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Just realised it’s going to be October tomorrow which means it’s exactly 20 days till the International Champioships in Greece! Bit of a strange feelings considering I’ve been working towards this one day for the past year and it’s all almost over. Don’t no what I’m going to do with myself, may try get my social life back hehe.
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Finally, its taken me two days and a trip to the fine art library but I’ve finally found Bruce McLean and that plinth image he did.
Since starting the project I have been looking into some of Bruce McLeans work, quite an interesting character. He’s probably best known as a performance artist but his work has been expressed in many different ways such as photography, painting and sculpture. He was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art for 2 years before he travelled down to London. Turning up in the office of Frank Martin, Head of sculpture at St.Martins where McLean was asked when he would like to start.
McLean was involved with a performance group ‘Nice style: the World’s First Pose Band’ their aim was to remove the personality of 1 individual artist and look into patterns of human behaviour. They did their first public appearance abroad in Norway in 1972 when they were not taken seriously, and mistaken for a rock and roll group. ‘ High Up On A Baroque Palazzo’ is their best known work. It was performed at the Garage in November 1974, 3 times a week for the month. They were shown training to get the perfect pose, demonstrating the way in which people project an image of climbing up the social scale and obtaining status worthy possessions. This performance was virtually the end of ‘Nice Style’
The piece that really interested me was his pose work for plinths, it was made as a ‘ version ‘ of the performance of that name that McLean made at the Situation Gallery in 1971. He re-enacted a number of poses which resembled Henry Moore’s reclining nude figures. In the performance he balanced on 3 plinths while recreating the poses. These poses were photographed and later presented as an image. The piece was a parody on much of the traditional sculpture and also implied that the artists appearance was his greatest achievement. I thought this was quite an interesting concept as I was looking at my body and how it responded to the area around it, I liked how McLean had removed the sculpture completly placing his body amongst the plinths making the image purely about his body.
Just found out that Alan has actually met McLean which I think is pretty cool. Confirmed my thought that he is a total character.
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Hi, i just stumbled upon your blog on Bruce Mclean!he is a favorite of mine. His current work is
impressive too. Are you familiar w/ will alsop the
architect? He is a long time collaborator of Mcleans and they are doing incredible things. Anyway, i enjoyed your blog!
david.
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Just finished taking part in an Exhibition in Dalkeith Arts Centre. Natalie organised it and got myself and neil invoved. At first I wasn’t quite sure what I could put in as most of my stuff is sculpture and Natalie had been told that no sculpture was aloud. I did have my life drawing though which were the only kind of finished drawings that I thought would be good enough to put in an exhibition. The way in which I had started drawing was in a very lose, free way. By holding the pencil or other media I was using at the very end of the tip and moving it across the page quickly to create the image gave the image a more exciting and energetic overall feel. In one drawing I used a long bamboo stick and attached various media to the end of the stick. This is one of my favourite drawings as I felt it stood out against the rest of my stuff and it really came together as a finished drawing.
Doing the Exhibition was a great opportunity to get experience in having my own exhibition outside of college. Something else to add to my C.V and to talk about at interviews later on in the course when I start applying to art colleges ( still don’t no which one) .
It lasted for a week Monday to Saturday was in for most days. Made such a difference seeing everything up on the walls and mounted, I think it made our work look more professional and finished. It went pretty well, was quite quiet from time to time but we all got people interested in our work which is always good. A local councillor from the area came in and said that we would have been able to get stands to hang more work in the centre of the room and that we could have put sculpture into the room. With that in mind I would definetly consider getting involved with something like this again.
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‘Is contemporary art a case of the emperor’s new clothes where we the viewing public have been duped? Or is it an exhilarating way of looking at the modern world?’
After reading both responses to the question ‘but is it art’ I feel that I agree most with what Ekow Eshun said in response to this question. He makes the point of saying that art should make us feel inspired to make our own work and if the way it does this is by making the viewer angry then what could be better. What can anger a lot of people is the fact that they can look at a piece of artwork and get the feeling of ‘well I could do that’ but maybe this is because the art that is around us nowadays is not just a case of it’s a pretty picture and has been painted well therefore it must be good art. I feel this can make people complacent as they do not have to think about what is in front of them and just accept it for what it is. Just because someone does not understend something surely it should not be dissregarded for this reason but instead be admired if it can leave the viewer thinking about what they have just seen and the world around them and how it all relates to one another. In a sense it’s not just a case of the viewer looking at the work but becoming part of it, Marcel Duchamp said ‘ The creative act is not performed by the artist alone, the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world …’this shows how the public can not just become lazy in looking at the work but become almost responsible for the work to come alive. By Marcel Duchamp placing a urinal in a gallery and calling it art does this not demonstrate how everything around us is art in some sense. Just because it isn’t in a gallery and we aren’t being told it’s art doesn’t mean it can’t be seen in a different light. ‘Is it art to flick a light bulb on and off’ clearly not to Brian Sewell who seems unable to look at the bigger picture. Are we not taught to never judge a book by its cover well then why can art not be about the reason and story behind the work, Damien Hirst sees the real creative act as being the conception , not the execution and that as the progenitor of the idea he is therefore the artist. Brian Sewell seems worried that the generation of artists today do not posses the basic skills that artists require well how exactly does he know this about all contemporary artists. Art today may not be landscape drawing mounted on a wall but is this not through choice that the artists may find that this is not the ideal way that they want to present their work. Sewell talks about Impressionism, Surrealism and Cubism as what art should be but has he simply forgotten that at these times in art these movements were highly controversial so is it not just a case that the artists of today are moving with the times and that in years to come these artists will seem mild and tame. Sewell wants to be able to debate over these movements in art and find an answer but why should there be an answer to everything. If there was a clear cut right answer would that not be the end of any debate and the end of art today as we know it.
