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Thresholds, Online Exhibition Review

@ MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

At the start of the year we were fresh-faced, coming into a new decade our planners were full and the air was ripe with potential. Then we entered the period of uneasiness, stuck at home not knowing what was going to happen next, our plans stifled; the places we once went for enjoyment and culture were shut and at risk of closing for good. In this period of uncertainty, we connected to the outside world via our screens, seeing family and friends in unfocused zoom calls and trying to figure out the best impromptu office space to work from home in. We spent more time in our domestic spaces, saw into the domestic worlds of our peers, lines were crossed as our domestic spaces became where we entertained friends, where we worked and where we also relaxed on top of everything. Our relationships with our homes we re-written as we adapted to our new way of living through a pandemic.

Throughout lockdown, art spaces jumped to create online exhibitions right away and created a plethora of virtual exhibits some newly made others pre-planned exhibits put into a computer manufactured gallery space or a video tour like Tate Modern’s Andy Warhol exhibit. Comparatively, Thresholds curator Adian Moesby, who is currently working as MIMA’s associate curator during his residency, took time to reflect on the changes made to our relationship with home during lockdown and the easing of restrictions which is where this current virtual exhibition is born out of. Moesbys practice is ‘under pinned through conversation’ (Adian Moesby – About, 2020) which he utilises in the curation of this exhibit through in-depth conversations he had with Sonia Boué, Lindsey Duncanson and Catriona Gallagher, the three artists that make up Thresholds. The exhibit connects these artists together through a mix of photography and film to communicate their personal stories and experiences with lockdown and the impact Covid-19 had on their relationship to home. Made at a time of easing restrictions Thresholds asks us to evaluate our feelings and connections towards our homes and the places we inhabit at a time where restrictions are tightening up once again and we will inevitably be spending more time there.

Clicking through to the exhibit PDF you are confronted with a low-res still from Catriona Gallagher's ‘Video Villanelle (for distance)’ (2020), a twilight sky setting up the transient mood that prevails throughout the exhibit. Scrolling down you are introduced to Sonias Boué’s ‘Safe as Houses’ (2020) 12 photos documenting her move to her new studio space which she moved into during the transitional period of lockdown. Set against a white backdrop each new photo exists on its own page and explores a plethora of objects which Boué takes with her for each new move; from childhood items such as a rocking horse to an exhaust pipe situated on its own rickety looking chair, these hold a personal connection to the artist. ‘Safe as Houses’ shares a close relationship to much of Boué’s practice where she ‘explores home and the domestic as metaphors for exile and displacement’ (Sonia Boue, 2020) with much of her work focusing on post-memory the idea of connection to the past and the generational trauma that continues to affect the lives of future generations seen most clearly in her work responding to the Spanish Civil war. Boué presents this within Thresholds in the specifically tailored striped pyjamas featured in a quarter of the photographs that connect not only to the new casualwear of lockdown but is reminiscent of the clothes her grandparents were forced to wear during their time in concentration camps. In one they sit folded on a wooden chair set to the right of the frame; the room dim with a square of light reflected in from a window in the empty space. Boués photos mark the space of time from childhood to adulthood and the period of moving. The photographs and the diverse objects we see serve as an exploration into what home means to us, the things we carry through with us through childhood into our adult lives and how we make a space a home.

Sonia Boué, 'Safe as Houses', 2020.

Where Sonia Boué travels through memories and explores the past, Lindsey Duncansons piece ‘Brief loss’ (2020) studies the repetitive stagnation of life during lockdown. The three greyscale film vignettes feature next to each through a triptych; filmed within Duncanson's own flat it reveals a very personal side to the artist and invites us into her own domestic space that she shares with her family. The film is notably different from the rest of Duncanson's work which usually feature sublime picturesque outdoor scenes with plenty of colour whereas in this piece she has swapped out the rolling hills of the moors of Stanhope for the cosy interiors of home. This reversal exemplifies the loss, change and confinement that lockdown brought, Duncanson can no longer explore the landscapes around Newcastle upon Tyne and so she has adapted to her new situation and uses her home as a landscape to explore instead. Titled ‘Brief Loss’ the piece carries with the emotional effects of lockdown and displays the monotonous nature of life that occurred when we could no longer go out to experience life outside our homes. Within the scene Duncanson sits crouched in the centre of the triptych, walled in by a row of plants and a bookcase she’s seemingly lost in thought, occasionally picking a book out and flipping through it before resuming her previous position, there is a quiet comforting presence to the piece, on either side of Duncanson her partner, in the left-hand panel, and son, in the right, sit in their own respective rooms, her partner rests comfortably on an armchair occasionally living his mug while her son sits at his desk drawing while a screen flickers out of signal next to him. The whole scene has a dreamlike quality to it with the comfortable atmosphere alongside the ambient sound and the black and white filter and in each doorway behind the subjects exists projections of the outside, with pond skaters skipping over water, the ripples and reflections of clouds, and star-like moving foam. Duncanson combines the domestic with the outside showing our dreams of being free once again and escape this monotony that we’ve fallen into.

