How to Understand Modern Art (Part 2): 5 cutting-edge artists

Throughout Grayson Perry's book Playing to the Gallery there are numerous examples of groundbreaking, tongue-in-cheek, and downright weird art. In this post I will go through five of the most interesting, shocking, and strange artists and exhibitions mentioned in the book.

5. Zhu Yu - Eating People (2000)

In 2000, the Chinese artist Zhu Yu, known for his shocking art, filled the pages of newspapers over the world after a performance art video of Yu apparently eating a 6-month-old fetus in his kitchen was to be shown as part of the Fuck Off exhibition of avant-garde Chinese artists. The photographs have even been circulated in emails as a part of anti-Chinese propaganda, and the documentary Beijing Swings,which interviewed avant-garde Chinese artists and was broadcast on Channel 4 in 2003, received over 60 complaints both before and after the show aired. Many websites have claimed that the "fetus" was in fact probably a duck's body attached to a doll's head, although it has also been reported that the fetus was stolen from a medical school.

[Video: Zhu Yu: Eating People, extract from a Channel 4 documentary. WARNING FOR GRAPHIC IMAGES]

Yu came to fame for his extreme art; indeed they are 'as much an assault on society's morals as they are an assault on the human senses... Titillating for their shock value, the viewer simultaneously desires to look whilst undergoing a feeling of bodily revulsion.' [x] Previous art included him grafting skin from his abdomen onto a piece of pork. Waldemar Yanuszczak, the presenter of the film, stated that,

"It is worth trying to understand why China is producing the most outrageous, the darkest art, of anywhere in the world... I personally find him deluded in what he has done... But I found him to be really honest about it all, and very keen to present his worldview... His worldview is, in the end, we are all meat." [x]

Further reading:
Zhu Yu Wikipedia
Zhu Yu - China's Baby-Eating Shock Artist Goes Hyperreal
Baby-eating art show sparks upset (BBC)

4. Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz - Hole in Space (1980)

Hole in Space, 1980

Hole in Space was a "public communication sculpture"; an unannounced event of two larger-than-life screens showing a satellite feed between the street outside the Lincoln Center in New York and the Century City shopping centre in Los Angeles. 'No signs, sponsor logos, or credits were posted -- no explanation at all was offered' [x] and Grayson Perry writes that the general public's event was 'ecstatic and spontaneous' - something a bit like 'the grandmother of Skype!'

Hole in Space, 1980

If you have ever had the opportunity to see what the award winning video documentation captured then you would have laughed and cried at the amazing human drama and events that were played out over the evolution of the three evenings. Hole-In-Space suddenly severed the distance between both cities and created an outrageous pedestrian intersection. There was the evening of discovery, followed by the evening of intentional word-of-mouth rendezvous, followed by a mass migration of families and trans-continental loved ones, some of which had not seen each other for over twenty years. [x]

Hole in Space (1980) 30 min. 

Further Reading:

Medien Kunst Netz

Iphia Ryerson wordpress article

3. Robert Rauschenberg - This is a Portrait of Iris Clert If I Say So (1961)

In 1961 Rauschenberg was asked to paint a portrait of Iris Clert, a gallerist. Instead of painting the portrait, he replied to the request with a telegram, which read: "THIS IS A PORTRAIT OF IRIS CLERT IF I SAY SO"

This is a Portrait of Iris Clert if I Say So, 1961

Further Reading:
Iris Clert Wikipedia
Robert Rauschenberg Wikipedia


2. Christian Marclay - The Clock (2010)

The Clock (2010)

A scene from The Clock

Christian Marclay's The Clock is a

'staggering moving-image installation The Clock, a 24-hour montage of thousands of film and television clips with glimpses of clocks, watches, and snatches of people saying what time it is. This incredible installation is set up so that whatever time is shown is, in fact, the correct time as of that instant. So as well as providing food for thought about the nature of time in the cinema, and indeed in life itself, the whole thing itself functions as a gigantic and gloriously impractical clock.' [x]

The project was a three-year labour of love in which Marclay and six assistants watched hundreds and hundreds of films and copied scenes containing clocks or time. He was given a $100,000 budget to create his work after proposing the idea to the White Cube Gallery in London. Using a spreadsheet, Marclay and his assistants inputted the information before editing the scenes together. Around 12,000 clips were used altogether. In total, Marclay produced 6 editions and 2 artists proofs, and each copy sold for over $400,000, five designated to galleries, and one bought privately. The Guardian named the film 'a masterpiece of our times' [x] and Zadie Smith wrote in her review of The Clock that it was 'neither bad nor good, but sublime, maybe the greatest film you have ever seen' [x]. Segments of the film are available on Youtube and the installation is still being shown in galleries around the world. 'It will run and run with out needing to be wound.' [x]

