Dayanita Singh: Go Away Closer, The Hayward Gallery (And Ramblings About My Work)

I had been thinking of making work that referenced work that I made on my foundation year, aiming for a tongue-in-cheek expression of the facts that 1) I have not felt particularly inspired since then, and 2) I would question the idea that I have actually developed as an "artist" since then.

This exhibition reminded me of a lot of the things I was really inspired by back then. Some of the images contained dramatic contrast and beauty in what is artificial, dirty and/or run-down. I am really interested in and opposed to the idea that numinous or powerful beauty can only be seen in nature, and that the man-made taints this beauty and is generally ugly, weak or arrogant. However, man-made structures know they are doomed to eventually fail. They are fighting a battle with nature that they will eventually lose; they are on a noble mission and they will fight until their deaths. I feel that the city can have Sublime qualities, and that perspective can make the ugly beautiful. In the past I made a lot of paintings exploring this, and I felt most connected to a group of paintings in which I aimed to transform roadkill into something dramatic, striking and beautiful. The process was surprisingly natural as roadkill is as abstract in form as most real objects get.

Ana Mendieta: Traces, The Hayward Gallery

Thoughts:

1. Are we less open to picking up on humour in work when we know that the artist died a tragic death? Or when the artist's work also touches on very serious themes?

2. I got to a part where three sculptures made of earth and binder were placed together on a clean, white floor, in front of a clean, white wall. It was like the image below (which is from a different gallery), except that the lighting was bright and even. The contrast between the earthy shapes and the smooth and pristine gallery walls caused the scene to resemble carefully thought out decorations in a newly refurbished house, and I then became irrationally annoyed at the memories of reverse snobs - people who would notice and criticise irony in the fact that the image of a love of nature is being created, but paired with a separation from the outside and an emphasis on cleanliness and perfection, as if this is wrong or pretentious. This is an assumption of the thoughts of a fictional group of people, based on memories of real people, that entered my head. I think it is fairly common to invent problems in your head and then get genuinely annoyed by them, but I am interested in how often people do it.

Creating An Archive Of Everything I Have Unnecessarily Hoarded And Why

...Would be an interesting idea, but probably not worth it. It would slow the cleaning out process, plus I am not exactly a hoarder; I just have slight hoarding tendencies.

Maybe I could do that for just a drawer, instead of a whole room?

Although I bet if I Google "hoarding archive" there will be a ridiculous number of relevant results.

Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good

I've been gradually realising this, but hearing it from someone else phrased so perfectly really makes it stick. A huge cause of my  lack of productivity last year was this confused and abstract feeling like something was missing in what I was doing, and that it had to be "figured out" before I could move forwards. It's like chasing a feeling of completion and perfection, except that the chase doesn't particularly involve creation, only endless webs of thinking. So I guess I just need to do stuff.

(I guess I know I've told myself that so many times before - I unfortunately possess this habit of having the same epiphany, over and over again, and never taking my own advice, so in an hour or so, or whenever I next decide to start working, I'll be back to thinking, "Hmm, I could make more work, but first, what is missing...")

Repetitive Things To Make, Catharsis, Making A Point Of Catharsis, Moving Forwards

I have a set of five plastic pots, intended to represent slices of life, or specimens of something like a habit. It's a bit difficult to explain because I don't think they're communicating it that well. They each have labels indicating what they are supposed to represent, but I think I have since phrased it more clearly - "VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF TIME SPENT NOT THINKING." That is what they are, and that was exactly what I intended them to be. I currently have three containers labelled in this way, and two more in progress. I'm not too sure how interesting they'd be to anyone else, or how useful they will be to my mark, but I feel like I've finally managed to make them say exactly what I want them to say, and be exactly what I meant for them to be, so I'm going to finish them. If nothing else, it'll be a good foundation for actually getting somewhere with my work.

Next I'm carrying on with the idea of catalogues. I have a list of branded food items used in a kitchen catalogue, and I am interested in the way that this list seems to be about people, and could at first glance seem to be about real people. However, it is not about real lives; it is about pretend lives, and is almost a prescription for how to live. This actually links back to ideas in my head from the beginning of the year, about relinquishing control, taking orders and putting decisions into someone else's hands. I will be pursuing this idea, probably unsuccessfully at first. I guess I don't mind.