The final piece of Thresholds isn’t confined to the comforts of home or one space instead it travels through memories, moments and landscapes. Home isn’t one pace for most of us but for Catriona Gallagher she works and lives between Northumberland and Athens ana through ‘Video Villanelle (for distance)’ (2020) she ‘explores her sense of dislocation’ (MIMA-Thresholds-Exhibition.pdf, 2020) from being stuck in England while trying to navigate the travel restrictions throughout summer to return to Greece. The aptly named 17-minute film follows the a, b rhyme structure -like that of a traditional villanelle poem- comprised of short snippets of footage with repeating motifs not too different from the structure of a stanza. The footage feels as though you are being invited into Gallagher's life, it’s a documentation of scenes with friends, with so warm sparkling candles on a birthday cake and to late-night bicycle rides, to rain pouring outside of a window and Gallagher's reflection in the window of a train the landscape rushing by while you hear mindless chatter in the background. Sound plays an interesting role in this film with most of it coming from the footage though you can hear music from Magic Arm ebbing and flowing through that perfectly ties the clips together. There is a sense of reminiscing over what life used to be with clips featuring a close-knit group of people and scene of the Greece coastline this is starkly contrasted to the reality of uncertainty as to when life will return to normal. The film is set in portrait mode with a somewhat low-quality feel to it due to the footage being taken entirely from existing videos from Gallagher's phone archive. It comprises of videos sent to friends or keepsakes as Jade French puts it ‘this footage was never intended to be art’ (French, 2020) which give it an intensely personal feel as if we are walking through her memories. ‘Video Villanelle’ focuses on the small moments, the subtle experiences in life and though the footage is fragmented it still carries the same focus on overlooked details in our physical spaces and ambient wistful nature that Gallagher's work holds. Gallagher uses this piece to reflect on their experience of lockdown and looks at how our phones connect while improvising with the limited tools she had available as she did with ‘They met under the ceiling of sky’ (2020) which then went on to the official selection in the Laterale Film Festival in 2020.

Catriona Gallagher, Stills from ‘Video Villanelle (for distance)’, 2020

Over the summer we have been overrun with the many virtual exhibits and Thresholds taking place after utilises the online space to its best potential. Having been commissioned to be a virtual exhibition it uses photography and film which are familiar to the online space rather than creating pieces tailored to a physical space. Through working online there’s a variety of different experimental formats to use over a simple pdf format however this way it encourages a non-art audience to take part through being simple, it becomes relatable for a wider range of people which Moseby advocates for having curated public events to specifically engage those audiences.

Thresholds subliminally speaks on the visibility of the disabled community in the art world. Curator Aidan Moseby closely works within the disability and diversity sector having been commissioned by and worked for companies such as Disability Arts Online and DASH which this exhibition is partnered with. The setup and extra care with subtitled and audio described versions for each film make this exhibition more accessible the usual cases. Where other galleries are immediately setting up shop in their physical spaces' as lockdown eased Thresholds doesn’t, it makes a statement that we can’t forget that the move to virtual during lockdown made art spaces more accessible to the disabled community. Art spaces have long been exclusive and inaccessible but with the lockdown when non-disabled people no longer had the means to visit gallery spaces that suddenly changed. It showed that galleries had little excuse for doing this before with the ease and speed in which they transferred their exhibitions online. Even having a virtual floor plan makes it more accessible as they ‘act as a helpful tool to plan trips and relieve anxiety for disabled art audiences’ (Kroese, 2020) referencing 3d art space floor plans.’. Thresholds subliminally makes a statement through being set after many galleries have shut their online exhibits and have opened their doors again through quietly having accessible versions of artworks. There is much change that needs to happen in the art world in making it more accessible to a wider range of people and lockdown has presented these options that we can and should learn from to aid us in the future.

Thresholds invades your domestic space as you visit it through the comforts of your own home through the ambient sound of Gallagher's work and personal memorabilia of Boués photographs. It looks at how the pandemic has changed our relationship to our domestic spaces, how confined we've become and how the virtual space can connect us. As lockdown has pushed and eased our homes have become multi-functional places, we continue to reflect on the change our lives have gone through and think about our connection to the people we surround ourselves with. Though through this we need to see the visibility of disabled people in the arts and how the small start that was ignited during lockdown needs to continue to help keep places accessible to the many rather than the few.

Thresholds can be found here.

Bibliography

Mima.art. 2020. MIMA-Thresholds-Exhibition.Pdf. [online] Available at: <https://mima.art/wp-content/themes/mima-wp/media/MIMA-Thresholds-Exhibition.pdf> [Accessed 21 October 2020].

French, J., 2020. Thresholds. [online] Corridor8. Available at: < https://corridor8.co.uk/article/thresholds/ > [Accessed 22 October 2020].

