the mantelpiece - mark waddington blog

game over by john green

An interactive installation by John Green at the Keighley Arts Factory from Friday 11th September to Wednesday 30th September 2009. The artist gives us a tour of the piece and explains his motivation. I liked John and after we shot this he told me how he had come to art late in life and a year out studying had been transforming for him - the best year of his life, he said. He's clearly a man with a passion for what he does.
This was shot on my Canon 5D. You'll notice John is holding a mini disc recorder - in fact this is recording his voice. Getting the tracks in sync was easy. In order to make sure he was in focus I did some calculations on my iphone hyperfocal distance calculator which came out at 1.2m. In order to get a wide enough depth of field I had to set the camera to F8 but required a very high ISO setting. The picture noise was evident. Shutter speed was set to 50th (on a 60th I got a terrible flicker from the lights).

david hockney - the bigger picture

I love David Hockney's pictures. I warm to him perhaps because, like me, he was born in Bradford and I often pop in to Salts Mill to see his work.

I met his friend the late Jonathan Silver once and there are people like them who have a wonderful independence and way of looking at the world; they're able to look at something ordinary and make something of it.

Imagine on BBC ONE last week featured a film about Hockney made by Bruno Wollheim over a three year period. David Hockney would not have a film crew follow him but did allow Wollheim to shoot the documentarty on his own.

The way the film was made is in itself interesting. At one point in the film Wolheim could be seen in a mirror both conversing with Hockney and shooting the film simultaneously. Here was a film being made by someone on the inside of the story being given special but qualified privilege.

David Hockney declared photography as incapable of capturing things as they really are, "this needs looking at" he says with a twinkle. He explains that it was all looking through holes; all Western perspective was - you're not connected with it, you want to be in it. I don't look thought the camera anymore,he said.  So, having once embraced photographic techniques to aid his art he has now abandoned the camera, or so he says. Wollheim catches Hockney sneaking some photography into his work and challenges him on this. 

I liked the tone of the film and David Hockney comes over as thoughtful, witty and even spiritual. He thinks that three things are required to paint great pictures - hand, eye and heart.

If you're quick you can watch it again on BBC iPlayer here

Bruno Wallheim's own story in The Telegraph

yorkshire art listing

One of my new year resolutions is to get to see more art in Yorkshire.  To that end I have created a list of interesting venues in the shire (started under the excuse of work).  There are some great places that I'd not given much thought to but have been given a new lease of life - like Cartwright Hall in Bradford and the Leeds Art Gallery.

see the list here

Art in Yorkshire

Before Christmas I ventured down to the Bradford Playhouse. The thing about this venue is that it's not a big show of a building. There's no grand architecture or swish entrance foyer - in fact you might miss it, but I will say I was impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm of the staff to the cause of art and specifically art in Bradford. There are varied spaces and as well as the main theatre there is a cafe area used for live music and art exhibitions.

Like many venues such as this, the Playhouse exists on the edge of financial survival and so one of the difficult decisions has been to hold occasional sales of costumes and props from a 40 year old collection. Watch this video

My own new year resolution is to be more attentive to art in the region and take notice of some of the smaller art and performance venues. You might like to look at ITV Local Yorkshire's art venues listing and try some of them out. Art in Yorkshire And If you would like to comment on a venue or recommend one for inclusion on ITV Local Yorkshire, please have your say.

The one that spoke to me

Here’s a lovely piece on the Liverpool Tate online - the one that spoke to me.

 

I suppose in the end, whatever you think about a piece of art, it’s the reaction it gets that is important; does it change the way we think, feel or believe?

In this nicely designed online installation visitors ask you to guess which piece of work meant most to them and then proceed to tell the stories behind their responses.
 

 

 

The Question Mark Inside

What do blogging, St Paul’s Cathedral and the meaning of life have in common? 

Martin Firrell has set up a blog to capture ideas about what gives life meaning. The Question Mark Inside.

He says, we all wonder about what gives our lives meaning. It could be a child, a smile, an ambition, a particular hope, a love, the sun after rain, the sea, a whisper in the dark.