My Territories Of Practice Slides, In Case I Misplace Them

Time:
Time is the ordering of events. Technology has enabled humans to place far more emphasis on this than other animals do, and measure it with precision. We meticulously plan our tasks according to this idea of time, and as we have made it so easy to measure we often almost imagine it as a tangible substance that is running out. We create milestones based around it, we sell it, we get yelled at over it, and it can cause feelings ranging from achievement to loss, all purely because we have the technology to measure it.

Drawing:
The technology we use to draw ranges from sticks, to pencils, to graphics tablets. Each medium affects the perception of the subject, and is chosen based on factors such as convenience, function, aesthetics and the purpose of the drawing. Drawing itself is a technology with purposes including recording, entertainment and decoration. It can provoke emotional reactions, preserve moments or be used in functional ways, such as the planning of buildings.

State Of Work So Far

This is really not the kind of course where you can feel uninspired, drained and apathetic, force yourself to work despite that, and still expect it to be worthwhile. All I have are jars of origami stars, and that is worrying.

A Relevant Event

We rely on modern technology a large amount, and I disagree with those who seem to feel like there is something intrinsically wrong with that, and that we should only communicate through speech and letters and talking drums or whatever else does not require electricity. However, I have to admit that I've just found out that I missed a Territories of Practice meeting yesterday because Gmail (my uni email forwards to my Gmail account, because screw Outlook) filtered an email as spam, so I read it two days after receiving it, which was a day too late.

Territories Of Practice: Technology And Perception (Notes From Initial Discussion)

I chose this topic understanding that "technology" could mean almost anything. Old or simple technology is still technology. Personally, my interest lies in modern technology, and (perhaps I am taking the topic title very literally here) how it affects the way we perceive our experiences. Time splits our experience up, and it is now easier than ever to meticulously organise our tasks. Social media affects what some youths expect to get out of parties and holidays: digital photographs have replaced stories (stories over 140 or so characters, in any case) and souvenirs as "proof." Improvements in transport affect how we perceive distance; it is less of an obstacle. Technology is a filter through which we see things, a tool to structure our lives, and a means to construct that which we perceive as "reality."

Semi-Late Decision To Keep Blogging

I'm too long-winded for handwriting. Plus, it's harder to think clearly when I'm writing in a messy little book that I can't imagine anyone reading, feeling like my every word is being whispered into an abyss of illegibility, press releases, and cheap ink.

I'm currently interested in the idea of people-related artefacts, whether they are fictional (I wrote a list of products, e.g. foods, cleaning products, used in a kitchen catalogue to paint a picture of a real, lived-in home) or real. As an example of a real "people-related artefact," I am currently filled with a lot of apathy and a lack of motivation, and I am trying to present these things as artefacts; I am trying to translate an emotion into a tangible object and call it art. This has resulted in the creation of various receptacles filled with little origami stars, which are dangerously close to looking as though I am attempting to pass off a simple skill as thoughtful artwork. I need to find a way to express that the emphasis is on repetition, catharsis and the emotion (or lack thereof) behind it.

15/5/13

The Idea Of Taking Orders - Reading Material

Read:
Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre (discusses autonomy, responsibility for own behaviour)

To Read:
The Dice Man, Luke Rhinehart (not making one's own decisions)

Peter Doig, Concrete Cabin II, 1992

After I painted a couple of things based on the photo I posted yesterday, I was told to look for a certain Peter Doig painting - I think probably this one. It contains a similar idea of a building and trees almost meshing together to form one grid pattern. The way I see it, it touches on the idea of buildings affecting an atmosphere, which is reflected by the way the patterns formed by the building (rigid lines, grids) seem to extend pass the building, or at least are not contained.

The Importance Of Low Quality Camera-Phone Photos

Lights "inspire" me, whatever that means, and I appreciate the ability to instantly capture atmospheres. I consider the low quality comparable to the "warmth" we're supposed to appreciate in vinyl records and Polaroid photos, despite phone photos obviously being digital and not analogue... it's still fuzziness.

I've painted some atmospheric things based on this. Might paint more.

Next Year

The best thing would probably be to bring my work to a suitable pausing point in the next month or so, leaving the summer for freer, unrelated work which will help me to see if my interests have changed.