Aidan Moseby. 2020. About. [online] Available at <https://www.aidanmoesby.co.uk/contact-us/ > [Accessed 22 October 2020]

Duncanson, L (2020) ‘Quarry’, Blue Topgraphy, 27 January. Available at: < https://bluetopography.blogspot.com/2020/01/quarry.html> (Accessed 23 October 2020)

Kroese, I., 2020. Emerging Accessibility: Post-viral programming and disabled audiences. [online] Corridor8. Available at: < https://corridor8.co.uk/article/emerging-accessibility-post-viral-programming-and-disabled-audiences/> [Accessed 23 October 2020]video

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So you’ve got a History of Art Degree. What now?

Our last session together. We were separated but still going strong. 

Today’s session was about telling us what we can do with our degree when we leave University because on the face of it when you tell people you are taking an Art History degree you become face to face with two reactions a) Oh Art and history, interesting (which you then have to say no the history of art) and b) So what are you going to do with that? 

As usual, we had some outside help with us in the form of Lauren Velvick an Art History graduate who now works for Corridor 8 as well as other projects which she discussed with us. It was very helpful to hear Lauren's perspective and what she did coming out of Uni as it was reassuring to hear there were different paths we can take and different things we can do with our degree and how she navigated leaving Uni. James and Gabriela’s inputs as usual were also very helpful.

Moving on we talked more broadly about the pitfalls and general problems with working in the art world and how really if you’re not some high up then money will be somewhat of an issue. We spoke about volunteering and the issue that many internships or art placement jobs you either will not get paid for or will be paid very little meaning that more likely than not you’ll be working jobs on the side. But truthfully I think this is an issue with arts funding in general as many art spaces are small time places which rely on funding and don’t really have money to spare because they aren’t getting that much in the first place.

On that note though volunteering is a good thing to do, simply for the experience because it’s important to have that experience up your sleeve which is why the main advice from today’s session was to just go to things. Go to those exhibitions, listen to those talks, talk to those artists because you’ll never know what you’ll get out of them but it will be something. You’ll have something to talk about, you’ll come out with that experience so you know how to exist in the art world. Currently personally I feel like I’m just dipping my toes in, I’m not quite fully enclosed in the art world yet I’m on the edges and all I have to do is take that step.

It’s obvious that both James and Gabriela have been helping us throughout this module so we know how to go about working within the art world. This has been an introduction that I will aim to continue on my own through going to exhibitions events reading about art that is being created today. Overall this module has been my highlight of the semester it’s been extremely fulfilling to visit so many artist studios getting not only the experience to talk to them but to see how they work and how they navigate the art world. Meeting so many people and hearing their opinions and experiences has truly opened my eyes and inspired me to do more and learn more.

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The Virtual art world: Real talk about the Art World in a Pandemic

Week 1 of lockdown and week 2 of video lectures, this time all of us used our camera and it was unexpectedly less awkward then I thought it was going to be. 

Our theme this week was the virtual art world. We had three guest speakers, Ryan and Andy from the Convenience who we had met before, and Katy Morrison who runs the PINK Gallery in Manchester. This week was going to be when our Manchester trip was going to take place but like a lot of things, it is no longer due to lockdown. 

Our session started with our own research into the different virtual exhibitions that are happening right now in the art world. Due to corvid-19 everywhere has had to adapt, many turning to the online world to keep their projects running. We looked at a number of virtual exhibitions, some ranging from full Virtual reality tours of gallery spaces to pictures of the artworks in the exhibition, which is what OUTPUT has been doing on their Instagram. Though many galleries have suddenly produced these virtual exhibitions and tours, virtual exhibitions started years before and there are even virtual galleries that exist purely online. I find this all pretty cool considering I’ve grown up with technology it doesn’t seem like a massive stretch for art to find a big platform online; it feels like a natural evolution to the art world. I don’t think these online exhibitions will ever take away from the physical spaces they will just become another sect in the art world and when most of us live online it definitely keeps the current art world more relevant to those who aren’t necessarily living that world 24/7. It also makes a lot of art more accessible for those who can’t physically go to galleries and exhibitions which is a big thing that people are looking for these days.  

Katy went on to discuss PINK and the formation of that and how this week was going to be an opening so she had many bottles of wine that sadly was not going to be used. This led to our discussion about smaller places and independent artist-led spaces and how they are and will cope with the pandemic. Because smaller places rely on funding and that means they need people to go visit their projects and exhibitions to get that funding in place and with no other source of money they are at risk. Especially when places are trying to cement a future for themselves, with The Convenience they were just about to start this big project for the year and are having to adapt like many places are. 

A lot of what we talked about was using the online space to continue projects and create an online platform. It was interesting to hear everyone’s view about using social media because I always think that nearly everyone has a social media, especially spaces and art groups because it’s a great way to to get out there but by the sounds of it it’s not always everyone's priority. Which understandably is changing as places are having to learn to move online and adapt to stay relevant in the pandemic. Though I think we all agreed that it’s a great way to stay connected to each other and is a great way to connect with artists who don’t always check their emails. 