The Clock featured on BBC's 'The Culture Show' in 2010

Further resources:
Wikipedia page
Christian Marclay's The Clock: a masterpiece of our times - Guardian article

1. The Leeds 13 - Going Places (1998)

The Leeds 13's exhibition has to be my favourite example of innovative art in Perry's book. Back in 1998 a group of students at a Leeds university (now known as the Leeds 13) were given £1,000 to put on their end of year show. At the opening, instead of paintings or performance art, the audience were taken to the airport, to watch the group entering the arrivals lounge, and later greeted by photographs of the students bathing on the Costa del Sol, flight tickets, and some souveniers. The newspapers picked up the story, labelling it a complete scandal.

The group makes it into the papers

But what was most incredible was that in fact, the whole thing was a coup. The photos on the beach were in fact taken on a beach in Skegness, the souveniers from charity shops, and the plane tickets faked. Over the period of their "holiday", the students had hired a sunbed and used it in their house to build up a tan, kept lights off in their rooms at night, didn't answer the phone or the door, and wore balaclavas whenever they went out into town to avoid being recognised. They didn't attend any lectures and even sent a postcard to their lecturer to explain they were on holiday. The students, unsurprisingly, received a first.

Some of the photographic "evidence" of the trip

Some of the photographic "evidence" of the trip

Further resources:

Wikipedia page

Leeds 13 wiki (includes files and images of the exhibition as well as press cuttings)

Leeds 13 on John Crossley's site (a member of Leeds 13)

How to Understand Modern Art (Part 1)

One of my favourite artists of all time is the english transvestite potter Grayson Perry. He won the Turner Prize in 2003 for his work and often steps out for social occasions as his alter ego, Clare. He has made a couple of programmes for UK television, including Grayson Perry: Who Are You?, All in the Best Possible Taste, and most recently, All Man, all of which I would really recommend, but particularly the first.

His book, Playing to the Gallery: Helping contemporary art in its struggle to be understood, was a real eye-opener for me. It is a short book (about 130 pages in total) and is a recommended read for anyone interested in art. He writes,

It's easy to feel insecure around art and its appreciation, as though we cannot enjoy certain artworks if we don't have a lot of academic and historical knowledge. But if there's one message that I want you to take away it's that anybody can enjoy art and anybody can have a life in the arts - even me! For even I, an Essex transvestite potter, have been let in by the art-world mafia.

The book itself is divided into 4 sections:

• What is quality, how might we judge it, whose opinion counts, and does it even matter any more?
• What counts as art? Although we live in an era when anything can be art, not everything qualifies.
• Is art still capable of shocking us, or have we seen it all before?
• How do you become a contemporary artist?

He covers a huge range of topics with his usual cheekiness, from curators to consumerism to IAE (International Art English) to canned faeces. Filled with examples of innovative artists across the world, the book aims to tackle the inpenetrability of modern art, and helps us to enjoy it more. 

Brillo Soap Pad Box (1964) Andy Warhol, and Artist's Shit (1961) Piero Manzoni

WHAT IS QUALITY AND WHOSE OPINION COUNTS?

This is a question that is asked often by many people. Who gets to say what is good art and what isn't? Why do curators or critics seem to have more say than the general public? Has quality changed over time? And what is International Art English?


'If the public chose the artwork that was in art galleries, would it be the same?'
Komar and Melamid, two russian artists, conducted professional surveys asking the public of several countries what they wanted most in art. In nearly every country, the results were the same:

• landscape
• a few figures
• animals in the foreground
• mostly blue in colour

The artists remarked that 'in looking for freedom [they] found slavery.'

Most Wanted, (a selection) Komar and Melamid (USA, Turkey, France, Iceland, Denmark, Finland)

Empirical explanations

Over time, many people have tried to find an empirical explanation of good quality art, including:

• the Golden Ratio 

  

  the golden ratio

• The Venetian Secret - Benjamin West in the Royal Academy around 1796.
    "In 1796 Benjamin West, the American-born president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, fell victim to a remarkable fraud. A shadowy figure, Thomas Provis, and his artist daughter, Ann Jemima Provis, persuaded West that they possessed a copy of an old manuscript purporting to contain descriptions of materials and techniques used by the Venetian painters of the High Renaissance, including Titian, to achieve the famously luminous effects of color that had long been thought lost, forgotten, or shrouded in secrecy. West experimented with these materials and techniques and used them to execute a history painting entitled Cicero Discovering the Tomb of Archimedes (1796–97). In fact, the manuscript was fake and the story an absurd invention, but West believed it, and through him the Provises managed to dupe a number of other key artists of the Academy. " (x)

  

  the line of beauty

• the Serpentine Line of Beauty - an "S" shape visible in the artwork that the eye is drawn to.

