Tag Archives: art

Art and Language – New prints?

I have begun to think about printing again. The image above is of the first two colours of a woodcut I have started to do. I have decided to walk away from the computer, with its prescriptive software and universal tools, I’m going to move back to the hands on skills I was taught over 30 years ago.

An object or thing never has the same functionality as its name or image…. I think Magritte said something like this 80 or so years ago.

A bit of an odd statement but if you think about it it is very true. An inert object (or landscape) can’t tell you what it is, we rely on our experiences through out our lives to explain what we see. If we see a chequered hillside we know that the boundaries (if they are green) are most likely to be hedges and the whiteish blobs are probably sheep contained within the fields. We can estimate the feel of the landscape: warm, cold, steep, flat etc.
Which is why, when building websites it is important to explain what you are selling in language that people can understand and more importantly, can relate to.
Conceptual Art tried to destroy the art object but failed – thought and the idea is the object. The primary aims of Conceptual Art in the 1960?s was to carry out a theoretical examination of ‘art’ and through understanding propose ‘concepts as art’. Two and three-dimensional art was in the doldrums, the essence of creating was the new Holy Grail. This was considered to be a bold step, proposing an idea as a work of art left the Artist with very little to exhibit or sell, the written word was usually all that was physically evident….The written word is a powerful tool.

Buy the T Shirt

Click on the image to go to the store.

Exclusive  T Shirt designed by Peter Bright based on a memorial design and painting exhibited in USA and in the collection of Broomhil Art Hotel

Description: 6.1 oz. Ultra light knit surface. Quarter-turned to eliminate center crease.

Comments: Seamless collar taped neck and shoulders and double needle stitching.

Material: 100% cotton preshrunk jersey.

Thanks for your emails – more on the project.

Organic & Synthetic


Link to final Proposal

The Original Thoughts

Materials

Organic: Commercial oil based paints mixed with animal fat and traditional oil paints. Emulsion paints mixed with traditional acrylic/watercolor/gouache paints

Synthetic: Commercial and domestic self-adhesive vinyl tape, cut with a commercial computer based design/cutting program, using a hacked (dongle busted) Signlab v.4.95 software package.

Prediction = the aesthetics of the system + the aesthetics of failure = Prediction

I would find it very easy not to produce any visual work. The aesthetics of painting, the total confusion that it is still in, has devalued this important medium. It is no longer acceptable to follow Duchampian traditions and say that context is a primary factor. To claim something is art is simply not good enough. Duchamp said that a painting/sculpture died after about 40 or 50 years. After that they become Art History. What will historians be saying in 40 or 50 years time?

Unfortunately the problems of fragmentation and confusion that exist within more traditional art practices, such as painting and sculpture (in the broadest possible milieu) are mirrored in new art practices. Within these technological and new media categories, diverse concepts and imagery has been lumped together to form a hodgepodge of non-related methodologies and artworks. What is this direction?

The Changing Language of Prediction and Explanation

There are artworks, which as art could be mistaken as science/technology. Such works rely on networking, robotics and systems. (You could include Internet works in this category.)  When viewing/understanding Artworks that are based on networking, systems, and communities how do you subconsciously and verbally criticize the aesthetic or concept? The true aesthetics of a system is not the peripheral. The aesthetics of the system is in the understanding of its detail. The true aesthetics of the system incorporates the aesthetics of failure, a system that is reliant on external forces or structure will always have an element of built in probable failure. (This is a prediction.) The only way to achieve total reliability is to have a closed system, this however discourages growth and system expansion and thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The element of failure is important to the success of a system. (A non-homogeneous system, whose terms and relationships are not constant, allows language to break up, to stumble over the rules of its grammar, by necessity it has to respond radically to other linguistic components, creating a new linguistic order and syntax.)

Basic Prediction

Horoscopes in newspapers are based on star signs and birth dates; these predict the day’s events. These predictions are based on the laws of probability and chance. You could read your daily horoscope and make the prediction into a self-fulfilling prophecy, you could go out and find that ‘Tall dark handsome man’ or go on ‘A long journey’. Alternatively you could read your horoscope late in the evening and interpret the day’s events and adapt them to the mystical words. “Yes I did meet someone important today”. The interesting thing about prediction is that you could meet a tall dark handsome man, go on a long journey and meet someone important and never read your horoscope. Does this mean the day’s events were not predicted? Similarly these rules can apply to system-based art and painting.