An idea that has developed out of my current work is to take orders from someone for a while and see where that goes. That is what I'll start next year with, and I'll think of it as a fresh starting point, so it feels uncomplicated and less stressful.

Approaching The End Of The Year, I Think

I seem to have built up a list of ideas that have just been sitting on my "To Do" list for a while, some for months. Most for months, actually. This is essentially because I feel that my priority should be fresh ideas whether they are entirely spontaneous or grow naturally out of existing work. In the interest of moving forwards with my work, I think I should go through this list of ideas and figure out which I can do relatively soon, and which have valid reasons why they have not yet come into fruition.

1. It seems like ages ago that I was thinking about art created by people who don't consider themselves "artists" (for example people who are "left-brained," people who are fairly adamant that they "can't draw" and are probably right, and people who have no interest in art) in comparison to art created by art students and professional artists and such. I was interested in questioning the idea that an "artist's" concepts mattered more. One way I was thinking about doing that was to take a doodle created by a "non-artist" friend and invest time and skill into it, treating it as being a lot more important than it was to the draw-er originally. I had ideas of ways to immortalise the drawing such as carving it into stone or tattoo-ing it somewhere, but I decided that it would say more to develop it in some way using traditional skill in a time-consuming way, like making it really elaborate somehow. However, this idea remains vague in my head.

2. Linked to these themes was the idea of creating something traditionally skillful and time-consuming and asking one of these people who don't consider themselves artists to "finish" the piece, putting all of the control over this product of invested skill and time into their hands. I could potentially do this if I decide on a suitable medium for the original piece - for example, if I used oil paint I probably couldn't guarantee that it would be clear that I put time and effort into the painting... Maybe the concept relies too heavily on the assumption that I have any level of artistic "skill," and would probably communicate the opposite of what I intended (as in, it might appear to be making a point regarding contrast between the skill level of an "artist" and a "non-artist," which would be especially laughable if the contrast was barely there).

3. I created some exaggerated happy visuals that were both sincere and sarcastic simultaneously, which reflected what was going on in my head (childlike idealisation of life, in general, that was either genuine or ironic and I wasn't sure which). I also started thinking about people's tendency to oversimplify other people's problems ("Cheer up!" "Oh, okay then, I guess I will! Thank you for that advice!" - a conversation that has never happened). An idea that grew out of both those things, and out of some other stuff I was doing at the time, was to get other people to choose objects from their rooms and I would either make a sculpture or drawing that idealised their life in an irritating glitter-rainbow-unicorn way. I started making a sculpture like this (a pink, glittery castle made of beer bottles, essentially), and also created a cheerful flying-pigs-and-rainbows drawing based on someone else's chosen set of objects. Neither of those things particularly worked visually: the sculpture because of technical issues and the drawing because it was essentially an experiment with a more refined, illustrative style that heavily depended on a well-planned composition. I could potentially come back to these ideas later (especially since they are not quite as simple and literal as I am making them sound, and thus may be vaguely worthwhile), but for now I feel like the themes in my work are different.

April Things

It's super super hard to concentrate on doing one thing because it makes me think of everything else I sort of have to do, almost as though if I can't do absolutely everything at once it feels pointless doing anything. I don't even have any pressing deadlines, so I don't know where this comes from. I'll just pretend none of this is true, apart from the lack of deadlines bit.

Anyway, artists.

Tom Friedman, "Untitled," 1990, soap and pubic hair

- Is this a juxtaposition of crudeness and precision, or is it wrong to label the use of pubic hair as crude? I think it's wrong. I think this is clean and beautiful. We may be a little quick to jump to the default disgusted reaction at any reference to the human body.

Cathy De Monchaux, "Wandering about in the future, looking forward to the past," 1994, glass, velvet, ribbon and metal

- From the Tate website: "Set at regular intervals, the elaborate fastenings and black ribbons pull the fleshy lips apart to reveal small clusters of ruched, red and pink leather evoking female genitalia." Valuable lesson here: if you don't know what a piece of work is about and you aren't terribly fussed, just figure out which gender's crotch it most resembles. Kudos to whomever wrote that, actually. You have to look REALLY close to see the vaginas.

