Maison Martin Margiela; Somerset House

Visited 1/9/2010.

This is where it all comes from...truly, truly good stuff!
Seriously inspiring, innovative approaches to fashion with bucket loads of integrity. The perfect antidote to celebrity culture and all the nonsense that goes with it. This made me want to rush home, cut all my clothes up and do sew them back together again in unthinkable ways.    

Will write more on this but wanted to get it up on the blog sharpish!

http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/fashion/maison_martin_margiela_20/default.as

Gillian Lowndes; mixed media pieces.

Richard Slee showed one of Gillians pieces in his lecture 'Discovering the Found Object'.
Glad to have tracked this down and on the lookout for more. I am interested in the combination of materials that she uses and the 'fused' effect achieved through firing.

Richard used the word 'apocalyptic'!

http://www.photostore.org.uk/seFULL.aspx?WID=53233&TYPE=TECHNIQUE&CODE=520001012&CAT=CRAFTSCOUNCIL&RECORD=5&MAKERID=50053&MYG=&FLAG= 

Julia Lohman; Ruminant Bloom.

Had another look at these today and thought I'd better make a link. I know that biological structures are beautiful, and I shouldn't be suprised that a sheeps intestine can be used in such an engaging way.

They are strange, familiar, exquisite and disconcerting!

http://www.limn.com/suppliers/92/Julia-Lohman/211/Ruminant-Bloom.html  

Plaster Workshop; Mould Making. 29/10/2009

A really productive session; spent all day in the plaster workshop; demonstrations from Rosa on press moulds for creating shallow relief surfaces, and 2 piece moulds for slip casting and press moulding 3D forms in clay. Had done some mould making before but it was great to refresh my memory and consider how these techniques could relate to my project. I think that there is much more scope here to achieve the sort of detail and qualities of finish that I am after. Although I do still want to investigate casting in metal, developing my ideas in plaster and porcelain will give me more control and allow me to work with greater precision.
 I do find the whiteness of the plaster very beautiful. I'm also starting to think about reflected colour (this relates to Robert Rauchenburg; white paintings shown at Eleanor Wards Stable Gallery in 1953. Need to talk about this in more detail) How could reflected colour be used to temporarily change the appearance of an object/sculpture An interplay between existing colour/ textural qualities and reflected light. Need to look into this further.

Anyway, have made my own press moulds and need to find something suitable for the two piece mould.

Rosa suggested some ceramacists/shows to look at:

Steve Dixon
http://www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/profile/sdixon/projects

Grayson Perry
http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/_12/

Carol  McNicoll
http://www.caa.org.uk/exhibitions/exhibition-archive/2008/cup/carol-mcnicoll.html

The Shape of Things; Bristol
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Leisure-Culture/Museums-Galleries/coming-soon---the-shape-of-things-.en

Ceramics Biennial Stoke on Trent
http://www.stokeceramicsfestival.co.uk/stories/959-welcome

Sarah Sze; Tilting Planet at the Baltic Gateshead

Visited this exhibition on 26/8/2009 whilst visiting friends in Newcastle. My first experience of a Sarah Sze installation was at the Victoria Miro Gallery in 2007; I felt an immediate affinity with her work because of the obssesive precision of her arrangements, the familiarity of the objects that she was using, her beautiful use tonal use of colour and her extraordinary handling of material qualities. Everything just felt right; It was one of those 'I wish I had made these pieces myself' moments! So I was really looking forward to seeing her response to baltic space.
Some of the work was familar from Vicoria Miro while other parts of the installation were site specific. All components were linked in some way leading me through the gallery space via different paths and connections. I did have to think quite carefully about the best way to negotiate the work as some routes were more difficult than others. Her work is like a three dimensional map inviting you to explore the space in any number of ways.
Without the usual barriers and restrictions associated with viewing work within a gallery, I was free to investigate the scultures on an intimate level. I enjoyed the pysicality of crouching down, bending, peering and tip-toeing around the pieces, conscious all the time that I could be in danger of putting my feet in the wrong place or stepping back into the work while concentrating on another section. I found myself seeking out particular view points, experimenting with perspectives and trying to look at the objects within the space from as many positions as possible. This intraction on both a visual and physical level made the experience even more satisfying and enjoyable. 
Sze suprises you by using a familiar objects in an unfamiliar way, inviting you to look at them afresh and to re-evaluate their value and aesthetics. I enjoy the decorative relationships within her pieces; the use of multiples, repetition and layering all result in beautiful patterns and rythmns. Her practical dexterity and handling of material characteristics is exquiste.    
Reading the pamphlet that accompanies the installation there were two quotes that seemed  to capture the nature of her work for me;