Size matters?

In commerical art galleries, pieces are often priced by size - the smaller worth less, and the largest worth more. Grayson comments that 'in my experience an artist's biggest work is very rarely their best'. At an auction, on the other hand, 'the "good painting" will always get the highest price even if it is a tiny little one.'

WHAT COUNTS AS ART?

The artists of the past were locked into their time in history. Now we are in a time of post-historical art, anything can be art but not everything is art. In an age without boundaries, I am more fascinated than ever by their possibility.

The second chapter of Perry's book is perhaps the most practical. It gives some tongue-in-cheek pointers to us discerning readers as to how we should approach art, and particularly modern art. The classic definition of art is something of a visual medium, usually something 'made by the artist's hand, which is a pleasure to make, look at and to show others.' Today, the boundaries of art have perhaps shifted a little - socialogical, tribal, philosophical.... maybe even financial.

Would you consider the following examples as art?

So how can we know what counts as art nowadays? Grayson gives 8 pointers to help us understand the ever-changing and expanding art world:

1. Is it in a gallery or an art context?
   This is a good place to start, generally, although it doesn't automatically make a work of art good. It can give an artwork "borrowed importance".
   Examples: Duchamp's urinal, Keith Tyson's use of 'magical activation' (instead of bringing in objects to his show, he renamed already existing objects in the room using magical activation, such as "the light bulb of awareness" and "the Apocalyptic switch")

   

   Duchamp's urinal

2. Is it a boring version of something else?
   Sometimes it seems as though art can be super serious and takes the fun out of things. Tolstoy once remarked that 'in order to define art, it is necessary first of all to cease to consider it as a means of pleasure'. Was he talking about the benches in the video art rooms?!
3. Is it made by an artist?
   Can it be art if it is done by someone who doesn't acknowledge themselves as an artist?
   Examples: aboriginal art (originally maps and spiritual guides - not always meant as art), 'The Maybe' (1995) by Cornelia Parker - this featured Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box. Swinton decided to do it again in 2013. She was the artwork in 1995, but was she in 2013?

   

   The Maybe, (1994) Cornelia Parker

4. Photography
   How can you tell if a photograph is art?
      - 'if they're smiling, it's probably not art'
      - size - the larger it is, the bigger the probability it's art!
      - is there a lot of meaning emanating from this image?
   Examples: Andreas Gursky produces huge photographs, sometimes as large as 4 metres x 2 metres. His photo of the Rhine sold for $4.5 million - this is the highest price of any photograph ever!

   

   Rhein ii, Andreas Gursky

5. The Limited Edition test
   The reason that Gusrky's photo sold for so much was because it was the only one left on the private market - there were 6 and the other 5 had been purchased for museums (the Tate owns the 5th).
   Having endless editions of a print is giving away part of its qualification as art.
6. The Handbag-and-Hipster testAre there hipsters with beards and cool sunglasses and women with expensive handbags at the exhibition? Are there queues to go in? Then it's probably art.
   A question to consider: if an artwork falls over in a forest, if nobody sees it, does it exist and is it an artwork?
      "People want an outrageous and exciting experience from art and then they want to slightly puzzle over what it's about."
   Examples: Tino Sebgal set up unsettling human interactions as part of his exhibitions, such as children talking art speak, gallery attendants trying to engage with you in philosophical  debate, and performers provoking the audience to talk about them. He also prohibits photography or any kind of video recording at his exhibitions.
7. The Rubbish Dump test
   1. Place the artwork in a rubbish dump.
   2. It qualifies as art if a passer-by spotted it and wondered why an artwork had been thrown away.
   'But of course many good artworks would fail this test because the rubbish dump itself might be the artwork.'
   Examples: Jean Tinguely, 'Homage to New York' (1960) - a self-destructing mechanical object. A lot of artworks involve (self) destruction. 
8. The Computer-art testHow do I know that I'm looking at art and not just an interesting website?
   Charlie Gere, Professor of Media Theory and History: 'You know it might be art rather than just an interesting website when it has the grip of porn without the possibility of consummation or a happy ending' - or in other words, '...to detain and suspend us in a state of frustration and ambivalence, and to make us pause and think rather than simply react.' 