- I like the contrast between the rigid and the gravity-affected.

Raymond Pettibon, Goo album cover, 1990

- This is visually bold and clean, which reflects the lack of confusion and pretentiousness of art that is created for specific commercial purposes.

Jim Shaw, "Dream Object," 2008, pencil, wood and resin

- I like the contained chaos. That's something I've been aiming for so that the chaos in my work seems less accidental.

Annette Messager, "Remains (Family II)," 2000

- Someone recommended her work to me, stating that her work and mine both resemble outsider art as they don't aim for a particular aesthetic (currently).

Martin Creed, "Everything is Going To Be Alright," 1999, neon lights

- If this were by an American, I would likely perceive it as a genuine attempt at affecting the public's mood, coming from a twee, simple schoolteacher type. However, it is British, and thus seems sarcastic and sincere, simultaneously, somehow. I said something relating to British humour/pessimism/realism earlier. Those themes may be leaving my work temporarily.

Peter Blake, "The Toy Shop," 1962, mixed media

- This is another contained chaos type of thing. I'm interested in the way Peter Blake uses both collections of objects as well as his own painting, as I've been considering bringing painting back into my work.

The Wellcome Collection's "Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan"

My friend and I would like to know: if the term "Outsider Art" just means what it says, why do exhibitions always make it mean something patronising? Something like, "Outside-Our-Culture-Oh-Wow-How-Quaint Art" or "Outside-Art-School-Wow-How-The-Hell-Did-They-Learn-To-Use-Paint Art" or "Hey-Let's-Give-A-Prisoner-A-Crayon Art."

Lichtenstein Exhibition (Tate Modern)

My eleven-year-old self would have probably flipped out (silently, because I was that kind of eleven-year-old), because I was really into Lichtenstein back then.

I found myself preferring the relatively less familiar black and white illustrations of objects. There's something really complete about the illustrative simplicity.

I tend to be fairly drawn to drawings of objects.

CABIN Exhibition

Four of us had an exhibition together a little while ago. We shared a cabin-like structure in a park for a few days and made up rules, did tasks that were chosen at random from a fish bowl, and went on adventures such as shopping for Astroturf. Our outcomes aimed to document the process and were all very different. Despite being work created and curated by art students, there was something very "outsider art" about it. It was not researched in the traditional way, and it was unapologetic and did not aim to be anything other than exactly what it was. Maria made a book about a sandwich because that was exactly what was on her mind. Bruna wrote down her thoughts on the process. Yejin and I both collected sketches and snippets of writing and presented them as a book and an assemblage respectively.

I realised how intuitive my work has been recently because of how easily the work I produced in the cabin slotted into the collection of work I'd been building up. I created a little cuboid of clutter which meshed the childlike and the marginally upsetting and presented our feelings (or mine). The theme of taking instructions from a fishbowl and from other people was also hugely relevant to what I'd been doing.

(Above: Bruna's photo, because my feet will get cold if I have to go and get my camera and find my card reader and put the card in and plug it into my computer and transfer the photos.)

My Work Currently

I'm no longer consciously thinking about mood, optimism and perspective, and I seem to be moving away from the theme of sarcastic/ironic happy visuals. I think I'm going to run with the idea of taking orders from people.

Currently a lot of the work I've created doesn't have a connection that's immediately obvious without explanation, but I've decided that worrying about that (that is, the fact that my process appears more disjointed than it is) isn't a priority (especially since over-analysing the themes in my work makes the process feel even more disjointed to me, when actually if I don't over-think it it's fairly logical, organic and intuitive).

Seemingly Arbitrary Collections of Objects

I like the composition of this. It pulls together an odd collection of objects into a single balanced, elegant and seamless image.

Also by the same artist (Jeremy Fish):

Fantasy Worlds, Objects From People

I was creating sculptural 'fantasy worlds' before and was thinking of making these using objects other people named from their own environments. I now think this idea lends itself nicely to drawing.

I'm also running with the idea of instructions from other people.

