Relate North - preparation

The international Relate North conference begins in two days time. I fly to Shetland tomorrow, and have a list of tasks from my arrival onwards. They include:

Monday - work on conference pack, helping to set up the Gutters Hut venue for the exhibition

Tuesday - Daytime - supervision of Lens Based Media students in the Gutters Hut. Evening - hanging the exhibition

Wednesday - attending the symposium as a 'student ambassador' and assisting with delegates' and artists' requirements. Finalising the exhibition hanging at the Gutter's Hut and hanging the exhibition at Mareel ready for Thursday's exhibition launch.

Thursday - attending symposium talks and helping visitors. The exhibition opens at 4pm.

It promises to be a great learning experience. I am looking forward to it.

Love is not enough...

All over Rome were posters for LOVE, a much-publicised show at the Chiostro del Bramante, a beautiful High Renaissance building in the centre that was built as a monastery by Donate Bramante, a fierce rival of Michelangelo. 

 This is how the show is glowingly described...

'From 29 September 2016 to 19 February 2017 Chiostro del Bramante in Rome hosts LOVE. Contemporary art meets amour, curated by Danilo Eccher.

Chiostro del Bramante is celebrating its 20th anniversary with an exhibition of international significance.
It has been years since Rome’s cultural landscape witnessed anything like this not-to-be-missed event, which endeavours to bring the city up to the level of the most respected international exhibition venues. For the first time, some of the most important contemporary artists will be shown together, including Yayoi Kusama, Tom Wesselmann, Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Gilbert & George, Francesco Vezzoli, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn, Francesco Clemente and Joana Vasconcelos, with artworks that speak in highly experiential languages (Kusama’s All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins is one of the most instagrammed in the world), created to engage visitors with different kinds of stimuli.
Art meets love.
The exhibition aims to tackle an emotion that is universally recognized and constantly studied and represented – Love – showing its various facets and its infinite manifestations: love that is happy, that is longed-for, misunderstood, hated, ambiguous, transgressive, or childish, love that unfolds along an unconventional exhibition route featuring visual and sensory input.
Love goes beyond the concept of the museum.'

The tickets were expensive, even for Rome, but with this hype, who could resist? The audio that accompanied the show was interesting - one could choose a range of male or female 'narrators', each with his or her own style, to talk you through the show. I had 'John' with a west coast US accent, who spoke like a character from On the Road.
The first rooms showed work from the 1960s, including Sunset Nude and other 'billboard' paintings by Tom Wesselmann. There was a 1976 film by Ragnar Kjartansson of a singer and orchestra repeating one line about love and opera in operatic style. Marc Quinn's large pieces and sculpture of 'The Kiss' between two disabled people were interesting. Vanessa Beecroft's life-sized photos of people holding babies of contrasting colours and ethnic backgrounds were probably innovative in the 1970s. Mark Manders' use of wood and clay to make half-formed bodies marked a contrast from the man-made materials of most of the exhibits. The huge, plastic-coated Gilbert & George wall pieces with plentiful crowns and British flags entitled 'Art for all' were, well, huge and shiny and didn't say much about 'art' or 'all', seeming to deny the possibility that the hoi poloi might be capable of emotional subtlety. But they were mildly humorous in a rather boring way.  

From then on the exhibition seemed to lose touch completely with the emotional content of its subject matter and embark on a series of intellectual games that were more about the artist than the work, and more about the superficiality of the love cliche than about any real emotion. Perhaps this was the intention. Tracey Emin's neon signs with love-related slogans like 'You saved me' summed the mood up perfectly. Joana Vasconceles' 'heart' made of plastic cutlery was well-crafted, but did not have a voice. After the first large hall, the venue had been adapted into small rooms with darkened cells and corridors, presumably to create a sense of intimacy. Instead they felt menacing and claustrophobic, and one had the uncanny feeling that the egos of the various artists were haunting the place and might jump out with a fitting sound bite at any minute. Tracy Moffat's film clips of physical violence between lovers, culled from various films, topped off the sense of unease.

Infinity Room

In the 'infinity room' a million golden 'pumpkins' were mirrored to infinite - reminiscent of a cheap circus show. 

The show wasn't about Love, that's for certain. What was it 'about'? Well, the take-home impression was a sense of the inherent lack of real emotional content in a particular art industry. On the plus side, we both went back out into the Renaissance cloister under the blue Roman sky with a sense of incredibly real deliverance. 

 
 

Contemporary art in Rome

Once we'd seen the 'sights' there was some time to have a look at more contemporary art galleries.
 

First stop was the Galleria d'Arte Moderna Roma, which has two current exhibitions. The first, Roma Anni Trenta, Italian art of the 1930s during the rise of Fascism, features a range of sculpture, painting, film and prints dedicated to the cause of 'making the Italians heroic again'. The rural idyll, idealised male bodies and maternal role models, futurist painting...there is a coherence to the work, but also something chilling about it, given the context, and its relevance to contemporary movements for national identity.