---

 

spotlight: malmöhus

Thanks to the wonderfully cheap sommarkort which offers unlimited travel around Skåne, I'll be doing my own konstrundan, trying to visit as many galleries as possible over the summer. This is one of the most remarkable things about Sweden - every town and city will typically have at least one state-funded (and free entry) art museum, with regular exhibition changes from artists in Sweden and further afield.

First up, Malmöhus.


OOMPH

Glasswork by Mona Moralse Schildt (1958-60) - my image

textile, glasswork, and fashion (my image)

textile and glasswork (my image)

 Malmöhus' konstmuseum opened "OOMPH" at the beginning of the month. The exhibition charts the women who "satte färg på Sverige" (literally translated, 'put colour in sweden'), and includes glasswork, textiles, furniture, as well as vintage and present day video installations.

Den feministiska visionen (2016) - Image not my own

My favourite piece was "The Feminist Vision" (2016) by Helena Olsson. It was a short film installation of a collective house in Äppelviken, near Stockhom called Elfvinggården, which was built in the 1940s by two sisters for single working women. At the time, it was difficult for single women to rent accommodation, and this building, with nearly 300 apartments, a restaurant, workshop amongst other things, worked successfully. It is still in operation today, and the film focused on a reading group who discussed the merits of living at Elfvinggården, the changes between life there in the 1940s and today, and its similarities to the 1915 book´"Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which depicts a utopian feminist island where only women live.

Elfvinggården (images from Elfvinggården website)

SANDRA FREIJ

Sandra Freij is a photographer from Borås, Sweden, who is now based in London. As part of an exhibition on fahsion photography at Malmöhus, a collection of some of her work was displayed.
Sandra

Sandra’s pictures have a cinematic quality both in terms of their lighting and their forms of expression, an approach that creates a visceral sense of excitement. She is known for her romantic and feminine pictures that are marked by subtle sensuality and often an underlying darkness. With her extensive knowledge of imagery she is highly skilled at balancing ambiguous and imaginative work with both openness and accessibility.

Randigt, rutigt, prickigt

 

Last, but certainly not least, is the exhibition "Randigt, rutigt, prickigt"(striped, plaid, spotted), which shows a collection of patterned clothes and homewares over history. The end of the exibition featured a room with designs from Malmö fashion students, using only recycled materials. It included this piece, designed and made by Karolina Falk and Martina Nilsson, made from 25,100 hama beads.

straight into exile: continued journal extracts

wednesday 6 april
feel a sort of glum despair over the loss and irreplaceable nature of Mr Ryder. I summoned all of my energies to keep moving - sitting in the library and Reading about homoeroticism in Brideshead.

Letters (unposted) are starting to pile up on my tale. Books and bits of paper and receipts and hair pins litter all available space - chairs, cupboards, shelves...

thursday 7 april
Wrote to Lucy. Feel something close to loneliness.

I grow cold, I grow cold,
I wear the bottom of my leggings rolled

"when you're young, I think it's harder to know what you want, how much of others you're willing to take in... I was always reinventing who I was... I used to roam around the streets in the late afternoon, stopping for a coffee here and there."

- Siri Hustvedt, What I Loved

 

 

friday 8 april

"Stockholm is too divine, darling. You'd love it. I'm starting to forget what you look like, and what you sound like, it's rather horrid."

1.8.2011 (23.16)

 

 

saturday 9 april

met M for coffee. We talked well into the three-hour mark, on art, literature, life... touched on the subject of Donald Trump with the barista, leafed through a copy of Private Eye to read about George Osborne imploding (v. amusing), critiqued the art on the walls of crying children ("that one is Paul Merton", "that one is watching us eat his chocolate") and sea captains ("he's looking at us like he's on The Office", "he's experienced great sadness and lives alone on an island, but surrounds himself with beautiful things", "that one isn't even a sea captain; he lives in the city and wears the outfit to make people thing he is one"). We even discussed my future life as a '20s socialite with absurd scenarios including champagne breakfasts, furs, and visiting Claridges and animal sanctuaries.

 

Dried off a Little (from a sudden downpour) in the library, Reading most of my facebook correspondence with Mr. Ryder. It was a desperate situation, really. Half-shame (of my complete lack of social grace and articulation, compared to Charles's) and half grief. It is like I have lost someone almost as in death. Now Sebastian has gotten somewhere inside of my soul, I don't know how I will be able to enjoy (or, endure) the impending summer without Charles. I have skipped the Prologue, Et in Arcadia Ego, and moved straight to exile.



