Sebasti達o Castelo Lopes Unit 2 - 2016 Wimbledon College of Art University of the Arts London
Artist Statment Work’s Words Paper A1 Drawings Canzoni Eroiche Proprietà Letteraria e Artistica Lifes of the Poets Wood 20x20 20x20x20 Cement Fragments Cubes Installations Curiousity Becomes a Heavy Load Cornerstone Exhibitions Unit 1 Assessment Interim Show C4RD Intersection Writing Profecional Development Essay Proposal Essay Peer-workshops
Work’s Words
Beautiful Texture White Re-Build Break Public Unmeaning Stone Landscape Mark Sensory Composition Time Discarded Surface Calm Cubes Mixture Pattern
Ugly Material Violence re-Work Build Viewer Geometric Charcoal Failure Destroy Repetition Imperfection Abandoned Organic Scratch Intuitive Cut Minimal Object
Aggressive Materiality Common re-Use Cheap Spectator Hole Cement Mistake Create Movement Thickness Mark-making Drawing Structure Fixed Constructed Demolished Coarse
Contrast Black re-Paint Scrape Quick Meaning Hollow Shape Clean Visual Poetry Poetic Space Craft Chaos Square Strange Tones Crude
A1
Charcoal, oil paint and acrylic paint on paper, 100 x 70cm This is the first time that I’m presenting drawing in landscape position. I’ve made two pieces, each one with two landscape positioned drawings. There is something about two drawings in each piece that I like. I think that it has to do with the dialogue that the two drawing as individual pieces create with each other. The sense of narrative improves with the position of the drawings comparing with the drawings presented on Unit 1. I’m still not sure of why it is, but they work better now.
Canzoni Eroiche Seven page scans of the 39 pages book, 21 x 30cm
I think that they are more than a sketchbook, I consider them pieces. What I think is relevant on this works is the page composition that where created. The images that are glued are not as relevant as the position that they adopted.
ProprietĂ Letteraria e Artistica
Six page scans of the 39 pages book, 21 x 30cm
Lifes of the Poets Prints on book, 17 x 10cm
A Book about the lifes of Waller, Milton and Cowley filled with IPhone photographs of small construction sites: stones, rocks, pipes, steel and machines.
20x20
Oil paint on wood, 20 x 20cm
It is a continuation of the work that I’ve done in Unit 1. I’m working the harmony and the composition on the pieces and trying not to repeat them. The questions related with this works are the same: the deconstruction of the square shape, working the composition and balance it with textures and tones and the ability to almost tell the story of how the object was made with the marks produced on him.
20x20x20
Oil paint on wood, 20 x 20 x 20cm The idea was that, as in the 20 x 20 works I deconstruct the square, on the 20 x 20 x 20 I deconstruct the cube. On this pieces I mainly use white, but it is always possible to see marks of black. This works interferes more with the space as they are cubes hanged on the wall. Presenting them is always difficult to me, specially managing the distance between them; I discover that makes them more interesting for me and for the viewer if they have enough space between to see the face of the cube but not enough to fit our head in the meddle of them. In this way, the viewer knows that is something there but he cannot possibly see it; I think that that frustration works for the pieces.
What is this picture but a fragment? Cement, 10 x 15cm
This piece started as research for the big concrete cubes, but rapidly assumed, for me, the power of a proper piece. In conversation with the public when I showed this piece, a number of people associate it with violence, with war. What I find fascinating on them is the sense on rhythm; I really enjoy the shades that they create while on the wall, it is, for me, part of the rhythm of the piece. I find the composition calm, again, with not enough space between them to comfortably see them. I think that the material for this piece suits it really well, as it is a material that usually we see it in big crude chunks and not in small and full of details and nuances pieces.
Cubes
Cement, 20 x 20 x 20cm I find this piece very earthy, I think because of the fact that is organic and that is exhibited on the floor. In this piece, even being five different cubes destructed by an organic shape, I can’t really see them in separate. The line that the cubes all together draw on the floor is, for me, that factor that makes the piece work.
