On the very final day of its run I went to see Earth: Art of a Changing World at the RA. It was most interesting stuff and I’m glad I had a chance to catch it before it ended (an apt sentiment given some of the subject matter).
Sadly it won’t be touring – I asked the RA’s official Twitter feed and it said no 
– so I’ll put my personal highlights here in case you get to see them in another context.
1. The video below is ‘Black Rain’ by Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt). It’s composed of raw visual data from NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory – a pair of satellites which track interplanetary solar winds and coronal mass ejections heading for Earth.
Black Rain installation from Semiconductor on Vimeo.
2. There was also Yao Lu’s Spring in the City (2009). Yao Lu digitally manipulates photos of mountains of trash covered with green netting, transforming them into a contemporary version of traditional Chinese ink paintings.
Yao Lu - Spring in the City (2009)
3. Finally there was Darren Almond’s Tide. A whole wall of identical digital wall clocks where the passing of every minute is punctuated by a loud and almost visceral slap as the number flap clicks to the next minute’s display. The passing of time is loud, relentless and borderline painful.
Darren Almond - Tide (2008)
As some of you probably saw, the BBC recently appointed an arts editor in order to reflect its “deeper commitment to arts and music on the BBC throughout 2010″. This week he has been making his presence felt.
So who did they appoint? Will Gompertz, former director of Tate Media – something which involved expanding the appeal of Tate, especially via new media. He was also apparently voted one of the world’s top 50 creative thinkers by New York’s Creativity magazine.
Seeing as every time I usually go to BBC news for art information I become frustrated and annoyed I think this development was about bloody time. Arts & Culture is at present a subsection of ‘Entertainment’ which is the lowest channel on the sites left hand navigation bar. Clicking on it brings up a sneeze-worth of arts stories, some video, and a handful of related things from elsewhere on the site. It’s very uncluttered but also a bit of a mess, focus-wise.
Arts & Culture is HUGE. It’s books, movies, paintings, sculpture, poetry, music, events, photography, plus criticism, and theory of all of the above and so the stories lurch from one thing to another. They sprawl within their little group. There is also no (obvious) way of browsing through a list of previous headlines. If I’m not interested by what’s on the main page I should at least be able to find something I might want quite easily.
The first thing Gompertz has done is install his rather un-BBC blog; the amusingly named Gomp/arts. Having looked at it over the last couple of days I would say that it’s a really good idea. There’s a unifying force because the same voice carries through and I think that’s something the arts coverage has lacked.
There’s also a very unfamiliar (and welcome) chatty tone – “I saw this and thought it was interesting!” kind of stuff. I can’t say I’ve agreed with him 100% but I think he’s bringing movement into a forgotten pool and for that I am most pleased!
What about you lot? I’d love to hear your opinions (as ever!) so just drop me a line below…
Do you love or loathe the Beeb’s current art coverage? Think Gompertz is the man for the job? Think he should be focussing on other things?
I’m currently loving this: A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter by Caleb Larson
It’s an artwork that keeps itself perpetually on eBay. The idea is that it keeps moving and each buyer has the chance to make or lose money through their ownership. The auction started at $2,500 but when I last checked it had got 12 bids and was up to $4,250
Neat huh?
It reminded me of a cubic sculpture I found at Frieze which also made transit integral to the work – a glass cube the exact size of the inside of the trademarked space inside a FedEx container which gradually collected scratches, cracks and other marks as it was shipped from exhibition to exhibition.
Walead Beshty - Fedex large Kraft Box FEDEX 330503, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-Washington, DC Trk #79747/60286, April 3-6, 2009 Standard Overnight Washington DC-London Trk #323852740456, September 24-October 2, 2009 (Thomas Dane)
Today the judges of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition decided to strip the 2009 winner – Jose Luis Rodriguez – of his title. This followed doubts as to the wolf’s wildness. The panel reached the conclusion that these doubts are strong enough to render his entry in the competition invalid – in short, they think the wolf had a lucrative modelling contract.
Regardless of whether this is true or not there are other issues with the picture. My own objections to Rodriguez as the winner began with the short text in the accompanying portfolio booklet. The first sentence reads: “When José Luis realized he had got the shot of his dreams – one that he had even sketched on paper – he couldn’t quite believe it.”
Looking at the picture after reading that sentence the sense of staging is plain. If he had sketched it before taking it how could it have been anything other than consciously planned? Rodriguez had created some sort of framework and placed the wolf within it (whether he used a tame or wild wolf to do this is actually not hugely relevant).