 

 

 

 

wednesday 27 april

my life is a real culmination of the LORD's sense of humour.

 

 

saturday 30 april

 "it was sad to see his tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? What do? What for?"

- On the Road

 



I want... total oblivion... until I am not quite here - not quite anywhere - somewhere where I'm not sitting with cold fingers and a throbbing heart and a brain in the middle of an infinite field of dry yellowed grass, starched stiff and withered by the sun. The only rain in sight is the salt water that wells & drips from my eyes and down my cheeks and colours my face grey.

 

 

 

monday 2 may

"'What is he aching to do? What are we all aching to do? What do we want?' She didn't know. She yawned. She was sleepy. It was too much. Nobody could tell. Nobody would ever tell. It was all over. She was eighteen and most lovely, and lost."

- On the Road

 

it was a fine day; a perfect day. I went down to the park and sketched and read and Sal Paradise's prose became suffused with it all, it became a dream. The warm sun, fresh green grass and dark dirt filling my nostrils with its scent, birdsong, the sound of the fountain, murmur of voices, footsteps. And then time was up and I raised myself from that good place and cycled through the cobbled streets, bouncing over the stones, my head filled with Mexico and Dean Moriarty and the pubs had opened their balconies and people spilled out of them sprawled on the chairs, old men sat talking on white benches. Tulips and daffodils sung out in their brilliance, a white-bright colour of red and yellow in the grass. The rows of cherry trees lined the pathway and that scent of spring, that indeterminable fragrance, a bouquet of the freshest flowers, the curl of sap on the tree, a drop of dew, just lifted up and carried past me as I lifted up my head and tried to find more if it, the blossoms & branches throwing shade on my body as I cycled through that enchanted garden ~

eftermiddagen på stadsbiblioteket

Geraldine from Hilary Brashear on Vimeo.

 

~

 

"Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don’t know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madman who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare."

- James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

 

 

~

 

vad betyder detta för dig?

 

ofta man identifierar med en charakter, eller en typ av person, i en roman. men varför? jag trodde att James Baldwin hade en intressanta bild av det här process; alla av oss väljer någon, är det därför vi vill minnas, eller därför vi vill glömma?

 

~

 

Reading: Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin (among others)

Listening to: Pixx - A Way to Say Goodbye

Last watched: The Summer of Sangaile



"an enclosed and enchanted garden"

Sebastian... said, 'I must go to the Botanical Gardens.'

'Why?'

'To see the ivy.'

It seemed a good enough reason and I went with him. He took my arm as we walked under the walls of Merton.

'I've never been to the Botanical Gardens,' I said.

'Oh, Charles, what a lot you have to learn! There's a beautiful arch there and more different kinds of ivy than I knew existed. I don't know where I should be without the Botanical Gardens.'

When at length I returned to my rooms and found them exactly as I had left them that morning, I detected a jejune air that had not irked me before. What was wrong? Nothing except the golden daffodils seemed to be real.

- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

 





 

 

 

 

"And I, Tiresias, have foresuffered all..." [a selection of recent journal extracts]

 

sun. 13 march
[a dream] ...then we were standing at a hill that was so steep we had to climb by sticking our hands and feet intovthe crumbl[ing] red soil. I was so close to this hill wall that I had to keep my head turned to the side, my cheek pressing against the cool earth. When we reached the top, the dream disappeared.
 

sun. 20 march
Tossed and turned all night. Woke up and made camomile tea kl 04.30.
 

[that evening] 8 glasses later and everyone was quite drunk... I got involved in a long and passionate discussion about the state of UK politics.
 

tues. 29 march
Heavy with tiredness that seems to sink into my skin. The whiteness of the clouds send blue and green glowing against my eyelids... I feel displaced out of time, place, person.
 

fri. 1 april
"I have begun to wonder what actually happens in our brains when we return to half-remembered places. What is memory's perspective? Does the man sense the boy's view or is the imprint relatively static, a vestige of what was once intimately known?"
- What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
 

sat. 2 april
I mourn [the loss of a dear correspondent] not because I wouldn't ever find someone who loves et in arcadia ego, but rather because I felt in a way that it was the ~our~ time of the same thing - lying in the sun, reading, "And I, Tyresias, have foresuffered all...", the letters, the rose-tinted exuberance of youth... as summer approaches, the flush of youth,  and poetry, and love blooms up again - it feels like losing a part of one's self, or having it locked away and not being able to find the key to draw it out again.