The second was a retrospective of Emma (Mimi) Quilici Buzzacchi (1903-1990), an eminent 20thC Italian artist who produced a range of paintings, sculptures, etchings and engravings. Although quite an eclectic mix of work, I was impressed by some of her prints and her use of colour.





Daniela de Lorenzo: L'identico et il differente 2003


The exhibition I took most from was Time is Out of Joint, running at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea.


It is housed in a beautiful marble building in classical style, the Palazzo delle Belle Arti, designed by prominent Italian architect Cesare Bazzani. The light, high-ceilinged rooms are perfect setting for modern and contemporary art.

The title 'Time is out of Joint' references Hamlet and Derrida, and in the exhibition, 'time needs to be re-aligned or 'set to rights' by weaving new unexpected relationships in the symbolic space of the museum, in a sort of simultaneous co-existence'.

There is a good selection of 20thC artists, from Pollock and Morandi to Giacometti and Jean Arp.




Lucio Fontana: Concetto spaziale - Natura 1959-60


I was impressed by the breadth of work of the more contemporary artists, who are mainly Italian, but include other Europeans. In particular I was attracted by work by Alexander Calder, Daniela de Lorenzo, Lucio Fontana, Andrea Santarlasci and Marion Baruch. Lucio Fontana (1899 - 1968), an Italian-Argentinian artist and theorist, was the founder of Spatialism. He is best known for his slashed and cut monochrome canvasses. I was drawn to his sculptural forms in the Concetto spaziale series, which combine a range of media.  Baruch's large abstract textiles, using slashed and torn cascading fabrics, play with negative spaces, solids and voids, and speak of a beauty in found old materials that would have gone unnoticed. Born in Romania 88 years ago, she was working through much of the 20th C. movement and her works have the quality of abstract paintings. She feels that the compositions can have the elegance of an abstract painting - 'The first time I pulled one of these fabrics out from a plastic bag, I felt as if I were looking at a Klee'.





Andrea Santarlasci: Casa difesa 1992





Marion Baruch: Spirio della giungla 2015

Renaissance Rome

Last week I was taken on as a chaperone for two small boys to help their grandparents during a visit to Rome. As well as visiting the amazing sights of ancient Rome - the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Ostia Antica, Rome's historical port at the mouth of the Tiber - I had a wonderful opportunity to see some Renaissance masterpieces and contemporary art as well. 
 

Sistene Chapel

The Last Judgement - Michelangelo

The Vatican Museums were a highlight. I spent a long time in the Sistene Chapel examining Michelangelo's Last Judgement through binoculars, identifying the various saints and Biageo de Cesena, the artist's critic, whom he portrayed in hell wrapped in a serpent. I also particularly liked the Botticelli panels on the walls. The beautiful Raphael rooms (Stanze di Raffaello), were decorated with frescoes by the young Raphael for Pope Julius II in the early 1500s. What is still astonishing about them is the quality of light they seem to emanate. 

Trevi Fountain - Salvi & Bracci

The Bernini Fountains in Piazza Navona, and the Trevi Fountain are post-Renaissance - originally planned by Bernini in 1629, then designed and built by Salvi and Bracci between 1732 and 1762. They are imposing masses of marble, speaking as much about the power and status of the papal and aristocratic patrons as about art.  

St Peter's Basilica looked lovely from outside. Inside, apart from the stunningly beautiful cupola and the Pieta, both by Michelangelo, the place oozed with the power, money and implicit violence of the Catholic Church. Between the armed guards in force outside, and the hordes of visitors taking selfies despite the no-camera signs, it certainly did not feel like a sacred space.


Nevertheless, the money and power that built Rome certainly sponsored some wonderful art, and no one remembers who paid for it all, only the great artists.

Relate North 2016

The 2016 Relate North conference is taking place in Shetland from 8-11 November. For details and registration see the ASAD website.  

The symposium and art exhibition will bring together  artists, educators and researchers from across the Arctic Fringe to explore ways in which art, innovation and creativity can help build sustainable communities in the North. It's exciting to host it in Shetland - previous Relate North conferences have been held in Anchorage, Alaska (2015); in Kautokeino, Norway (2014); in Reykjavik, Iceland (2013) and in Rovaniemi, Finland (2012).

 

This year’s theme, Practising Place: Art & Design for Creative Communities, brings together internationally-renowned contemporary artists and designers, art educators, ethnographers and cultural historians. The event, a collaboration between the Arctic Thematic Network on Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design (ASAD), the University of the Highlands and Islands and the University of Lapland, will include representatives from many of the eight countries of ASAD – Scotland, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. 

