For the appropriation task I simply chose to copy multiple images which had a surrealist theme to go with the atmosphere of my piece. I decided to do a surrealist piece as I have always been inspired by artists such as Salvador Dali who’s artwork has the potential to transport the viewer to another reality. This idea of creating this dream like state in the viewer fascinates me. I created a background of a variety of vivid watercolours, simply because I enjoy these shades of colours and it does help in making the image as eye catching as possible. I decided to use plain black drawings because these would  then really contrast boldly against the bright colours of the background. There was no chosen artists work I decided to specifically replicate, all my images I used were discovered from Pinterest and I could not find the artists who had created each piece of the artwork I chose to use. The shapes on the left hand side where the only images I created myself, as well as the background. I have always enjoyed copying drawings that have captured my attention, usually due to their unusual style, so to me this task came quite naturally.

Throughout the contemporary project, I have been sticking with a theme of ‘defaced’. By this, I have experimented with different mediums including photography, paint, collage, and drawing. One technique I enjoyed the most is experimenting with different destructive ways to destroy a photographic image, focusing on imagery of faces. Two of my main influences have been Gerhard Richter and Jackson Pollock.

Pollock’s paintings are something I admire, so I decided to appropriate an image of his work into my way of defacing imagery. I wanted to merge his work with my own, to create something organic. To do this I took some of my photographic imagery and some of my drawings, then put them into Photoshop placing Pollock’s image and my own over the top of each other. Then altering the opacity of the top image, thus creating a shadow of a face hidden beneath his colourful flicks and splashes of paint. Almost as though the face is hidden beneath the abstract work of Pollock’s painting. The technique of merging images together is one which I would love to explore further, and so will continue to practice in this style of work and consider the possibility of merging more than two images together, defacing the image of a face so much until the face can no longer be seen.

The first text looks at Leo Steinbergs book of essays ‘Other Criteria’ it talks about how in the 1950s work could still be hung on the wall but it made no difference. They still became flat being referred to as a ‘symbolic allusion to hard surfaces’ where things may be placed on top of them or pressed into them. There is also mention of how at this time work changed from vertical to horizontal as being a shift from nature to culture. Robert Rauschenberg’s work in the early 1950s brought about change with the ‘flatbed or work-surface picture plane. He erased a drawing created by Willem de Kooning and named it ‘Drawing by Willem de Kooning erased by Robert Rauschenberg’ this then changed the work into something original with what was once there no longer to be seen, it had now become flat.

The text titled ‘Richard Serra from The Yale Lecture’ discusses how he became well-known for his three-dimensional work in the 1960’s with the use of heavy materials and industry works. With his reliance on others his work is created, without the interest in using steel to make a picture but rather as a building material with structure. His work is site specific and cannot be supported by its surroundings. Sculptures built away from the site or that haven’t been specifically made for a site always have to be adjusted in order to fit in with their surroundings.

In both of these texts they talk about artists practising in an unconventional way compared to what others were doing at the time. Robert Rauschenberg’s work could be described as a shift from nature to culture and abandoned the typical portrait way of working. Richard Serra created a practical structure rather than making something that could be looked at like a picture. It should also be noted that both of these artists were practising around the same time.

This piece of work was produced for The Contemporary project and I appropriated a photograph taken by Roy DeCarava. I found the image after going to the TATE Modern Exhibition in London, ‘Souls of a Nation’ and purchasing the book edited by Mark Godfrey and Zoe Whitley. I don’t normally work in black and white, but I was drawn to this image as the human form was the main focus within the photograph and that is what I normally look for when taking my own pictures. For example when visiting Oxford Street I took a few photographs and edit them so that people of interest became the attraction rather than the area itself. When finding inspiration I sometimes reinterpret other photographers work, however if I am going to label it my own the outcomes that I produce will be from my camera shots. I do normally like to work with oil paint but I decided not to with this piece as there was no colour to add so I experimented with charcoal, light and dark, whilst blending the different contrasts together. The materials used were a good choice as the blending worked nicely to recreate the shadows and shading where needed.

After reading the given texts I can summarise that Leo Steinberg wrote a book in 1972 called ‘Other Criteria’ containing essays, one of which he explored ‘The Flatbed Picture Plane’. The Picture Plane I believe is a flat surface; a symbolic allusion for hard surfaces such as table tops and studio floors where data is entered in different ways from different materials by different artists. Steinberg talks about various mark making methods such as printing and painting including a flatbed printing press. He also talks about the picture plane of the 1960’s in correspondence with the erect human posture touching on realism, cubism and abstract expressionism. He defines the term flatbed as changing the relationship between artist and image, image and viewer.