'Size determinds an object, but scale determinds the art. If viewed in terms of scale, not size, a room could be made to take on the immensity of a solar system.'
Robert Smithson, quoted by Sarah Sze in Sarah Sze 

[By making her art in the margins we are drawn to it, searching for it behind pillars, and under cornices. The rewarding discoveries create an intimacy with the details formed in a quiet corner by her tinkering hands]
Robert Blackson, Sarah Sze Tilting Planet, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.  

More information on Sarah Sze; see past exhibitions at the Baltic and Victoria Miro links below

http://www.balticmill.com/

http://www.victoria-miro.com/

 SARAH SZE 10 April - 31 August 2009 Tilting Planet
BALTIC presents American Artist, Sarah Sze’s largest UK solo exhibition to date. Tilting Planet is a cluster of sculptural installations each cobbled together out of common disposable items such as water bottles, drawing pins, paper, salt, string, lamps, matchsticks and wire. Sze’s expansive sculptural vocabulary uses these items constructively to precisely build structures that defamiliarise our preconceived ideas of these objects, lending them a new found use and vitality. These cumulative sculptures mould themselves into spaces – spreading ivy-like throughout the gallery. Sze’s architecturally inspired works are extremely delicate and tower precariously in gravity-defying structures. These spectacular and tactile constructions can be large, complex, and beguiling in scale and composition. Operating almost as an independent ecosystem, the sculptures that comprise Tilting Planet will become a singular topographical terrain, a unique landscape emerging from components of the everyday.
Quoted from Baltic Website

Jeff Koons; 'Popeye Series' Serpentine Gallery.

The sculptures in this show were of most interest to me. Playful and surprising they confounded my expectations, defied common sense and challenged my understansding of the material properties of the objects being represented. A number of these works were physically impossible!
The urge to touch was, for me, almost overwhelming! I'm sure I wasn't alone in this, hence the many eagle eyed gallery attendants. Perfect facsimiles of the real objects, I knew that the inflatable toys were made of metal, but they were utterly convincing in their mimickery of plastic!
Would the experience of touching these pieces have diminished the illusion?    

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/06/jeff_koons_popeye_series2_july.html
Visited exhibition 21/7/209

Junya Wantanabe: Radical Fashion Exhibition at the V&A (2001)

I thought it would be a good idea to post some of the influences that have impacted on me, my work and visual preoccupations so far.

The Radical Fashion Exhibition at The Victoria and Albert Museum back in 2001 was the start of this particular journey. As always with the V&A Fashion work; the exhibition was brilliantly curated and displayed. Packed with stunning ideas and extraordinary fabric manipulation.
An evening dress made from sweatshirt fabric constructed using a single continuous seam by Vivienne Westwood. Tightly fitting architectural precision in silk jersey and black silk faille by Azzedine Alaia, and a cheeky subversion of materials from Jean Paul Gaultier in both his evening dress fashioned out of Cable knitted grey wool and a beautifully tailored denim coat encrusted with thousands of jet beads. These were all highlights for me.

However, I was really captivated by the Junya Wantanabe installation. Glowing fabric forms engineered out of layers of semi-transparent organza stitched together at strategic points to create these sculptural dresses that enveloped the body of the wearer. Like giant Christmas decorations, each had apparently emerged from a flat box. I can imagine the forms and structures gradually being revealed as gravity did its work, and spent a long time in the exhibition trying to figure out the mechanics of how these garments had been made.
Reminiscent of floating jelly fish, the absence of colour gave these pieces a ghostly, ethereal quality.

The idea of transition/transformation from 2D to 3D explored by Wantanabe in these garments has continued to inform my work. I have used stitching, construction and piercing techniques, exploring possibilities of shape, structure and transparency to create both free standing and hanging forms, some of which are featured above.

I am still in love with the simplicity/purity of the white on white aesthetic; it allows the complexities and textures of the fabric structures to be seen clearly. I also enjoy the way that directional light can be used to explore the visual possibilities of my fabric sculptures.

In short, the impact of seeing these pieces from Junya Wantanabe's Autumn/Winter 2000/2001 collection for Comme des Garcons was very significant and still continues to resonate in my work.
I know that I will want to revisit their structural and material qualities again and again in the future!