Overall this meeting was very invigorating, it was fun to hear everyone’s opinions and what they were doing moving forward within these times. I love having these conversations with people working in the art world because they always seem to be so interesting and I learn so much. As Katy said we can take this free time to work on our selves and take time to figure things out that we’ve been putting off which is definitely the mindset I’ll be having moving forward.  

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Blackpool Trip in Pictures

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Art by the sea with a side of high winds

Our big overnight trip was upon us, all packed and ready to go we set off on from Lime-Street station to Blackpool.  

It was a dark and blustery night as if the weather didn’t know whether to rain or storm. We hurried along the dark empty streets huddled together to help with the wind. There was an uneasiness in the air that comes from being in a seaside town during any time that’s not summer, especially on a Wednesday night. We passed the dark expanse that is the sea and eventually made it to the Art B&B, a beacon of warmth and light in the dark night.  

Everything inside was thought through, the lights, the wall decorations, the chairs. It all felt inviting and to say the least, artsy. We were given a tour of our rooms which felt like a treasure hunt with the prize being each new room. Places like these make me think ‘of course why isn’t this a normal thing?’ artists designing rooms, rooms each being individual, it’s an experience that is enriching and extremely fun, especially for me who chose the reading room. It was a dream staying in there, there were so many books that I wanted to get lost in (and a good few I did). Our window had a yellow glow that made you feel as if you were in a fallout shelter and the sun was burning up outside but in a cosy kind of way.

That evening we went out for food at a seaside restaurant. All getting exquisite cocktails we sat under the blue lights around our little marble table talking. Though we were there for the food we were also sheltering from the extreme wind and rain happening outside. Later we went for a few drinks at the local spoons which was reasonably empty and chatted about school, alternative names and reminisced on the past. On the walk back we hurried to stop ourselves from being blown away by the wind and settled in ready to sleep for what Thursday would bring.

Us on our room tour.

Up nice and early the next morning we said goodbye to the lovely B&B and set off towards our brunch spot. Galivanting around Blackpool during the day was the opposite of the night. It was all blues and whites, early bustling streets and welcoming shop fronts but it still had that melancholy of a summer tourist town not in summer. At our brunch stop, we met Garth Gratrix and all bunched around some long tables and made our picks of the range of breakfast items available. We played a little connect four while waiting and after our bellies were full, we furthered our journey into Blackpool’s art scene. Following Garth, we made our way to Abingdon Studios, an old non-descript building around the centre of Blackpool and made our way (unsurprisingly by this point) up a somewhat cramped and somewhat dangerous stairway. The studios were different but still had the same energy as other artist-led studios we had visited before.  

Our conversation with Garth opened my eyes to being a practising artist in a place that isn’t quite an art centre like Liverpool is. Though studio space is cheaper, there isn’t as many organisations or places to turn to which is part of what Garth was trying to change in Blackpool, make it more of a cultural centre for arts, bringing more artists in and making it known to the rest of the country. He showed us around the space and spoke about how the studios started up and some about his work which we were going to see later.  

And later we did. After talking for a while we walked towards Blackpool's art gallery: The Grundy and after entering the space walked up the stairs to Garth's exhibition: Shy Girl. My first thought was mostly is this all there is? And until walking forwards with all of us standing around the square opening I didn’t truly experience the work. Garth spoke a lot about the thought behind the work and how he uses colour and measurements so his work holds a lot of meaning that I think on the outlook you don’t see but after talking with Garth it made the work feel so much more than what I first saw.  

Us following Garth up the stairs at The Grundy

Similarly, after speaking to many of the people we’ve met in the arts there is a sense of inspiration and a feeling that things also need to change and get better. This mini trip was very rewarding and really I can’t believe it’s almost the end of the semester. *Big sigh*

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More Art in Liverpool: FACT Edition

So today‘s expedition was to FACT, a place I’ve walked past many times but I’ve only been inside for a couple of visits. We all met at the gallery, some of us getting a little lost on the way but we all managed to settle into the foyer with ease. And, after a little chit chat, we all squished into Fact’s elevator to the staff floor and were ushered into a conference room where we met two of their team members.

FACT street view

Through the conversation, each member spoke about how they became involved in FACT and a bit about what they do within their role. They then went on to discuss some of the ongoing work that FACT is currently doing. I found FACT very different from the other places we have visited before, not only was the kind of work they are doing at FACT different, but their approach felt different. To me, FACT felt as though it was in the middle between an indie artist-led gallery and the well-known bigger galleries. It’s definitely a place with its own theme and priories, their whole thing is art and technology using both together and to complement each other, meaning that a lot of their exhibitions are different from what you would see in other places.  