To my mind that isn’t wildlife photography. Wildlife photography is about taking pictures of animals acting naturally. The moment you bring your agenda and your own narrative for the creature to fulfill it becomes something other than wildlife photography – perhaps more art photography.
I actually do think the image itself is fantastic (quite literally, there is an air of fantasy about it). It also taps into a whole range of issues from fairy-tale fears to the place of society’s outsiders and it’s technically very good to boot. I just think – and have done since I saw the exhibition – that it’s simply too steeped in narrative and human ‘voice’ to be genuine wildlife photography.
What do you lot think?
Click here for the official statement about why the image was withdrawn
A Flowing Current, by ben matthews :::
Clicking on the picture above will take you to my Flickr gallery of sparkler art – if you have any cool sparkler art you want to share just let me know via the comments box!
Hi all, I’m currently away from regular internet connections/galleries/free time to write but I hope to return soon.
Thanks to all who visited in 2009 and hope to see you soon in 2010!
Phil x
Goodness! We appear to have come to the final episode of School of Saatchi! It’s time to find out exactly who is accompanying that reclusive advertising chap to St Petersburg for a show in the Hermitage…
Before launching into the recap I think I should say my own personal choice would be Matt. I wasn’t bowled over by his initial piece but then it was an installation so it’s hard to gauge whether, if one had been able to engage with it in the way the artist intended rather than see it on a screen, it would have been more successful. I began to be drawn in watching him worry over that fake rock debacle in Hastings “Am I just a weird amateur builder?” but still thought perhaps he was just pottering along. Then there was last week. I was absolutely amazed by his wine jelly glass orb for Sudeley Castle chapel. It was simple, it was beautiful, it was an intelligent and sensitive response to the task, and it was art.
Who did you want to win? Tell me what you thought in the comments section!
Now, let’s find out who’s going to Russia! Click in for the full recap.
Lady Gaga has been inescapable, unavoidable and omnipresent in 2009. She has worn an outfit composed entirely of Kermit the Frogs, carried a purple teacup round with her for no discernible reason for DAYS, pretended to die covered in blood onstage at the VMAs and gave a press conference through a gimp mask she insisted on referring to as a hat.
She is all surface, all Gaga and all faux couture explosion. In fact her facade is so successful I genuinely don’t think I would recognise her if she stood next to me at a bus stop and I see pictures of her every day at work! I heard someone refer to what she does as ‘art’ the other day and it got me thinking about whether I agree or not. I certainly think that up until maybe November I would probably have said yes – she played Lady Gaga so well the mask never slipped.
I guess that couldn’t last, though – earlier this month I started seeing magazines quoting her as explaining “Why I’m afraid of sex”. As far as I’ve understood ‘Gaga’ that’s not something she does or says. It feels as if, having successfully split her life into two parts, Stefani Germanotta is now trying to reunite the pieces. Bits of Stefani are now leaking into Gaga. It’s strange to see and I wonder what effect it will have on the persona.
What do you guys think? Artist or charlatan?
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Lady Gaga: Artist or Charlatan? 1) She’s a true artist! 2) Nothing but a fraud and a charlatan! 3) No idea but she’s magnificentt! 4) Ugh – I can’t even bear to look at her! 5) I’m a free bitch, baby! |
Richard Wright won the Turner Prize last night. To my mind he is a worthy winner. His work is ephemeral and beautiful, tailored specifically to each site and then destroyed forever after the show.
For me it was always between him and Roger Hiorns. Hiorns created ‘Seizure‘ – a low rise filled with copper sulphate crystals which I (and so many other people) adored for both it’s ideas and execution. Richard Wright’s gold leaf fresco – so much like an antique carpet crossed with a Rorschach ink blot – had that same sensibility. Its beauty made it enticing and instantly pleasant to engage with but the skill of the artist as an artist rather than interior designer meant that after the initial punch the work followed up with more – quieter – revelations.
The mortality Wright gives his work adds to its appeal. Knowing that after the show the gold leaf will simply be painted over runs completely counter to the business of art and there’s a perverse pleasure in that. After all, well loved art is usually the key to immortality – Rembrandt is still breaking financial records over 300 years after the artist died.
Did you think Wright deserved to win or did you prefer one of the other nominees? Perhaps you didn’t like any of them? Perhaps you thought an entirely different artist should have been nominated?
I would be interested to know – leave a comment and tell me what you thought 
Richard Wright - 'no title', 2009