Furthermore, the article on Richard Serra is based around his sculpture work and informs the reader that in the late 1960’s he began three-dimensional works exploiting heavy materials and their properties. In the 1970’s and 80’s he worked with steel units and his work maintained a critical presence. Unlike Steinberg, Serra relies upon industrial sector to build work and relates to the urban landscape and architectural enclosure producing work outside of the studio focusing on the relationship between sculpture and context. The use of materials and location matter to Serra, where as I feel Stenberg can relate more to a studio practice and a flat surface. Both artists mention Picasso and Warhol in their work but from different angles.

Leo Steinberg’s account describes a change in artists’ way of working to more radically changing fields, of which he believed was harshly critiqued by society due to their strict regime of working at the time. He makes the case that Rauschenberg believed that the flatbed picture plane would deal with a different order of experience for the viewer, no longer being a head-to-toe correspondence with the human posture- an exciting new prospect for artists.

In comparison to Steinberg, Richard Serra talks of his own practice in site specific works, and how he was first introduced to the world of sculpture due to his work in steel mills since the age of seventeen. Serra believes that works dedicated to one site should be constructed in that site and be inseparable from their location; rather than being made in a studio and shifted from one space to another. Unlike Steinberg’s description of Rauschenberg’s entry to a ‘Nature in Art’ exhibition, hanging a square patch of grass in a gallery and returning to water the piece daily, transitioning the piece from nature to culture in a radical manner. Serra continues to describe the importance of site specific works as they can be inferred as representative of the institutions around the piece, so the artist must be careful not to offend. Along with this, corporate funded works could be read as a public service; therefore, meeting these needs could be suggested as giving into consumerism.

Benedict Drew: The Trickle-Down Syndrome

On the 20^th August 2017, I visited the Whitechapel Gallery in to view Benedict Drew’s exhibition ‘The Trickle-Down Syndrome’; his works are installation based and are focussed on interactive and sensory experiences. The piece is a five-room installation which encompasses a variety of experiences, from visual, to physically interacting with the piece. Initially, I looked at the work as a group of individual pieces within an exhibition and I didn’t see how they all correlated; however, as I experienced the piece collectively, I began to notice a running theme of surrealism within the piece and senses of emotion throughout the work which you can’t experience without having been there. The piece incorporates a wide range of references, including Busby Berkley’s 1930s stage-sets and Surrealist landscapes by Max Ernst, in order to find where the physical and digital meet. He achieves his outcomes through the use of psychedelic imagery both digitally and physically; Drew used newsprint to exhibit components of the exhibition which hold political value; it’s a powerful and informative medium as it is such an everyday method of spreading information about “the submersion in social and environmental despair” (Benedict Drew). The name of the piece originated from the 1980s phrase for the idea that one day, the wealth and benefits of the rich will hopefully ‘trickle-down’ to the rest of us. Visiting the exhibition rather than viewing images of it really heightened my senses and made me more emotionally invested within the piece due to the nature of his work.

Sources:

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/benedict-drew/ The Whitechapel Gallery – Benedict Drew

Exhibition – Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

Soul of a Nation exhibited works from various artists who focussed on the peak of the civil rights movement of 1963. Artists exhibited included Faith Ringgold, Elizabeth Catlett, and Noah Purifoy; the mediums of these works varied from sculpture, paintings, and installations, all expressing the same emotions for a drastic change within American culture. Major figures, such as Martin Luther King Junior and Malcom X were depicted throughout. There were a variety of pieces which captured my attention in this exhibition, for example, ‘American People Series No.20: Die’ by Faith Ringgold which depicts the brutality enforced upon black people by white supremacists during events such as the 1964 Harlem race riot and the 1967 Newark riots. Noah Purifoy’s piece ‘Untitled’ – 1970 (wood, leather, brass, and copper) encompasses traditions from African and Native American societies, as well as wanting to suggest an alternative to the way objects were made in an American capitalist society. The piece uses everyday objects, such as Ghanaian spoons which symbolise fertility dolls that Asante women carry on their backs. Overall, Soul of a Nation encompasses a multitude of interpretations of the Civil Rights movement in a respectful and powerful manor; each artist had their own space to flourish regardless of the medium in which they worked in. There was also a nice variety of types of work within the exhibition, rather than solely exhibiting one practice.