At the time we were visiting FACT was between exhibitions so there wasn’t one we could go see but we were shown one of their previous exhibitions that uses virtual reality. It was a form of community-led artwork which I hadn’t come across before, the notion of using communities to help create an artwork rather than simply one artist creating a piece. It was something I wouldn’t think of existing. The artwork was a video that you would watch in VR (though we all watched it together on the screen) and was inspired from Red dead redemption gameplay. The whole concept to me was kind of bizarre but it was interesting to know that things like that are being created as it widened my mind to all the different forms of art that are being created today.

We had a little break after the talk and the VR headset was passed around so we could watch the video though I declined, mainly because I had gone to an exhibition at the Bluecoat with a virtual reality headset that jump scared me with a shark so I’ve been kind of apprehensive about both sharks and VR headsets since that. It was nice to ask questions though through and after our break and chat to those working at FACT to see what working in an art institution is like and how they got to those positions and what they were doing before.  

Overall, I came to the conclusion that FACT is a more unconventional gallery, focusing on not only exhibiting art but also in helping artists to create art while also helping people to connect and engage with technology.

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Art in Liverpool: Indie edition

Another week looking at art institutions in Liverpool this week, OUTPUT and the Convenience Gallery, both small-time places that are looking to help the artist community within Merseyside.  

The day was a bit drizzly as I set off towards OUTPUT, I was also rushing as I left a tad late, but I made it in time albeit a little out of breath. I had been especially looking forward to visiting OUTPUT after hearing Gabrielle de la Puente’s talk a couple weeks ago. Though I’d walked past the space many times I never had the courage to go in purely because it’s such a small space it made me a little anxious to go in on my own. The space isn’t also as big as I imagined it was when seeing pictures previously. There’s a small vintage store in the front as you walk and then the exhibition space. We took our time to look at Output open 4, the current exhibition before moving into the back room, a small industrial space with a bar at the back and stage at the front The walls were dark and we all sat on mismatched chairs as Gabriella sat crossed legged in front of us on the stage. It’s was a cool space, there were thin lights stretched across the ceiling which we found out were actually video’s being sent across making a light show.

After we were all eventually settled Gabriella told us about her background doing a fine art degree and how she found her way into writing about art over doing art within the White Pube. This then led to the creation of OUTPUT which she runs independently. Gabriella’s story is definitely inspiring, staring up an art writing website with a friend to running a whole gallery space. And OUTPUT does a lot, from putting on a new exhibition every 2 weeks meaning a lot gets shown in a year and amongst doing other things such as crit groups and meetings with artists and communicating, it’s a lot for one person and is pretty impressive. After talking about setting up OUTPUT and future plans we moved on to discuss the art scene in Liverpool. Over the weeks we have visited many places in and out of Liverpool though not being intimately involved in those lives it’s hard to get a full scope on what it’s like to be a working artist in Liverpool. Gabriella made it clear that a lot of the bigger places like The Bluecoat and Fact though they are based in Liverpool don’t really help artists within Liverpool meaning that many artists feel the need to move away to actually get noticed. Alongside this these places only have a small number of exhibitions a year and all follow the same kind of theme, whereas when looking through OUTPUT and their past exhibitions they use work from artists within Mersyside helping them to exhibit their work within Liverpool.

OUTPUT Gallery exterior 

After this enlightening experience we had a lunch break, went to McDonald's, then all met back up at the central station, this time with James in tow. Our next stop was the Convenience gallery situated in Birkenhead and after a short train journey and a quick walk, we had arrived.  

Before this module, I hadn’t heard of the Convenience Gallery, though after visiting I definitely want to go back to see all the things that they have going on. The space is within a warehouse with tables and chairs and a bar when you first walk in. There were colourful hanging tassels, bounties stung across above us and colourful posters on the walls for events gone by. We met with Ryan Gauge and Andy Shaw and made our way past some beach hut offices and up the stairs into the small gallery space. As they were currently setting up a new exhibition there were sculptures lying around and a few artworks hung up around us as we huddled together in a little semi-circle. Similar to our visit to OUTPUT we learnt about the creation of the Convenience gallery and how it moved into this space and how both Ryan and Andy came to run it together.

After a while, the rain became very heavy on the metal roof and we couldn’t really hear each other so we moved downstairs into their conference room. All huddled around the long table our conversation turned more into the issues with the art community in Merseyside and the lack of opportunity there is for artists even though we have all these art spaces and galleries. We touched on how music-wise it’s easier but art-wise it’s much more difficult and there could be so much more done to help the artist by the bigger industries.

I’ve found that there’s a lot that can be improved and through talking to everyone we met it seems to be the consensus. So much can be done in and around Liverpool to help artists practising there so that they don’t have to move out to exhibit or be known but instead can stay and help to progress Liverpool’s art culture further.

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Leeds trip in Photos

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Art! Adventure! and..Train...Delays

Our first big external trip was to Leeds and we had a very fulfilling and eventful day.  