Curiosity becomes a heavy load With Giulia Cacciuttolo Oil paint on wood and wax, 20 x 20cm and 10 x 10cm
Cornerstone
Cement and paint and photographs on wood, 15 x 30cm and 20 x 20 x 20cm
Unit 1 Final Assessment
Interim Show
C4RD
Intersection With Giulia Cacciuttolo
We are two MA students – MA Painting and MA drawing – that started to collaborate and work together during this year. We already exhibited our works together and we hope to have the chance to finalize our collaboration in a two-person exhibition. One of our strongest contact points is a deep experimentation with a wide range of materials – wax, concrete, books, wood. The main themes that will guide our project are memory and the relation with real and mental space. However, duality is the pivotal point of our collaboration: our works are visually strongly close – we both work mainly in black and white, with the same materials and with the same ideas of composition - but on the other hand the research behind them is quite different. I have a stronger interest in digging deeply in the conceptual research and in understanding how it is connected to the practical side and how affects the viewer; Sebastião’s work is more focused on the visual experience of the viewer and on how to create an effective and actual dialogue with the viewer: his conceptual meaning are not always established. Duality, again: the confrontation between a visual experience that will be similar for both works, but with different experience outcomes. From this, the corner stone concept of It is what it does: the dialogue between something apparently blank and something apparently full. Based on the concepts of dialogue/contrast, our exhibition will create In fact, the viewer has a huge role in our works. A great part of our research is focused on the study of the relation that the work as with the spectator, promoting a real experience. The body of work that we will present is aiming to explore and examine this relation, trying to get rid of the physical boundaries. Our aim is to encourage this experience: this relationship will start as visual and could lead to a more conceptual/meaningful/ mental side. Until now, our collaboration has been really fructuous and rewarding specially because our works support each other on different levels: one fills the eventual lacks of the other. Therefore, It is what it does project aims to create a series of installations and spaces that could become personal, intimate, narrative and sensory, where the spectator is invited to relate to the works. The Chelsea College’s space could be the perfect “recipient” for our project: that non-regular space, full of corners and architectural elements as windows and walls – could add something important to it. Concluding, we strongly hope to be considered for this important and unique opportunity that could help us on a professional side and to bring forward our collaboration.
Profecional Development - 21th of April - Out of Line, C4DR, Center for Recent Drawing, London, UK. - 28th April - 2nd May 2016, Intersection, Hoxton Arches, London, UK. - Curating team - Out Of Live, C4DR, Center for Recent Drawing, London, UK. - Artist Collective with Giulia Cacciuttolo
Exhibition Proposals Collaboration with Giulia Cacciuttolo Our collaborative works are thought and discussed together, but the individuality of each artists remains intact as they are produced separately. This collaboration is based on the research of a dialogue between them. Our points of contact are mainly aesthetical, but there are also other common grounds. Our instinctive interests are driven in the same directions even if they then show up in our works in different ways. The interest in poetry, in the use of photography as a medium, in the engagement with the public, in composition are only some of the common grounds that led us to create this dialogue. Our aim is to investigate the public’s reaction in front of given stimulus by constantly questioning the given status of an object, composition or material
Essay Proposal Essay Proposal – Unit 2 I’m thinking on write about the role of the viewer on a working piece. What is expected from the viewer, the influence that he has on the fact that a piece work, how the piece interacts with the viewer, how big is the influence of the information that the viewer receives from the piece on the relation that he creates with the work and how can that be managed by the artist. The key questions on my essay will be: understanding what is the importance of the viewer for a piece to work; who can the artist use the spectator experience to benefit his work; what is that the artist expects from the viewer and what really happens between the viewer and the piece. I’m watching documentaries and interviews with artist like Anish Kapoor, Richard Serra, Melvin Edwards, Carl Andre, Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, Jasper Johns, Robert Mangold, Anthony Caro, taking ideas and quotes mainly related to what the artist expects from the viewer. I’ve already read ‘Beautiful & Pointless’ from David Orr, the book describes the relation between the public and poetry, which I found really useful to my research, as it helps to understand the spectator point of view wile confronted with art. I’m currently reading ‘Robert Ryman Critical texts since 1967’, a compilation on Ryman’s exhibition texts, that were written by curators and artists, this book relates too with the viewer experience as it isn’t written by Ryman but it is about his work.
