gallery visit
Week 13 - Exhibition review presentations - Mon 16.12.2019
21/09/2018 - Gallery Visit: Ways of Seeing, NYUAD Gallery, Abu Dhabi.
Fred Sandback and Hassan Sharif fulfilled my vision
Gustav Metzger challenged my thinking
Grayson Perry tickled my fancy
David Claerbout blew my mind
James Turrell comforted my soul.
Grayson Perry, A Map of Days, 2013, etching from four plates, 119.5 x 161 cm (my photos of artwork)
James Webb, Scream, 2008, signed certificate, speakers, assorted wires, audio, museum barrier, dimensions variable (my photos of artwork)
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #466, 2008, colour photograph, 246.1 x 162.6 cm (my photos of artwork)
Hans-Peter Feldman, One on One (milky Way), 2012, chocolate box and sign, dimensions variable
(my photos of artwork)
Andreas Gursky, Dubai World I, 2007, c-print, 307 x 223.3 x 6.2 cm (my photos of artwork)
Michelangelo Pistoletto, METRO QUADRATO INFINITO, 1966/2018, sculpture, string, 240 x 240 cm (my photos of artwork)
Gustav Metzger, To Walk Into - Massacre on the Mount, Jerusalem, November 8, 1990. 1996/2018, photograph on PVC and linen cover, 238 x 395 x 30 cm (my photos of artwork)
David Claerbout, The Algiers' Section of a Happy Moment, 2008, single-channel video projection, b/w, stereo, 37 mins (my photos of artwork)
James Turrell, Alta (Pink), 1968, cross corner projection, dimensions variable (my photos of artwork)
Hassan Sharif, Knots, 2012-2016, cotton rope and stainless steel, 380 x 350 cm (my photos of artwork)
Sharif fills the space - the opposite of how I'm told he was as a person. The rope and knots are so clear yet lost in mass. It was higher when I saw it last - it took up less floor space and it felt like you could walk in to it - this feels deflated, or maybe growing tired from moving from place to place.
Fred Sandback, Untitled (Sculptural Study, Twenty-two-part Vertical Construction), 1991/2018, black and red acrylic yarn, dimensions variable (my photos of artwork)
I want to lie on the floor, I want to ping it and run about in them.
Not Pictured: Kim Tschang-Yeul - water drop -a painting and a reference - does the artist want you to look at both, are they the same - is one incidence and one action?
Not pictured: Gustav Metzger - Historic Photographs: To Crawl Into - Anschluss, Vienna, March 1983, 1996/2011 - the linen was so heavy, my shoulders ached from bearing the weight - the actual weight and the metaphoric weight - the women in the large photo are scrubbing the floor while children look on - I crawl on top of them struggling to lift the fabric to see them, I haven't seen them before, I don't know them but for a moment I'm with them, in a similar position but with the privilege of choice, of participation, rights - can I ever emphasise? do I need to? is the moment enough - a token -its history, past, I cannot change.
15/06/2018 - Gallery Visit: The Louvre, Abu Dhabi
An emotional response
Overwhelm
Surprise
Underwhelm
More to come.
09/01/2018 - Exhibition - 'In Residence: Christine Muller & Fay McCaul', Tashkeel
Artist In Residence programme bought designers Muller and McCaul in to the studio spaces at Tashkeel. Muller, printing specialist, aided Mobius Design studio & Swiss design collective Weltformat in production of their collaborative exhibition WeltformatDXB at Dubai Design District during design week. With the aid of studio assistants she printed all the large format posters for the Dubai section of the show. McCaul was in residence for three months and provided workshops and talks while working in the studio.Fay McCaul:Specialising in knitted and fused textiles using wood, wire and plastics.
Most of her work was transparent, luminous or structured in a way to enhance, move or shield light in internal spaces. The repeats were beautiful and called out to be caressed, thankfully something that was not frowned upon in the exhibition.Christine Muller:After the emmense and intense paper printing of Weltformat DXB Muller produced her own works, inspired by the islamic patterns she encountered here in Dubai, on silk flags whose construction was outsourced.
Most of the pieces had the format of flags local to the Gulf nations, and the use of fine silks gave a luminous subtly to the prints. The audience was encouraged to move through the flags, so that they would float and swirl in the gallery space. The colour palette really felt indicative of the region, the luscious golds, sky blues and rusty sand colours.The exhibition made me question my production or lack thereof. What am I afraid of? What am I trying to stop and why? Why am I restricting my production to small scale pieces? Is it space? of lack of vision?