First, we had the familiar (to me) 1 hour Journey to Leeds after meeting up at the station. I for one was interested in the rest of Leeds as I’d become very familiar with the station after moving up to Liverpool but had never ventured into the city itself. We then met up with James there and set off, it was at this point I brought my camera out and began the photographing.

Our first stop wasn’t very far from the station though walking down the streets of Leeds was fun in its own right. Soon we arrived at the Henry Moore Institute, home of all things sculpture and after depositing our things behind the counter we got a comprehensive tour of their current exhibition Edward Alligtons ‘Things Unsaid’. The exhibition was interesting in that it had a lot of different artworks that weren’t easily connected. I liked it though, the involvement of metal and more technological sculptures amongst the classical and mythological themes had a nice juxtaposition to it. Everyone who worked there was super friendly as well and I felt like I could ask anything if only I could think of questions which became a running theme for the rest of the day. There were so many great places we went today but I especially loved the library and archive upstairs in the institute, it was so cosy and though not massive you could definitely spend days looking through all of their collection.

Walking across the bridge to Leeds Art Gallery

Our next stop was a short staircase and bridge away, it was the Leeds art Gallery which I think has been my favourite gallery I’ve visited so far simply because of the range of artworks they had. From contemporary to pre 20th century they had a lot to look at and I felt like I could spend a whole day there. We then had a lunch break in the café downstairs which had the most amazing tiles and I put my camera away to give it a little rest.

After the lunch break, we set off on towards East Street Arts, through this walk, we traversed through Leeds and saw the change in area from the high rise buildings and shops to the abandoned buildings and shut up shops which became more apparent as we walked towards where we were headed. We were seeing the change that happened because of gentrification and it wasn’t as subtle as I thought it was going to be. After me running after the group a few times after getting a bit behind because I kept taking photos, we found our way to the studios and on the way, James also pointed out his old studios. Going into East Arts it was immediately apparent that it was very from other places we’d visited before. East Streets is a company that have places all across the UK and they had their own office space and then they had studios and you could definitely see the change that happened when you could own your own building. A lot of smaller independently artist-run organizations don’t have this opportunity which we would see a few differences later on at Surf. It was also interesting seeing the difference in the studio's forum what we see later as the rooms were very organised and closed off from each other while still being around other artists. It was clear that the people working in the organisation and high aspirations for what the company can bring to the art world and to local artists. It’s great to know that these independent places are that start small can grow into something more and can become reliable to both themselves and the artists working there. Exploring the old nunnery was also very fun.

Our next stop The Tetley was interspersed with a few photoshoots on bridges, though we got a lot of very cute photos from it. By this point, we were all a little worn out and with languid steps, we wandered around the Tetley. This space was different in itself in that the building consisted of small rooms connected by small archways, not the big high ceilings you are used to from gallery spaces. We were also kinda mesmerised by a tightrope walker bringing paintings across a steep cliff who you were in constant fear of falling.

The next stop was another studio space – Serf. This space was open and artsy and I think most like what I now expect artist studios to be like. The roof wasn’t perfect and it was permanently cold. But the space was open, being artist-led it was a lot like how the art school studios were which was that there were people to talk to a little space to chat. It was nice in there with plants everywhere, everyone was super friendly and I kinda wanted to stay forever. It was very informational to see the difference between Serf and East Street Arts especially with them not owning the building they spoke about the difficulty with getting an escalator in to make it more accessible and how they made the space their own into what it is today.

Us in Serf

By this point all of us were pretty exhausted, James took us all to the oldest Pub in Leeds which was packed but I didn’t mind that much as it was still cosy. We sat outside and chatted for a while before James had to go and meet his friend. We then made our way to spoons and had dinner before leaving and finding out our train was cancelled which then led to us going to the stations' spoons for deserts and another drink while also introducing Gabriella to Horrible histories. It was a long day as our first trip out of Liverpool it was extraordinarily fun and I definitely will go back to Leeds.

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Contemporary Art & the Writing World

Today finding our new room was easier, at least I found an easier route than the one I had taken before. All settled in, windows wide open, water bottles out we began the discussion. Today’s topic: writing about contemporary art.  

I instinctively knew that there must be a lot of contemporary art writers and magazines though I think I was still surprised by the amount of them we were shown, most of which I had not heard of before. Both James and Gabriella had brought some of their own magazines and books with them so we could have a look through them which I immensely enjoyed doing. The majority of them were really nice to flip through, even if you weren’t reading them they all had that artistic flair that made them pleasant to look at and absorb. At the same time, it was a lot. A lot of new artists and art that I hadn’t seen before that made me want to write down everything I saw to look up later. Though the look of these magazines had a lot to do with what we discussed.  