Essay UNIT 2 The Viewer, the Piece and the Artist This essay has as a starting point Kapoor’s statement that refers to the objects as being (2015, Lisson Gallery First Weekend) ‘never empty, they are always potential, they invite. The vacancy, invites our psychic input, so we fill in those spaces’. This statement is relevant for this essay because of the amount of power that is given to the viewer, the power of meaning. The idea that the viewer has power on the performance of a piece of art is the heart of a series of questions regarding the role and the importance of the viewer, what is expected from the him while creating a relation with the piece, how the spectator influences the fact that a piece of art works or not, how the piece interacts with the viewer and how can this relation be managed by the artist. In the book Beautiful and Pointless by David Orr this questions are asked and thought but in the context of the relation between the reader and the poem. This book was found relevant for this essay as a comparison between the visual arts and the poetry perspective on this subject will help to understand and to think this questions. To support the thesis of this essay, it will be use interviews and opinions of artist such as Anish Kapoor, Melvin Edwards, Agnes Martin and Anthony Caro. Even being the works of this artists so different, their opinions regarding the theme of this essay will be useful to better understand the visual art point of view. There are two separate groups of people that interact with visual arts: the artists and the viewers, or as Orr describes it (Beautiful & pointless, p. IX ) ‘the potential audience for the book about poetry nowadays consist of two mutually uncomprehending factions: the poets, from whom poetry is a matter of casual, day-to-day conversation; and the rest of the world, from whom it’s a subject of at best mild and confused inter-
est’. The huge gap of information that exists between the artist and the general public is the factor that turns the question of the importance of the viewer worth thinking about. The fact that the artist knows that for a piece to fully work is needed a viewer’s interaction - in a form of a relation - is enough to add a huge importance to the viewer’s role. The problem is that, as Orr said, for the general public is much more difficult to understand the visual art stirrings based on the fact that it is not, usually, a confrontation that happens on a daily basis for the general public. The public is not relating and thinking on this questions as the artists are; in other words, it is difficult to understand a new language if we do not have a regular contact with it. So it is important for the artist, as a useful question while working, to understand that, as Kapoor states (2015, Lisson Gallery First Weekend): ‘Is that if there are two kinds of subjectivity in a work, one that comes form the artist, an intuitive whatever that is, and another one that sits between the work and the viewer’. There are two different positions while relating with a piece of art but, as it was clear above, the relation between the viewer and the piece is much more mutable as the usual viewer is not into the visual art’s language. The issue, for the artist, is to create a piece that works with the viewer, having in mind that the factor that makes the piece work in this sense, is a relation created between the viewer and the piece -being part of the piece everything that the viewer is able to experience, for example: the title, the sound, the space. The relation that the artist is trying to create, by presenting a piece, with the viewer, is almost impossible to predict as every viewer is different and will relate to the work in a different and personal way. Therefore, it is impossible for the artist to create a piece that interacts in the same way with all the viewers, and all the artists are trying to lead the viewer in a different direction. We can conclude that one of the hard questions here is: having the artist recognized the importance of the viewer in his work and having understood that the viewer is not familiar with the visual arts language, how can an artist create a piece that works? To answer in a better way this question is important to think about the viewer itself, as it is in the best interests of the
artist to know with who he is working with. Orr writes, on Beautiful and Pointless, that the reader of poetry (Beautiful & pointless, p. XIV) ‘seemed trapped between a tediously mechanical view of poems’ when he’s trying to understand and to achieve what the writer felt or thought while he wrote the poem, which is the way that the general reader interacts with a poem; and (Beautiful & pointless, p.XIV) ‘an unjustifiably view of poetry’ when the reader is confronted with something that he can not understand, something that he can not describe as part of the ‘poetry language’. This can create a demoralising sensation that, consequently, can drive the reader to think that that piece of poetry does not make sense, it is unexplainable, unjustifiably, when what is really happening is that the ‘language’ used and the reader are not, usually, at the same level. It is possible to correlate this idea with what happens between the viewer and the piece in visual arts. As the common spectator is not familiar with the art language, his way of responding to the piece will be less informed; the relation that the viewer creates could be really strict limited to what is common to say about art: this usually has to do with what the artist ‘wants to say’. If the spectator can not find characteristics that he can relate to as being a part of what, for him, is the visual arts language, it is possible that he starts to doubt the relevance of that piece. This particularity of the spectator has to do with a lack of visual art language knowledge, which is acceptable giving the fact that is something that does not take part of the viewer’s every day life. Something that is relevant is that, according to Arne Glimcer, Agnes Martin’s Dealer, this is a characteristic that is not as noticeable on other forms of art as it is on visual arts. Glimcer states that Martin once said that (2015, TateShots) ‘from music people accept pure emotion but from art people demand explanation’ which is interesting because while talking about Jazz or Classical music the common spectator is not familiar with the specifies of the language or all the theoretical questions used to create the pieces but, still, is more susceptible, has a bigger predisposition, to relate with the music piece. The spectator feels more comfortable connecting with the music language that with the visual arts one, even being a part of a relation that is purely sensory, and usually, not understandable. This can have to do with the level of familiarisation that the spectator has with that particular language. Mu-