Pictures For Sad Children / Sad Pictures For Children

I really like how a lot of these comics make no sense unless you can relate to them or the sentiment is familiar...

by John Campbell

also by John Campbell

...And how some just seem like vaguely surrealist and/or strange humour, but there's probably another layer to them. For example this one, which seems like it is poking fun at the attitudes of people who don't understand problems they can't relate to and won't try to understand that they actually come from something real.

also by John Campbell

Some are strange but still immediately make sense and are insightful and relate to real life.

also by John Campbell

www.picturesforsadchildren.com

www.sadpicturesforchildren.com

11/2

We had a lecture on the Sublime today. Since studying it in year twelve or so, I've been very into the fact that you have to explain it visually and not in words. Last year I made some work dealing with the idea of finding the Sublime in what is traditionally considered ugly (dirty streets, tube stations, roadkill). Sitting in the lecture I remembered how free that work felt, and how it felt uncomplicated while still being a challenge. Now my thoughts just feel cluttered in a way that's stifling. That might just be stress (with no source), though. I'm simultaneously really interested in what I'm doing, and really repelled by the fact that as soon as I start thinking about it, my head is going to go crazy. I have no idea why this is.

Light Show, Hayward Gallery

Questions this show brings up:

- Is creation of an atmosphere enough to be "art"?
- Does "art" need a complicated concept?
- Could intriguing aesthetics be enough for a piece to be considered "art"?
- If art that has a concept can still be "art" without any consideration of aesthetics or skill, why are aesthetics and/or skill not enough for something (contemporary) without a concept to be considered "art"? Is concept the most important thing to contemporary art?
- If a show has been curated based on aesthetic qualities (in this case all the pieces are electric lights), can we still say that the aesthetics are less important than the concepts? Surely within this show the main "point" is light, which is something aesthetic, and the concepts are just things which happened to come with the pieces?

"Tell Me What To Draw"

"what are you doing?"
"not much really"

"draaaaaaawing pictures

listening to hiphop

!"

"yay"

"i mean that's what you should do!

i made you a hiphop playlist and everything"

"hmmmmmmmm I could!

okay tell me what to draw"

"you should listen to the songs and draw pictures based on something from the song

!!!"

"hmmmmm alright"

"HMMM

yes

you don't necessarily have to do every song though :\\"

"I don't have to draw 25 separate pictures of blunts?"

"racist"

No, that was not a comment about race... probably more of a comment on how every song basically goes, "Hoes, hoes, biscuit, endo..." Which is mostly fine.

So, drawings based on this hip-hop playlist:

Stuff To Do

I think I may be sabotaging my productivity by making sure I remember every little shitty idea that I have. This sounds like it would at least result in a large volume of work, but it does not.

Anyway, I did a quick test of the idea of making something out of objects someone has chosen. It's just a wine bottle filled with stuff, really. I think it's actually helped me to polish the idea of getting people to choose objects for me. I think what I plan to do is get people to choose objects that are specifically from their own personal environment, and I will "RECREATE THEIR WORLD." And I will make it super magical and fantastical, which will simultaneously be accurate and ironic (or maybe that's just the way I see things... everything looks like magic and I can't tell whether my brain is genuinely full of childlike wonder or just being incredibly sarcastic).

I think I'm still interested in some of the other approaches I had before to the idea of following orders from people / putting huge emphasis on their lazy doodles. Most of the ideas for how to do this, practically, weren't exactly fully formed, but I do have one that could work, which is to take a simple doodle drawn by someone else and make it really elaborate, and try to use as much skill as I have. And also, I hate to say, invest time in it. I'm still not completely sure how to go about doing this, though.

Piece For The Next Exhibition?

More Turtles

I'm super glad you can click to enlarge.

A Draft

This was the first draft of an image I mentioned a little while ago. In a recent visiting artist tutorial (I think... it may have been something else possibly), I was told that my work, aesthetically, was a bit like "outsider art" created by mentally ill prisoners. This wasn't there, but I think it may have reinforced that point slightly. There's something sort of over-dramatic about the combination of crayons, finger painting and blood, so I think I'm going to reel it in slightly.

Mike Kelley

"More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin," 1987 - I like the morbid and childish humour in this.

"The Territorial Hound," 1984 - I like the irony and comic-like nature.

