We visited many galleries while we were here and they were all very unique. We began at a temporary Gallery space which is running from Friday 9 September – Sunday 4 December. It is called 'The Infinite Mix' and can be found at this address: The Store, 180 The Strand, London, WC2R 1EA. I would highly recommend going to this Exhibition as it has 10 different film pieces from 10 very different international artists so there is such a variety of approaches especially to the genre of the films and the way the artist chose to instal them. Even if your not a film or art fanatic this exhibition is really interesting to walk round in general because its set in an abandoned building and they have left it raw with open walls etc and so its quite an adventure in itself walking round this building. One of the pieces is even set up in the old carpark. I think its such a good idea to use this space in such an exciting way. The films themselves that are displayed here are as follows:
Martin Creed - Work No. 1701 (2013)
This piece was quite interesting to me because it does come across at first like a lot of different people crossing this one road. However all the people crossing it do so in many different ways due to disabilities and age etc. I feel like this is an exploration of how people cope with life when they are effected in some way and also how many different people use spaces so differently. I found this piece very uplifting even though it seems like a deep subject.
Stan Douglas - Luanda-Kinshasa (2013)
This piece didn't stand out to me as much but I think hats because it was all about a type of soul/funk music that doesn't interest me anyway. However when I read what he had done to make this it did interest me a bit more. He has created a 6 hour or so long loop using these shots he took in the studio of this fake recording session and then took the sounds and edited them to match whoever the camera was focusing on to make it all seem like a live action recording when in fact it relies on post production.
Jeremy Deller & Cecilia Bengolea - Bom Bom’s Dream (2016)
This piece made me laugh more than anything because it had a lot of comical techniques and scenes in it. For example they had a Chameleon speaking to the characters and that was using special effects to blend the chameleon into the video. It also I think used humour to its advantage to connect with he audience. We follow the story of a dancer called Bom Bom hence the name. It has been described by others as a modern day Alice in Wonderland story with all the dream sequences.
Cyprien Gaillard - Nightlife (2015)
This piece made me feel quite uncomfortable because of how it was shot in 3D and also the lighting and colours used in the piece were so bold it made it seem very hyper-realist even thought it is all real footage. It explores these different places at night and shows us some amazing visuals of it. I didn't know what the story was till I read it but it is meant to be about how the urban and natural landscape have captured times in history.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster - OPERA (QM.15) (2016)
This piece was very creepy to watch just because the figure appearing in the darkness in front of you is very startling. Its installation was really good because they did it in a perfect area were it was so dark and that the wall it was projected on was far away so it looked like a very realistic Opera singer appearing in a ghostly manor and singing. This piece is about the history of Opera I believe however this subject isn't one I know personally enough to make a judgement but it was incredible to watch.
Cameron Jamie - Massage the History (2007–9)
I did not watch this piece for long because personally it made me feel a bit uncomfortable watching a man interact with objects intimatly on such a large scale. I therefore didn't get too much of a story from the small segment I watched however the title gave the idea of the piece away to me anyway. IT all about the history of objects. After reading about it I realise there is a lot more too it and that it is meant to be uncomfortable to watch.
Kahlil Joseph - m.A.A.d (2014)
This piece was really strong using dual screen to get its message across. It was all about a Neighbourhood in Compton. It combined real life footage with fake footage and also some dream like sequences. It was a mash up of everything surrounding this group of kids and their lives in this neighbourhood. The sound track was such a strong part to this as well adding a lot of emotion through distorted sounds and music with cut aways to dramatic sounds of gunshots etc.
Elizabeth Price - K (2015)
This piece was very intense to begin with because you had to wear headphones to hear the sound from the screen so as you walked in these were given to us. I felt like this made it sound as if the women narrating this piece was talking in my ear which was quite uncomfortable. It was a piece which kept talking about Professional Mourners and used a collection of image to demonstrate this like a factory making Stockings and Old fashioned videos of Women Dancing. I got a lot of confusing mixed messages from this piece but it was still very exciting to watch. I feel like if I had more time I could have spent longer in this room trying to understand it.
Rachel Rose - Everything and More (2015)
I found this film very absorbing because of the amazing visuals they had of space like scenes on such a large screen. I felt like this piece was meant to take a hold on you. The narration was all about an astronauts experience of Space and also his experience of being at Sea on his return. The space and sea visuals are combined with some of his space suit and a training room. It all builds to help you feel really emotionally involved in his story. I liked this piece and it was very calming to watch.
Ugo Rondinone - THANX 4 NOTHING (2015)
This was my most favourite piece in this Gallery and also out of everything we saw this day. It was just so emotionally strong and Visually as well. Its installation worked amazingly. There was a massive room with 4 massive screens all facing inwards on the space of this man talking. Then round the outside of the space at the bottoms of the big screen were smaller TV monitors which this same man on talking but each TV had him from a different angle. This made it really intense because you were completely surrounded by him talking about his life in a very personal way. The large images also reflected what he was saying by having his suit change from black to white on some screen all in the rhythm of his talking. It made the piece build and build and then dramatically end. I just found it so inspiring in terms of how to install and also how effective you can make simple pieces of film. I don't think I have ever experienced a film installation that works as effectively as this.
This first Infinite Mix exhibition was the best one out of the whole day however we did look at other things. We went on a walking tour (in the rain) of a lot of smaller gallery spaces which were more independent type works and looked like shop fronts at first glance. I found a few pieces with in these that I enjoyed such as an installation by an artist called Pilvi Takala. The piece is called 'Workers Forum' and is a TV installed on a wall in the shape of a phone screen and it has messages coming in and out from all sorts of people as it would look on an actual phone. The messages are mostly negative all talking badly of one another but in a way which makes us feel like the other one doesn't know its about them. This draws attention to the depressing state of social media and how badly it can be used by people and that is why I like this piece. It is relevant to culture and modern society.
After our walking tour of small Galleries we then went to The Photographers Gallery near Oxford Street. Even though a lot of projects I am working on at the moment are film based I still really like Photography so this gallery was quite refreshing after looking at majority films all day. I really like the 'Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970's' Exhibition because it had some really empowering images as female myself. I feel like some of these images allow you to understand the struggle that women have gone through such as the piece 'The Mastication Box' by Hannah Wilke in which she had 36 playing cards with different powerful images to do with Mastication on them such as:
I like how strong these series are making you think about women and beauty standards over the years.
Another Exhibition I liked here was 'Joanne' which was where the artist Simon Fujiwara made a film about his old art teacher who helped him develop his talents. This is 15 years on since and together they explore the power f the image and also the representation of women especially Joanne herself. It is all about trying to create a realistic image yet if they are constructing it then surely it is still fake in my mind. This piece confused me but did inspire me to think into the idea of how a person can construct their own identity in a number of ways.
Finally after looking around The Photographers Gallery I went to the Tate Modern as it was open till 10pm as part of a Tate Late show. I didn't spend too long in here as I was very tired by this time but I did go sit in the Turbine Hall and enjoy the new Piece they have set up in there at the moment. This piece is by Philippe Parent and is called 'Anywhere'. It is an immersive piece where you watch the objects above you and around you transform and mover in and amongst one another creating a lot of interesting shadows whilst doing so. It is meant to challenge your perception of space by having it constantly change. I feel like it does this successfully however it would be nice if more action took place lower down because you find yourself getting a stiff neck constantly staring up! However it is lovely if you lay down and look up because it becomes so entrancing and you almost get stuck in a loop watching it. It combines the use of sound, lights, film and moving objects suspended in the air which are all randomly timed and happen through out the space hence why it is called 'Anywhere' because this is the nature of this random piece:
No comments:
Post a Comment