sic, for example, is consumed by the general public ,on a daily bases, much more than visual art, which can dictate a more usual relation with music and, therefore, a more comfortable and informed dialogue. This language idea is the tallest barrier between the work and the viewer. When Anthony Caro stated (2013, Anthony Caro ) ‘People want a lot of art to be made in some way that can be written down or can be explained and I do not think it can be, I think that art has to be in is own language, and obviously my language is the language of shape and interval, and hollowness and convexity’, he brought the question of the language even further saying that a piece of visual art has to be understood not in a written language but in the language of the visual arts; for this theory to work the spectator has to have and idea of what the vigial arts language is and how does it work. This is a big demand from the spectator if we have in mind that, for the general public, this is something completely new, or that they do not have any comfort with. According to this theory we can conclude that to relate to art is not for everybody, in the same sense that to relate to poetry is not for everybody: the viewer has to give himself a chance to relate to what he is looking at as Orr writes on ‘Beautiful and Pointless’ (p.XI). The viewer’s ability to relate with a piece is impossible to preview as it is a mixture between the visual art language knowledge that the viewer has and the predisposition that the viewer has to relate with the work. We can conclude that, as Orr states in page XVII of Beautiful and Pointless, ‘it makes little sense to focus on performers when the real difficulty lies in appreciating the context in which performance occurs’ confirming the theory that the responsible for the gap between the viewer and the piece is the language. It is important to think to that there are two possible ways in which the language can create a barrier with the viewer: this can occur because the artist do not use it properly, so the piece does not work by itself, or because the viewer is not familiarised with the visual art language, as the piece implies. Being the language barrier almost impossible to calculate, the artist usually does not count with it while creating the piece. Instead the artist chooses to drive the viewer with the ‘tools’ that he possesses. The artist has a variety of ‘tools’ that can create a sensory dialogue such as, for example, what is visual, what is audible, what is touchable.
The way in which the artist communicates with the viewer starts as a sensory experience, as the viewer is stimulated by the contact with the piece. It does not matter which sense the piece stimulates: the stimulation is always the beginning of the relation between the viewer and the piece, and that relation can become a more conceptual one -a more meaningful oneor can stay sensory -a more language based one. Having the viewer the majority of the interference on the evolution of the relation - in the sense that even if the piece is intended to be conceptual, if the viewer do not reach that kind of relation, that piece do not reach the “conceptual art” state - the artist is usually focused on which is the best way to deliver the piece, using the visual arts language, to make the piece suitable for a dialogue with the spectator. The tools that the artist uses to create a piece, which are part of the visual arts language, have different meanings and will create what will be part of what is sensory on the piece. When Kapoor, while talking about his work, states (2009, Anish Kapoor) ‘It feels like I am not involved, of course I am involved: I have chosen the red, I have made the process, but then I try to leave it anole. The process reveals everything that has to be revealed. In a way I feel I am not trying to say something, but to let it occur’ it is possible to understand the point of view of the maker about the spectator’s relation subject. Kapoor tries to distinguish what he does on the piece and what it could mean to the viewer, which is an attempt to translate the visual art language. This idea of the act of making versus meaning, is part of the artist’s work an it is, as already said, impossible to predict. The problem is still that what the artist wants to ‘say’ can be difficult to be understood by the spectator, and, if so, is as if the artist never wanted to say it in the first place. It is possible to conclude that one of the preoccupations of the artist is the delivery of the piece to the viewer; in another words: everything that is sensory, that will interact with the viewer, has to be thought. Matthew Cain, at ‘An exclusive tour of Anish Kapoor’s studio’, asked Kapoor about the possibilities of abstract sculpture, and Kapoor answered, once again, with the sensory aspects of the work in mind, when he says that he is (2012, Kapoor) ‘interested in abstract art because, I think, his route to meaning is much more poetic’; this implies a recognition of the importance of the viewer and a preoccupation on making the relation between the spectator and the piece work.