Meaning that the majority of writers of the art world have in some way been educated in the arts, whether they come from a fine art background or art history like us. The writer knows and understands how the art world works most of the time, understand what it is like to be an artist and the difficulties that come along with that which is important to understand if you write in art, and we most likely will at some point in our lives. What I took away is that the more time we spend with and around artists the more we will understand and that we should try as much as possible to visit and talk to artists and try out art, especially while we have the resources to do so while at University. We should do more of like we did last week, visit artist studios, talk to artists and also we were suggested going and doing induction courses at the many different artistic areas the Uni has to offer.

We also did this fun exercise where we grabbed a few of the books and magazines and went round the group opening a random page and reading out a word or sentence we were first drawn to. It was fun to hear all the odd out of context sentences people were finding and made me think about a lot of the ‘lexicon’ of art writing. Now, from reading through more art websites and the magazines available in the library there is a definitive voice that comes along with art writing that honestly I find hard to understand. It’s a very educated voice that comes with a lot of fancy and arguably unnecessary words that I have been collecting for our big sheet of words. I think that’s why when we were shown The White Pube I was drawn to it because it’s language is much easier to understand and it’s clear cut and doesn’t have time for any floral language.  

So with today’s lecture, we looked over the different ways of writing about contemporary art and really the knowledge you need behind what it’s like to create art to be able to successively write about it. We also touched on the difference between writing about historic art and writing about contemporary art. Where now writers evaluate and criticise, have to research into the artist and see the context surrounding their art. Whereas when writing about historic art though there is a lot of research behind it it’s more focused on examining and finding out the meanings and story in the artwork. Which I believe makes sense and when talking about contemporary art it’s current and in today’s age, we like to talk a lot about what things bring to the world what they are saying about the world which we can’t quite do the same with historic art because it wasn’t made today. Yes, we can draw connections but artists today seem to have a sense of responsibility to give something to the world so it’s only understandable that art writers are going to analyse and critique this.  

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New Tech: The Machine and Mechanical Reproduction

 The final lecture of the semester! With special guest: Kipling’s Frosty Fancies

Cue The Final Countdown.

Our last lecture today was in the afternoon instead of the morning like it usually is as we were scheduled for a Christmas quiz but sadly it was cancelled.  However, this lecture more than made up for it as it was very intriguing for me. I’d looked into the Italian Futurists during my A-levels though I never knew there was a similar movement in the UK: The Vorticists which is who we looked at today alongside the Futurists as well as the influence of machine and war on the art world and film.

These two movements feel very intense when looking at their art and reading their manifestos. It’s all about war and speed and movement and breaking down everything to create a new start. It’s almost frightening to think that these people actively wanted war to happen as they believed it would be for the best for the world a restart button almost and then war did happen and it changed the world though not in the way they believed it was going to.

Helen Saunders ‘ Abstract Multicoloured Design’ (1915)

I think what draws me into this theme so much is that all this technology that we are so used to today was so new and had just started to integrate itself into society so they had all these ideas about what technology would be like in the future and how human and machine would coincide, including the prospect of humans becoming mechanised which we looked at today. I think also it’s similar to how the Romantics looked back to the simple time of their idyllic landscapes we look back now to the early 20th century at the beginnings of technology in the same quaint way, it was simple compared to the all-encompassing role machine plays in our lives today. 

The main takeaways I got from this lecture were that machinery greatly influenced society in Europe and that can be seen within these movements. It revolutionised how people thought and saw the world, you can still see this happening today with all developments happening so quickly in technology, we don’t know when to stop. 

But as always this lecture was very in-depth and I have felt that with all of Emma’s lectures; I learn so much and are introduced to so many new things. This I think is why I like these lectures as they always made me want to go research further and discover more.

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Artist Talk - Jorge Menna Barreto

The final artist talk took place today and our speaker was Jorge Menna Barreto who is currently working in Europe on leave from the university he works at in Rio. Compared to previous artist lectures Barreto focused on one project rather than many different ones, and I think this enabled him to go deep into the project and explain all the ins and outs of it. As Barreto is working on the Liverpool Biennial he mainly discussed a project he did for a previous Biennial with the overarching theme of site-specific artwork and how when creating a food forest for his project he worked around the space the Biennial was located in. 

The whole talk, however, was quite interesting, it wasn’t as engaging as some of the other talks but I think that’s because it was more factual information than different kinds of art. Though the subject matter was really interesting to learn about as I hadn’t heard of food forests before but they sound like a good alternative to monoculture farming that doesn’t take up as much land and allows for natural growth in plants without any chemicals being involved. I think also the whole art project being this food forest and then the restaurant at the biennial is a really interesting area of art that I hadn’t thought about before, focusing on an area of everyday life such as agriculture and using that as an art form rather than creating a whole new structure or idea.

Another nice thing about the talk that I liked was when he talked about how food has a story. With the food they were making at the restaurant in the Biennial it was all menu-ed according to what was harvested at that particular time as an example he said once they were serving food items that had 9 different types of banana. I think overall the talk was a really good topic to learn about and opened my eyes to many different ways of not only art but food production.