This year the project I took part in in Iceland in August, Northern Exchange: Cold War Histories and Nuclear Futures, will be featured in both the exhibition and symposium. There is a team of organisers, led this year by Roxane Permar, reader at Shetland College UHI, with Ásthildur Bjorg Jónsdóttir (Iceland) Elina Härkönen and Glen Coutts (Lapland). Roxane has been arranging venues and participants, while Elina has designed the catalogue. I volunteered to help with the preparations, and have drafted a media release and the catalogue entry for Northern Exchange.  I will be flying up to Shetland before the event begins, to help with last-minute organisation and with the hanging of the exhibition. This is all very relevant to my Professional Practice 2 module, and it's great to have this opportunity. I am really looking forward to learning as much as possible about hanging artwork and the practical running of the event. 

Social Media - work in progress

 

Over the last few months I've been researching how best to use the web and social media. There's a lot of information out there. Our last Professional Practice lecture covered social media possibilities so here is an update on what I've learned so far. I've made some progress, but still quite a way to go!

Website -
I looked at a range of artists' websites and found one I liked - very simple and minimalist with an integrated blog. I contacted the artist, Debbie Lyddon and she put me in touch with her website designer Liz Wilkinson. I made some enquiries and was quoted about £400 for designing and arranging hosting for a wordpress website and blog with editing powers and a package of support.  The website template is called Twenty Twelve. Liz was very helpful, and suggested that I could have a very simple web page with a free online blog if I wanted to save money.

In preparation I selected and resized photographs and wrote text for the main bodies of work. Some of the larger work really needs to be photographed professionally, and I sourced a photographer. However, I think I will try to get the website started first to see how many additional images I need.
Having set my sights on Wordpress I heard that it was complicated to set up, so I have also looked at WIX as a possibility. http://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/wix-vs-wordpress/ is a useful discussion on the pros and cons of WIX and Wordpress. The Professional Practice module in Shetland takes students through setting up a WIX website and I thought I might get some help. I am at the stage of selecting a WIX template and working out which is currently the best and cheapest hosting option. 

Blog

I've kept blogs on various topics for a while. The blogs associated with learning I use more as a way of recording progress and thinking. Blogging is more reflective than other forms of social media. This Professional Practice blog will help me chart my own progress over the next year or two. 

Pinterest
I've had a pinterest collection of other people's work for some time, but I need a website before I can have a pinterest page of my own. Things to remember include:

• The half life of Pinterest is about 3.5 months, and images are constantly repinned, so it can be a good way of opening up work to a wide audience.
• There are privacy settings if you want to restrict access to your boards
• ensure that your website address and an interesting description accompany your images - items with descriptions tend to be pinned more often
• share other pinterest sites - this will extend your own exposure

Facebook
I've been very resistant to having Facebook as I was afraid it would be intrusive. However, I've finally set up my own artist's Facebook page to help with networking.  It's been very useful in keeping in touch with the Cold War Project team from this summer in Iceland and preparations for the Relate North conference in Shetland in November. Things to remember include:

• Create Page - on the far right is a 'create page' tab - you don't have to make a separate FB site, you can simply create a new page to separate work from personal
• Create Event - you can use FB to advertise an event you're running
• FB has a very short half life (only about 30 minutes) so posts will soon be lost. It is a good way of reaching people quickly, but not a good way of keeping attention on a particular issue.
• It takes time to post on FB

Etsy
Selling on Etsy is possible, especially for craft items. You need to include keywords so that your items appear in search engines. There are charges for selling online, so add about 8% to the cost of the item to cover this. I am not yet at the stage of online selling. 

Findhorn Arts

It was a wonderful spell of weather and a great excuse to take the family and camp at Culbin sands for a couple of nights and take part in the annual Findhorn Bay Arts Festival, which ran from 21-25 September at venues and and around Forres.

biosculpture: Biomatrix Water Solutions

We spent a wonderful evening listening to gaelic singer Julie Fowlis and her band of first class folk musicians. The second evening we watched an interesting autobiographical performance piece by Mairi Campbell, from Lismore. She is well-known for her traditional music CDs, and in recent years she has written many of her own songs with husband Dave Francis. The piece 'Pulse', follows Mairi's musical evolution from the stifling Guildhall in London to finding her own 'pulse' in step dance and the music of her own west coast of Scotland. It was funny and moving, and involved some improvisation. 

Luke Jerram: Glass microbiology

Improvisation, collaboration and finding one's 'voice' in the creative arts, is right at the heart of Mairi Campbell's work. She involved the audience in creating some pieces of improvised music and singing, which was really excellent. 

 During the days we visited various exhibitions in the Findhorn area. I particularly enjoyed the work at Brodie Castle. This included the inspiring 2020Vision photographic celebration of UK wildlife conservation, Luke Jerram's intricate glass models of lethal virus molecules (Glass Microbiology) and the 'Biosculpture' of islands of wildlife habitat on Brodie pond. There were also paintings Lisa Shaw inspired by the pond life of the biosculptures.