23/09/2017 - Exhibition Notes - Sand @Grey Noise
Exhibition Opening: Sand,
Daniel Gustav Cramer & Joana Escoval,
23 Sep – 28 Oct 2017. Grey Noise, Alserkal Avenue.
JE – Medium: metals
DGC – Medium: photos, text, paper, marble, metals
Information from FB event profile:
“Sand is an exhibition featuring a group of selected works carrying autonomous languages yet reflecting the dialogue between the artists’ practices. The works showcased at the gallery are particular in their materiality, their conceptual discreteness and narrative dimension. Two motives occur throughout the exhibition. The properties of the works shown embody a sense of liquidity, a movement directed by gravity. At the same time there is the omnipresent yet faint motive of the mirror. The materials reflect their surroundings, other works literally mirror each other and despite the abstraction of what is present, all works involve the self of the viewer.
The artists declare, that the title itself, Sand, is the first work of the show. It exists only as a word made of four letters, setting a context and mood, it creates a first image, sets a scene. Sand is shaped by its environment, by wind and gravity, matter ground into minute particles. It also is the place where Fata Morganas might occur, mirroring and distorting absent objects.
Cramer and Escoval's fieldwork and slowly crafted works gather and enable transformation, conduction and participation of subjects and substances in the visual world. The physical links between photography, text and sculpture generate new readings may it be through dichotomy, extension, integration or complementarity.
In collaboration with Galeria Vera Cortês, Lisbon.”
Reproduced from Grey Noise Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/812603635571243/?active_tab=about
Why a collab? – further research needed in to the artists. Where are they from? Does that matter? The lack of a biography removes the identity politics aspect.
1st piece of the exhibition is the title, this is declared in the content for the exhibition statement.
As you enter the modest, L-shaped white walled gallery, housed within an expansive warehouse the show doesn’t strike you. In fact its barely there. Elegant minimal sculptures are positioned around the space, adorning the floor as well as the walls. On the floor, opposite the entrance is a large but subtle metal sculpture, it’s guarded to stop any unwitting gallery-goers from stepping on it.
This is the piece numbered 3 and titled Their beliefs were passed down orally, and thus they could not direct one to written documentations, created by JE. Precious metals – adding value but discarded on the floor, Silver, large chain pieces, 1 foot long, almost perfectly round rings at the end of each, perfectly sealed shut, enclosing the ring from the next piece. Spread across the floor haphazardly in the middle with no discernable end or beginning. Very subtle, elegant, quite beautiful to inspect closely and take in the almost perfect circle. There was a tension and next to its subtly creates an impact. A change of communication perhaps? A chain of ancestral stories holding a group together? Regarding the title, the links are the bonds of communication, the flowing of history, beliefs etc., passed down, the positions of the chain & the messy configuration of communications lacks & problems its twisting & manipulations etc.
DGC Pieces 2, 6 & 12, three different images of the same crater, using, what appears to be the ‘rule of thirds’ a mysterious blue hazy image, a feeling of nostalgia, slight invisibility and perhaps a questions of truth of existence.
JE ‘Healthy forests provide clean water’ copper, brass, gold, didn’t see the material differences, it was high up, suspended from a wall mount, creating an asymmetric arc, reminiscent of a sand dune, or a wave, the diagram of the water cycle, a rainbow, the canopy of a forest. An Elegance.
JE ‘Clean water provides healthy forests’ circles, complete with angles or wire hanging. Shadows from her work are interesting, whether that is intended or not.
DGC ‘Untitled’ stack of A4 paper with printed lines. Allows for own narrative, invitation to participate? A prelude to work.
DGC ‘Cap Formentor, Mallorca, Spain, July 1986’ – 2 stacks of A4 texts. Written from the views of each person in the narrative, does not allude to age, could be children, adolescences or adults – feels intimate could be full of innocence or allows for tarnished mind to allude to other thoughts – artist explains in exhibition pamphlet that it is child. To create a narrative a stage direction, the piece visually paints the scene with the use of language. Does the media remove innocence? Questions how acts of companionship or intimacy are ‘stolen’ from us by other peoples view pints/opinions. Enjoyed the aspect of text as art, I love to write.
JE ‘Rain’ four bits of wire, silver, one mounted on the wall, mounts not visible, 1 foot from the floor, 2 parallel at eye level, 1 mid level and further away. Due to angle and placement felt like the rain carried by the wind, or droplets traversing a windowpane as they fall. Felt dynamic, sense of motion. It captured a heartbeat for a moment, instantly conjuring my personal experience, memories of childhood. DGC’s work dissected it, adding another dimension, the passage continued regardless of the obstacle.
DGC ‘Owl’ found photos, completely lost on me, out of place. Although looking back there was an aspect of evoking memory and reproducing them.
DGC – La Bibliotheque de Pascale #1 – artists books, some were blank with title, some had and item such as a receipt or photo slotted inside, others were photo books, narratives or stage directions for a scene. I loved them. They moved something inside me. I’ve been making books for a few years and its important to me. I get excited & enjoy consuming other peoples work ins book format.
VL1 talks of envy & using it as motivation showing you where you want to be.
not for citation or circulation