"Clusterfuck Aesthetics" - Jerry Saltz, Art Critic

"Clusterfuck aesthetics" is a term used in this article by Jerry Saltz, and I think it's a great term. "New Cacophony" is also a term used. The article describes parallels between the chaotic feelings in work made by artists such as Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy, and the "havoc of everyday life." I actually feel like a lot of first year art students (although I can only speak for myself, I suppose) find their everyday life (workload, schedule, and such) completely devoid of "havoc," but their minds are the opposite. Personally I think that when I make cluttered work it relates to that.

I'm reading the article as I type. It's saying some vaguely insulting things that I could also see as being true of my own work. I kind of like that. Saltz seems to question the maturity of Kelley's work, referring to "bittersweet" "goth-teen-sex-blasphemy–bad-behavior motifs."

Apparently this mess thing is a very male thing: "New Museum curator Laura Hoptman says, "Women artists accrue like crazy but apparently don't get off as much on making messes.""

While I'm reading this and thinking that this whole "clusterfuck aesthetics" business sounds great, I'm also remembering all the Paul McCarthy work I went to see last year and didn't like (Paul McCarthy is one of the main inspirations for the essay I'm going to write that is probably going to defend the value of aesthetics and beauty in art).

I Drew Turtles A Few Weeks Ago

David Shrigley And Some Vaguely Coherent Bullet Points

Multiple people were telling me to look at David Shrigley's work, and I'm very glad they did.

I think I'm in a bullet-point-y mood.

- Shrigley's work has some of the quirky humour that the kind of web comics I like have, so I'm happy about that. Web comics inspire me. Yaaay!

- The way his animations are based on childish drawings is interesting to me because of the idea of putting time and labour into something which may appear, to some, to have little value. The reason this is interesting to me is because it seems relevant to the thoughts I was having about using childish, less serious "doodles" from friends and investing time into them in some way (although as I mentioned, I was thinking about carvings or elaborate paintings, as opposed to animation). I like the idea of having full control over what you do and don't take seriously.

Appropriate Blurry Teen-ish Camera-phone Photo

I think I like my handwriting.

Happy Pictures And Fantasy Worlds Made Of Strange Objects

I had two relatively separate ideas whose direction I was unsure of. Firstly, I wanted to take instructions from a "non-artist" and put time and effort into ideas that they may not have put much thought into. I was questioning whose thoughts and opinions regarding the creation of art were more "valid." This was in response to the fact that people who were not art students seemed to treat my half-arsed doodles with more respect than their own half-arsed doodles, while I valued their doodles because I found whoever drew them interesting as people. I was thinking about ideas like carving other people's doodles into stone (which may be difficult, practically, but I'd still like to try it), or making elaborate oil paintings out of them. I had various related ideas, such as somehow immortalising people's Facebook statuses, which are generally casually written and not intended to be taken seriously.

Alongside planning this, I was creating little magical-looking worlds and happy, childlike images out of "strange" objects such as scalpel blades. I like the challenge of incorporating practical and slightly unpleasant-looking objects into bright, happy things, retaining the contrast but aiming for some sort of coherence. However, I was slightly concerned that my choice of objects would just project the aura of trying too hard to be controversial, so when someone in Friday's artist salon mentioned that it could all possibly seem slightly contrived, I couldn't disagree.

I think the perfect solution would be to get other people to choose the objects. That way I am working with or against any kind of "ugliness" or "beauty" or "crudeness" or "maturity" they present, not anything I have chosen for myself. This sort of links the two ideas, and maintains my theme of avoiding censorship for the sake of honesty (which is more childlike).

Another Experiment That Is In Danger Of Being Immature

I'm presenting this as three prints from slightly different angles, with a visible flash (which is in different positions in each photo). This is both for hygiene reasons and because I like the repetition (from a distance the pieces would just read, "FUCKING PESSIMIST, FUCKING PESSIMIST, FUCKING PESSIMIST"). The full caption is, "The next time someone calls me a fucking pessimist... there's still pretty much nothing I can do about that." The statement is intentionally ironic, so it's not supposed to be taken seriously. The contrast between the blood and the crayon is intended to reflect the contrast between the fury and the defeatist mentality.

I'm not super sure about this piece, because I think there's a danger of people thinking, "Actually, this is stupid and immature because the statement IS pessimistic," as if that wasn't the whole point.