It is possible to get in contact with the way used by the artists to work on the viewer’s relation with the piece. Kapoor states that he is interested in abstract pieces because the route to the meaning, on those pieces, is much more poetic; this route is taken by the viewer, the one who is the meaning major establisher. Understanding the power that the relation that the viewer establishes with the work, Kapoor works on it by trying to predict the influence of what is sensory in the piece will have on the relation constructed with the viewer. Another example on how the artists work on this relation is given by Melvin Edwards while talking about the Barbed Wire piece; Edwards stated that (2014, Edwards) ‘the idea of a curtain of course is a place where people enter and exit, but materials like barbed wire implies that maybe you shouldn’t go in there. So you are playing with the metaphors of perception and people’s ideas of where they can go what they can do’. To conclude, on this essay were thought and debated questions related with, at first, the object of art, the piece, and was concluded that it is a route to meaning that it is possible to be taken by the viewer; that can occur if the artist is able to create a piece that communicate with the viewer and if the viewer is able to identify and to relate with the visual art language that was used to create the specific piece. As Dennison Smith states on his article (2016, Smith) ‘art is a dialogue between the artist who makes and the viewer who cherishes’. On the first part of the essay was concluded that the importance of the viewer for a piece to work is essential and, without the relation between the viewer and the piece, it is almost possible to conclude that a piece does not work. This essay was able to identify too that the biggest obstacle on the relation between the viewer and the piece is the language of the visual arts that is composed by the ’tools’ that the artist uses to create the pieces; some examples of this ‘tools’ would be: the composition, the texture, the colour, the line. The gap of information or ability to relate and understand the language of the visual arts existent between the viewer and the artist is one of the questions that should concern the artist while making the piece, as this relation and comprehension of the language by the viewer can be essential to the piece. What this essay was not able to discover was a way to facilitate the relation. It is possible that a piece of art that
communicates in a good way with the majority of the viewers, encounter some spectators that have the predisposition to engage with the piece but that, for any reason, that does not happen; this is always a reality and is this phenomenon that continues to attract artists to the questions thought on this essay. Still, this essay, was able to conclude that working, not for, but with the viewer’s possible relation with the piece in mind and what can or can not facilitate that language exchange, is something useful to the artist as it can improve the piece itself.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Barthes, R – Image Music Text, The Death of the Author, Translated by Stephen Heath, Fonntana Press, 1977 Caro, A - Why Anthony Caro started making abstract sculpture, 2013- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3DPnbYQA90 Edwards, M - Melvin Edwards at Stephen Friedman Gallery, 2014 - https://vimeo.com/114008926 Eliot, T.S. – The Use of Poetry, Faber and Faber Limited, 1933 Glimcer, A - Agnes Martin | TateShots, 2015 - https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=902YXjchQsk Heidegger, M – Basic Writings: Martin Heidegger, The Orijin of the Work of Art, Routledge, 2010 Kapoor, A. - Lisson Gallery First Weekend: Anish Kapoor, 2015 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKNexv2uxRA Kapoor, A - Anish Kapoor (Royal Academy of Arts), 2009 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlnhAqbkhq0 Kapoor, A - An exclusive tour of Anish Kapoor’s studio, 2012https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYtdVQoBDRs Orr, D. – 2011, Beautiful & Pointless, A Guide to Modern Poetry; Harper Collins Publishers. Smith, D - What is Home, 2016 - http://www.thebaldwingallery. com/ideas/what-is-home/