Notes: The image of Christ is in fact a metaphor, the finished image should be viewed as a self-portrait. This head of Christ is a design that I adapted for commercial use within the monumental memorial trade (it is based on an American design) and has been copied by system suppliers (for the stone industry) and used as a ‘stock design’ within their software packages. As an artist, who believes in open networks, I am proud of this little iconic image even though I cannot claim its originality. Likewise the use of handwriting is not a new idea for me; during the 1970’s I was fascinated by shorthand and the power secretaries had…understanding a simplified language. During the 1980’s I won a design award (The Crown Memorial Design Award) for the most original memorial design. The design was a simple block of black granite with the signature of the deceased on it.

Explanation =

An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. This description may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing ones in relation to any objects, or phenomena examined. The components of an explanation can be implicit, and be interwoven with one another. An explanation is often underpinned by an understanding that is represented by different media such as music, text, and graphics. Thus, an explanation is subjected to interpretation, and discussion.

In scientific research, explanation is one of the purposes of research, e.g., exploration and description. Explanation is a way to uncover new knowledge, and to report relationships among different aspects of studied phenomena.

Laury Dizengremel’s installation at Broomhill Art Hotel

Last night I went to the preview of Laury Dizengremel’s sculptures at Broomhill Art Hotel (Nr Barnstaple, N.Devon). She was recently commissioned by the ATP, governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuit, to create sculptures of the top eight tennis players in the world as “Tennis Terracotta Warriors”. After being displayed at the Tennis Masters Cup venue in Shanghai, China, the sculptures were transported to Wimbledon Museum where they are now on display. Other major credits include public sculptures in Ireland, Honduras, France, Vietnam and China, as well as busts of John Travolta, Chick Corea and Isaac Hayes. Link to: Terracotta Army visit at British Museum .

 

Laury Dizengremel’s installation at Broomhill Art Hotel

Laury has produced an installation for the fantastic grounds of the hotel for 2008, approximately 85 figures on platforms are located on the flood plain of the Bradiford river. The installation of sculptures takes its audience on a journey with the Artists of the Silk Road – these are the faceless artists and craftsmen who made an anonymous contribution to the rich and diverse wealth of art, architecture, sculpture etc along these commercial highways which went through Europe and Asia.

“imaginary artists – each and everyone one of them, are unique individuals. They are men and women, young and old. They are visionaries, communicators – exchangers of ideas, agents and promoters of understanding between cultures, individual interpreters and shapers of the spiritual, emotional, artistic and ethical values of our world. They are geniuses and they are human. Whether lead artists or simply skilled crafts folk, I have sought in them to embody all those whose spirit, mind and hand create wonders.”

She continues, “Although I have created them specifically for exhibition as a group installation at Broomhill, they are actually very much stand-alone pieces, so they can be acquired by various art collectors, and I hope they will travel far and wide! While my new “Artists” are still very much portrayed as unique, creative personae, each in their own individual universe, I had a burning desire to stage them into formal compositions that each tell their own little story. Of course I have my own stories for them (some compositions stage two “Artists”, some three, some five, and each one presents a different construct), but viewers will have the pleasure of imagining their own story – of that I am sure. Here three “Artists” walk in a line. There three others look up to the sky. And there a bunch of them stand listening to another “Artist” – but how attentive are they?”

The Silk Road’ will be open for public viewing from May 2008 onwards into 2009.

For further information contact: Broomhill Art Hotel: 01271 850262

 

A D V E R T

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  • Duchamp: I would have wanted to work, but deep down I’m enormously lazy. I like living, breathing, better than working. I don’t think that the work I’ve done can have any social importance whatsoever in the future. Therefore if you wish, my art would be that of living: each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral. It is a sort of constant euphoria.
  • This Window: I would have wanted to work, but deep down I’m enormously lazy. I like living, breathing, better than working. I don’t think that the work I’ve done can have any social importance whatsoever in the future. Therefore if you wish, my art would be that of living: each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral. It is a sort of constant futility.
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