Silvana McLean at Highland Print Studios

Seahouse Tangwick

 Silvana McLean, Artist and Printmaker from Moniave, has a new solo exhibition 'Diary of a Cold Spell' based on an artist's residency in March 2016 in Siglufjordur in northern Iceland, and on work made following visits to Shetland. I saw it on 16 September while it was at the Highland Print Studio (1-28 Sept). It's now showing at the Designs Gallery in Castle Douglas until 12 November.

The exhibition included etchings, monoprints and collagraphs, mainly landscape-based, in greys, browns and blues.

I am interested in the solar-plate etching /polymer photogravura technique, in which the plate is coated in a polymer.  This image, entitled 'Seahouse Tangwick', is photo intaglio and soft ground etching, which gives some wonderful texture and line. 

Product of Iceland

Like so many artists, McLean is inspired by Scotland and the north. I was particularly interested in this exhibition for its Iceland connection.  McLean says, 'The far north fires my imagination, the focus oscillating between Iceland and the Northern Isles of Scotland. Whether works are sea-based or on geological and glacial themes, the north remains a connecting factor.



Freya and Kai chose the pictures they liked best, including this etching 'Product of Iceland', a collagraph with text. The deep blues work well. I am also interested in the technique of sewing into prints, which McLean uses in some of the pieces.

Bourgeois and Inckle

Untitled: drypoint etching 1999

It's not often that Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) makes it north to the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. This Hayward Touring exhibition (on show from 6 August to 10 September 2016 at the Main Gallery) featured two series of work - her Autobiographical Series (1994) capturing some of her earliest memories, and a set of 11 drypoints from 1999 which are more abstract. Although much of Bourgeois' work is associated with textiles and sculpture, between 1980s and her death she returned to printmaking. 

Freya liked the images of scissors 'giving birth' to small scissors - a wonderful image referring to Bourgeois' seamstress mother. The image which stayed with me was this one, of a tiny female figure balancing on the edges of what look like shards of glass, surrounded by darkness. It is powerful. I love the way Bourgeois is so present in her work, so vital, and seems to transform personal pain into something much more uplifting. 

Untitled: drypoint etching 1999

Alongside the Bourgeois exhibition in the Main Gallery were sculptures and prints by Caroline Inckle, a 2012 graduate of Moray College in Elgin. Her work explores a material relationship with the world, both through images and sculpture. These intriguing 'spears' of pared wood painted in ochre and blue attracted Freya and Kai. I did not feel such a close connection with the sculptural work as with some of the prints, in which landscape seemed to be imbued with the sense of geological time and the creative process.


 

Iceland in action!

In August fellow-Fine Art student Liz Crichton and I helped two Shetland-based artists Roxane Permar and Susan Timmins with their collaborative art project, Northern Exchange – Cold War Histories and Nuclear Futures. Roxane is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Shetland College UHI. Iceland was the latest stage of Roxane and Susan’s Northern Exchange project, which has swapped Cold War stories across the Arctic fringe, including Russia and Alaska.

The project gathered recollections of the Cold War from the communities living close to four Radar Domes at the four corners of Iceland. Since the US military left in 2006, Iceland’s four Radar stations have been run by the Icelandic coastguard for NATO. They remain shrouded in secrecy, tracking potential air, surface and sub-sea military activity. We started at Bolungervik in the Westfjords, and visited Keflavik in the southwest, Höfn in the southeast and Þórshavn/Langanes in the northeast. For the Westfjords stage we were joined by Asta and eight Icelandic trainee teachers, as well as by four Finnish students from the University of Lapland led by artists Elina Härkönen and Timo Jokela. 

It was a great experience. We brought from Scotland the wooden struts, bolts and polypropylene triangles for constructing a small Radar Dome of our own, onto which participants wrote or drew their memories and thoughts in UV-sensitive pen, visible only by the light of a ghostly purple torch. On our long journey we met so many interesting people - from those who as children had attended US base Christmas parties to women who had been 'branded' for being seen with American soldiers, to those who had secured permits for the soldiers to leave the boredom of life on the strictly segregated military bases for short home-stays. Historians and authors also took part.

 

After our three weeks of work our small Dome was symbolically erected at Höfði in Reykjavik, the site of the 1986 Gorbachev-Reagan summit that presaged the unravelling of the Iron Curtain.
Next it is to be part of an exhibition at the international Relate North conference for artists and creative engagement to be hosted in Shetland in November 2016. Its triangles hold the stories of so many participants, from such a diversity places and perspectives. Yet it is the rich yet intangible network of relationships woven with people and places, knowledge gleaned and awareness raised, that is the real and powerful outcome of this journey of creative engagement.