What are the words that describe what's important to you, and your own feelings about life's meaning?

The next step of the project is to light the dome of St Pauls midnight blue and project samples of the blog texts onto the building.

Watch a video:

Kelly Harker posts:

I want to be surrounded by nature.

ENGULFED BY IT.

I want to feel part of something grand.

INCALCUABLE.

A WALK THROUGH THE PARK.

I breath it in. LEAVES CRUNCHING UNDER MY FEET.

I see my reflection in a puddle.

The birds sing. I SMILE. I breathe it in.

EVER-CHANGING.

It's beautiful.

ONE WITH MY THOUGHTS.

LOVE

TRUTH

York paintings

York paintings
Originally uploaded by markwaddington.

The Grand Tour in York is a project aimed at setting masterpieces free onto the streets. It's been extended until November the 2nd thanks to extra funding (or I would have missed it). The paintings are dotted around the streets, not always in the obvious places. This one is in a side road near a rubbish collection point, which adds some charm I think.

http://www.thegrandtourinyork.org.uk/

Password Shibboleth

When I told my artist mother that I had been to the Tate Modern to see the crack, she gave out a short laugh; this gasp was her way of saying, why on earth do you want to go and see that load of rubbish?

I found the experience exciting, as I always do when visiting these works designed specifically for this huge space. It is as much the responses to the work - as much as the work itself - which seem interesting. The probing, tracing, straddling public examining every little detail of this feature.  (As someone pointed out, this was a looking down experience and actually not about engaging with the great space of the Turbine Hall.) But what if the viewer simply looked at the piece in isolation - as if stumbling on it without hype or explanation?

Conceptual art in my mind easily spills into the space occupied by branding and advertising. Here, Doris Salcedo wants to communicate the idea of fractured society, but her canvas is not exclusively the concrete floor of the Tate Modern. The communication requires a strategy which includes press releases, photographs and editorial. It propagates through TV and radio, around the internet, through consumer generated content (like this piece).  By the time I arrive at the exhibition I am already warmed up to its gathering fame. The notes to accompany the piece give me plenty of context so, in some way, the work becomes more like the cover of an exciting book or the title sequence of a movie thriller; the real interest is actually behind the intriguing artwork or within the programme. In due course I go on to read more about Salcedo and so the experience is complete.

It is for this reason that I think conceptual art has a hard time with people like my mother. She sees the whole thing as clouded by its association with marketing and advertising - which, as we all know, is evil to the core. From within advertising, most creatives like to think of their work as art; they will do everything they can to pump up the cultural value of work for the likes of Sony or Guinness.

To give some more flesh to the piece, Shibboleth is after the Hebrew word that was used to separate the 'inferior' Ephramaites from the 'superior' Gileadites after he Old Testament's bloodiest massacre. The few remaining refugees attempted to cross the river Jordan but were unable to pronounce the 'sh' of the password and so were slain. The act of differentiation between products and the propagation of ideas that set up divisions between 'superior' and 'inferior' is at the heart of marketing, interestingly.

All this raises the age old question of what is art and why can't we all be artists? Are there Ephramaites and Gileadites in the art world? I suppose we'll know only when we look back and see a body of work settled in the historical flow.

 

The Making of Volume

Back in January I posted a short video about the Volume installation at the V&A. Well, continuing the technical theme, here is an interesting series of images showing the construction of Volume by the creators, United Visual Artists. Click here or on the image below to go to the slide show.

V&A Friday Late

V&A on Vimeo

From Friday Late at London's V&A held on the last Friday in every month starting at 18.30.

First, a vertical light box on which people can write ideas about destiny, romance and conquests.

Then, Volume, an installation which responds to movement. After a disorderly wait in the rain it was a rushed wander through the pillars of LED lights - which also housed loud speakers. The patterns responded to peoples' movement but it was difficult to make out with so many people. This would have been excellent as a solitary experience.

Volume is a collaboration between design collective United Visual Artists and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack and co-writer Neil Davidge (as part of their music production company, one point six).

See also - small ritual & jonny baker (both of whom appear fleetingly in the video).