Peter Liversidge, Nathan Witt, writing, John Campbell, webcomics

(Peter Liversidge's "Proposal for the Jury of the John Moores Painting Prize 2012")

One slightly irrelevant observation I first want to get out of the way is to do with the possessive word "its." In the recent past, almost every piece of artwork I've seen that is mainly text uses "it's" where it actually means "its." Of course, now that I've said that, I'm going to make a tonne of spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes in this blog entry. Maybe I shouldn't have brought this up.

Moving on abruptly, I was going to say something about using other interests in artwork. Obviously I realise that more often than not, art has to be "about" something, so it almost always relates to things which are not strictly art-related. However, I've noticed that I put my interests into separate little compartments way too often, and am slow to realise when certain things that interest me could become part of my work. What I mean is that often I have certain interests which I could really enjoy incorporating into the work I make, but I don't realise it. Often what makes me realise it is seeing art which does incorporate these things, and then I feel simultaneously dissatisfied with the way I work, and inspired. Last year I was struggling a lot with the idea that not doing any science subjects anymore meant that I wasn't using my left brain, and it felt so wrong. However, I eventually got around to seeing art which involved science and maths, and wondered why it never occurred to me before that that was a possibility. I ended up making a lot of art with charts and graphs and diagrams, which made me really happy. Now I'm starting to feel about writing the way I felt about science and maths.

A couple of blog entries ago, I was talking about finally making art that didn't involve a lot of word-y concepts and was very much separate from language and things that could be or needed to be explained in words (because I still maintain that some things are beyond words, no matter how many writer friends tell me otherwise). At the same time, I'm becoming interested in the idea of writing in the context of "fine art." I like the idea that an essay could be up on a gallery wall, as a "piece of art." The idea that in a gallery setting normal rules regarding writing don't really apply could be really freeing. You could have all the insightfulness of a normal essay but not be bound by the usual rules, and it could be very interesting.

The talk by Nathan Witt today made me think a bit more about writing's relationship to visual art. Maybe it wasn't exactly the talk itself, but seeing the artwork. I found it interesting that he also wrote, and wondered what he did with his work that was purely text. I like to think that it could sit comfortably in a gallery with his visual work. I'm not sure if that actually is the way it's presented. His visual work with captions (above) also interested me because the quirky, cynical humour reminded me of webcomics and the way they mix intelligence and playfulness. I think I want to bring some webcomic influence into my work somewhere.

(by John Campbell, picturesforsadchildren.com)

Other Stuff I Saw Or Experienced Or Thought

I think I should probably mention some of the other stuff I've seen since the start of this academic year - stuff I haven't mentioned yet. I think I'll just talk about these things briefly so that it doesn't feel like I'm just doing this for the sake of it, especially since some of it isn't really that recent anymore. Maybe I'll just bullet point some thoughts.

- Frank Stella! I don't like Frank Stella. But I think that's because his work makes me think too much about the purpose of art. I'm used to work being conceptual and "meaning" things. So to me his work all "means" the same thing. I get that his work is supposed to be the opposite of that... all this stuff about just being an object... but I just feel like that's an idea that can be expressed with one piece and doesn't need a whole career's worth of work.

- I saw some of Thomas Schutte's work at the Serpentine Gallery. As I was getting more into the idea of work that didn't have a complicated, long-winded concept, portraits seemed interesting to me. Portraits often say a lot that is beyond words. John Berger apparently linked them with self-discovery. I think that's an interesting idea.

- I saw Kiki Smith's "Behold." Her work sort of creates its own world and has a presence, possibly because of the scale of it and the mythological themes.

- Fischli and Weiss... I saw their work and wrote "chewy-looking." I like it when the medium itself is interesting because of its physical properties.

- I was at the David Zwirner gallery and saw Luc Tyman's work. I thought it was interesting that he took real objects and sort of reduced them to abstraction. Maybe "reduced" is the completely wrong word. Maybe I should mean the opposite of "reduced." That's possible.

- I was at the Walker Art Gallery and was interested by Peter Liversidge's "Proposal for the Jury of the John Moores Painting Prize 2012." I found it interesting that it wasn't actually painted by the artist. Also that it was a painting of typed letters.

