Statements and Practicalities and a new Project!

21/10/2013

I did read my statement out- I had imagined that I had an exhibition rather than just the one piece:

In this exhibition the artist has taken a thorough exploration of the question 'who do you listen to?'
 
We are submerged in a powerful stream of media, sometimes distracting, insidious, misleading, creative, insightful and surprising.
 
The exhibition at times redolent of 1984 and more extreme conspiracy theories seems to push, tease, lead and soften; merging and diverging in the rhythm only present in the human sub culture and connected world we now find ourselves in.

!!

There were varying views on the validity and purpose of artists statements.  There are of course many examples of all sides to this discussion in practise today- artists vehemently opposed and speaking out against them, artists embracing them and writing lengthy statements and those just going along with it.
John was saying it is a valid thing to learn as we will have to write statements in a number of different situations, including:-
funding
talks
exhibitions
course applications ie masters
job applications
workshops etc

they may have to be written differently depending on who they are aimed at i.e. different ages, government body, general public etc  they should usually be approx. 300 words long (mine is only 75 words!).

We then talked about the ins and outs and ups and downs of displaying work- the practicalities.....great picture above showing a 'suspension' method!

There are ways of working with glass, perspex, magnets, thread, latex compound, wires...
It is worth considering this as part of the making process.

We then met up with the other 2 groups in the main room and watched an episode of How Art Made The World.   We had to take a lot of notes as this was the starting point (the initial inspiration) for a new project entitled 'Nailing Down Visions'.  The episode that we watched was called 'The Day Pictures Were Born'.  There were plenty of the beautiful cave painting to look at, which was a real treat.  I'm not keen on the series in general; but I do really appreciate the access to the footage of the artworks...made me really want to see them first hand.
So now we need to start an investigative process...ideas, mindmaps etc to produce a body of work.  More details will follow.