Peer-workshops MA Peer Workshop Proposal Introduction (What is your field of interest? What is your practice-based research question?) Based on my practice, I think that one thing that could be interesting is to see how comfortable people are with the method of destruction of their own drawings to create new images. Aim of the workshop (How does the workshop aim to address or explore the question?) In the workshop, participants will engage with this process. The aim is to get in touch with the pros and counters of this particular technique. Duration: 1h/1:30h Materials: Glue, minimum three drawings (that will be destroyed), drawing materials, at least three sheets of paper (size up to the student). Subject (if appropriate): What is the methodology you need the group to follow? (You can plan as many stages as you wish but be realistic about the timeframe – very often the simpler the exercise is, the easier it is to evaluate its outcomes) 1 - I am asking for at least three drawing. The workshop is divided into three 20 minutes exercises. 2 - In the first exercise the idea is to use one of the drawings. Then proceed to rip it into bits, randomly or aiming to a specific visual objective, and then glue it up on one of the sheets of paper with the objective of creating imagery. After this, the participants can use drawing materials to continuo the work on the image. This process can be repeated as many times as the participant wants. 3 – The second exercise has the same process but using the second drawing. The difference is that it has to be done in pairs.
4 – The third exercise has the same process but using the third drawing. The difference is that it has to be done in small groups. The process can be done several times. There is total freedom on how students use the rapping process in their images, the glue is just a suggestion of technique.
What do you anticipate the results show? (It is your choice if you wish to disclose this fully to the group before the session) The aim is to get the participants in touch with this method of image creation, and hopefully, to become something useful on their own work. How do you plan to capture the results? Film and photography. I’m planning on asking for some feedback from the participant in the end of the workshop. Relevant single artists for this workshop: Mário Rita - http://bloco103.com/mario-rita-desenho-150-x107-cm/ Gustav Metzger - http://radicalart.info/destruction/metzger. html Collaborative duos: Gilbert & George - http://whitecube.com/artists/gilbert_ george/ Christo and Jeanne-Claude- http://christojeanneclaude.net Ilya and Emilia Kabakov - http://www.ilya-emilia-kabakov.com Tim Noble and Sue Webster - http://www.timnobleandsuewebster. com
The concept behind the workshop was to engage the participants with techniques of destruction o their works as part of a process of creation. The participants where invited to destruct some of their works, mainly drawings but where destroyed some prints and photographs too, and then to start to create something with the fragments. There where three exercises on the workshop: the participants where invited to use this destruction process of creation by there own, in pairs and as a group. This exercises where intended to make the participants experience the confrontation of working with other artists. This means that one artist can destruct the works of other and vice versa. The. The collaboration factor was very demanding for the participants as, now a days, the works that one does are usually seen as precious or that demand a certain amount of care, and this process of creating de deconstruct that idea. It was interesting to observe that the majority of the pieces produced on the workshop where abstract. The participants where more concerned on the sensory aspects is the work, such as composition, mark making, tone values and balance, as they where about what they where representing, the meaning. The participants where invited to, while creating the pieces, to, if necessary, draw on the works and destroy the again. This fact that revealed a more useful side of this creation process as the limitations where all is I existent.
Giulia Lanza– Interesting the juxtaposition of what is being draw and the meaning that it has o is own. – Beautiful museum. Yuwei Mao – interesting way to work the idea of narrative into drawing. Shuang Wu – The fact that the frames that we had to draw where divided by all of the group, end up in a interesting result as an animation. Caragh Savage – drawing what the memory was able to memorise when we looked to the subject. Andrew Youngson– Personally I find fascinating the visual information on the second world war because, as Portugal wasn’t involved, I this the first time that I was able to see in life. Ray Radnell– The interaction that what we hear has on the drawing that we are doing. – Portrait/representation of the sound. Rachel Bacon– Very useful. – Draw/plan/clear our thought and our work. – The final exercise was very useful as it becomes a note book on a single piece of paper. This makes it more accessible.