I found it appealing because it is just purely documentative, and not changed very much. It seemed like someone's home video piece. Oh, and I take a lot of video footage as I walk around too, so I guess that's another reason why it appealed to me.

I didn't take any photos of Simone Slee's 'How long can I hold this up?'  because it wasn't something that I felt overly excited by. I thought it was funny, and the large scale of the posters made it stand out quite a lot, however I didn't feel compelled to stay and look for very long. After going to her talk and hearing the stories surrounding her adventures abroad with the signs and her social experiments testing the works in public places made me appreciate it a little more, because I heard it's history. We've been talking about the idea of documentation as being artwork a lot, for example Agathe Gothe-Snappe using words from interviews as direct sources for her work, and this work that was at the WestSpace Contemporary Art Prize that included an entire wall of the letters sent in regards to creating the piece:

I think the idea of using documentation as a part of the artwork itself often leads to things being easier to understand, and in my opinion I think I'm drawn to works that seem to say something. Although I like art for the sake of being visually appealing, and there's just something about the pure aesthetics of some things, I think a lot of art I consider to be important or valuable is one that has a story and history and meaning behind it. I'd say meaning is definitely the key word there. And the easier it is for people to deconstruct that meaning, the more people will be affected. However, pretty much every artwork is saying something, even if it's quite small and not overly noticeable, and only reaches a small amount of people. I guess that's why there are so many artists and so many galleries around - so that people will keep thinking and seeing different perspectives. That's a pretty obvious thing to say. Anyway, moving on....

Aside from Slee's 'How long can I hold this up?', her other work really appealed to me. It was one of those pieces that perhaps may not have stood out to a lot of people, but that still resonated with me. It was cheeky and cute and contradicting everything I've just said about liking artworks because they change your perspective on things: I liked it cause the little tiny bits of body poking out were funny and sweet, and the contrasting bright colors were cheerful. It just made me smile.

The nose one was my favorite:

After seeing a slide show of her work I think I should also mention that I liked her project called 'my house is too small' or something - visiting other people's houses and living with and making art with them is always fun, and giving a name to and documenting that process is a very clever idea I think.

One thing I disliked about the talk was when she wouldn't stop talking about the type of paper she was going to use. I respect her passion and eye for detail in the type of paper that she uses, but I just wasn't that interested in her paper choice. It was very nice of her to show us that much intimate detail into her decision making process however. And also very nice to see shots she didn't use, and photographs she didn't print. She was very honest and open, and I appreciate that.

Dinner's ready, so that's all for now.