- I found it interesting how the John Moores Painting Prize made it so obvious how different the approach to art is in China and in the UK. The UK work seemed more conceptual, and the work from China seemed to put a lot more emphasis on technical skill, in a very big way. Today I was talking to someone from China who said that over there to get into art school people have to really develop their skills. Over here it feels like it's a lot more ideas-based, and work has to be inquisitive and interesting. I was saying that art over here can be a lot more about social commentary than about skills and aesthetics, and she was telling me that there's probably no way they'd want that in China. I thought that was an interesting comment. I hadn't made that connection to censorship and such; I just accepted that traditions were different and technical skill was more important elsewhere.

- I saw Jarik Jongman's "Waiting Room." I feel like I'm almost obsessed with contrast and atmosphere.

- I found it interesting that Franz West's "Viennoiserie" used work from his friends, because I was thinking a lot about how interesting I found my friends as people and how that linked to me appreciating their art whether they were "artists" or not.

- I usually don't like Gilbert & George because I'm often repulsed by garishness, but I like their piece called "Cunt Scum," which I saw in Liverpool. It feels blunt and sincere.

- Kohei Yoshiyuki's "Love Hotel" at the Open Eye Gallery made me question our ideas of what is "explicit" and "inappropriate," and why. Why are vague, pixellated images of people having sex considered vulgar? Firstly, are they doing anything wrong? Did religion start this weird, almost purposefully anti-hedonist culture? Secondly, can you even properly see what they're doing?

Mariko Mori And Other Stuff

A while ago I was at the V22 gallery and I made the following note in my sketchbook:

"I have walked past half of everything not knowing if it's art or not."

I feel like a lot of contemporary art really goes hand in hand with its background information. As in, you can't really hope to figure out what it means by yourself. Any kind of interpretation you do comes almost entirely from your own head.

I was talking to my friend, and he told me that he sometimes thinks that the background information might render the artwork itself irrelevant. I told him that it shouldn't, because the art should also express some things which are beyond words. He told me, "Ain't shit beyond words." I think he thinks that because he's a writer. Goddamn writers. I think that everything is beyond words.

Although having said that, I think everything I've made in the past up until recently was extremely heavily reliant on the ideas and concepts behind it, which tended to be quite complicated and "word-y." Whatever required less extra explanation had the explanation right in the work (that is, there was text in the work). I feel like I'm just beginning to get into the habit of communicating purely using the work. I don't think that's a good thing or a bad thing; I have never been against needing background information to understand art. However, I think it's a refreshing change. I sometimes don't like words, and I'm enjoying the fact that everything I want to communicate is right there in the images or sculptures, and not in words.

Today I saw Mariko Mori's "Re-birth" at the RA. Fully knowing that I am going to sound like a GCSE student, and possibly even intending for that to be the case, I am going to say that the work was aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, I like that that appears to be the point of it. It's refreshing to see "nice-looking" art with people who aren't going out with the intention of over-analysing everything. I'm not one of those people who's started to complain that too much art these days aims to be ugly, because I completely agree that art these days should not just be about aesthetics and showcasing skill, and that there's a world of other purposes for it (there has to be, otherwise we're all just using paint to do things such as record - things which we can now do more easily using other methods). I'm just saying that it's interesting to consider that maybe we're too quick to dismiss the idea of aesthetics as an aim. Maybe that pushes us in the direction of our art having all these over-complicated meanings, and maybe it also means that we're letting ourselves think that our art says more than it actually does.

(Maybe it's just pretty and atmospheric, and maybe that's fine.)

I've just bought some polypropylene sheets (what's with art people and their unwillingness to use the word "plastic"? the Mori exhibition listed "lucite" as a medium an awful lot...) and I'm going to make some stuff. I want to make more stuff that doesn't speak in words. I think there's a lot you can say without words, and without your concept being some sort of essay.

Directions To Go In Or Not To Go In

I think my work has started to split into different directions. I think I'll move away from the idea of reactions to patronising mood-related advice because I think I have a lot less to say about that. I think I may still be interested in trying out the idea of following instructions from a "non-artist," because I think it could be an interesting experiment. However, after my AL tutorial today, I've realised that I'm most interested in the scenery I was creating, and contrast between the twee and the genuine, and the childlike and the mature. I like the humour in mixing the threatening or disturbing with the playful.