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Charles Sheeler (1883-1965), Golden Gate, 1955. Oil on canvas.

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The City & Art

So today’s overarching fear was the Tate Presentations that we had at 2, which I felt prepared for and low-key excited about, the nerves didn’t really kick in until 5 minutes for I’m about to present which all in all is extremely helpful. On a different note our penultimate lecture in the introduction to art history module today was looking over a similar topic to our Tuesday 'Art in the City’ Lectures so some of it was recapping what we’d already learnt but much of it was new information. 

We looked across different cities, starting with Paris and looked at the changing view of the city within art how before the city and modern life wouldn’t be seen to have any intellectual depth in it but now with modernisation, artists were focusing on this change. As we’ve talked about previously with Julie Hausmannisation played a big role in the changing nature of cities, the displacement of many people all for the betterment for those with power. But what we hadn’t looked at before was this step away from holistic lives and introduction of different sections in cities which we are so used to now, having to travel place to place even in one city, back then was new. Which birthed the idea of the flâneur. 

Claude Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare (or Interior View of the Gare Saint-Lazare, the Auteuil Line), 1877

We also looked at the negative effect industrialisation and modernisation had on art, though people had more leisure time many new art movements saw cities as superficial and dangerous places which makes sense. I think the radically evolving technology in cities must be unnerving for many as it’s new and different and has many possibilities. And many people were enjoying these new advantages without thinking of the troubles that could arise from them.

Moving into New York, which after the war became the new centre of the art world, we looked into architecture and symbols that they hold for people such as the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building which became these symbols of America, that’s what America was and this allowed people to have a sense of identity especially after the war where many immigrants moved to America and felt lost.

The Chrysler Building

We also looked at the futuristic aspects of these newly emerging skylines as well as the psyche within cities, how though they’re full of people many still feel alone or isolated. It’s easy to get lost amongst everything in a city and a lot of art showcases it such as Edward Hopper. Cities are these great oxymorons, they’re places of wonder and so many different cultures and things happening but they’re also where there’s poverty and mass homelessness. They’re humanity given form, our mirrors and I think that is what makes them such great and disastrous places. 

 Edward Hopper, Automat, 1927 

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Patricia MacKinnon-Day & Roy Claire Potter

So the penultimate artist talk was upon us. Today was two staff members, Roy Claire Potter and Patricia Mackinnon who I’d heard of when we visited her Calling Sheds which are currently at the Tate Exchange. I always like to see how the speakers approach their lectures, approach the prompt Rory has given them and today was no different though you do notice a more distinct difference between the lectures when they follow each other rather than when they’re a week apart.

Roy Claire Potters work was different to what I’d seen before though the whole idea of ‘restricted methods of production and material’ made sense once you saw the work. Overall their work felt very personal and intimate and in some ways hard to watch because of the intimate nature but also due to the restricted methods making it harder for them that all in all made you want to help them as they performed. I did like the many aspects of the work though such as how one part of it was the written piece then you had the performance aspect of it that would mean that every time it was performed it would be different.

 One idea that Potter touched on that spoke to me was the idea of Power dynamics and the undercutting of the idea of confidence which made me think of power dynamics in art between the viewer and artworks, the viewer and the artist. Another would be the mention that they have started to do more closing events than opening events as it’s a less celebratory audience and people will often come to see the work more than whatever ‘festivities are going on’. 

Comparatively Mackinnon had a different approach to her lecture there was a bit of backstory, with her past work then  

I always appreciate the different tid-bits about what it’s like to work in the art-world how things are manoeuvred and the truth about what goes on in galleries and different sorts of art spaces. Such as when Roy Claire talked about funding that it will often be outside sources that will fund a project or galleries and how art is sometimes created for a specific exhibition rather than on the fly as I imagine it is.

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Globalisation & Emerging Cities

The last lecture of the module! 

So today was the last lecture for this module, it was also the hand in date for our posters so that’s one bit of stress unloaded although next week we have their presentations which are evidently hovering at the back of everyone's minds. Julie, however, is very good at calming everyone's nerves as she explained what will go on and how it won’t be as scary as we all are imagining it to be. I think after our Tate presentations it’ll be like a breath of fresh air.

Moving on with the lecture it was shorter today then it normally is but I’m sure everyone who stayed up late to finish their posters was happy with that. As the title suggests we moved on from looking at single cities and are looking instead at a small range of newly emerging cities and the part globalization had on that. We talked about the many features of a city that enable it to become great epicenters and how art factors into that such as how Galleries and art in general can help to build culture, turn the economy for the better and educate the population. And then we looked at real-life examples of this happening such as in Dubai and Shanghai which are two of the fastest emerging cities in the world. We also discussed how colonisation has affected other counties and how their cultural heritage has basically been stolen away from them meaning they while others have been given a head start they’ve been unfairly made to wait but are now building it back up through the idea of placemaking (which is a new term I’d not heard of before).

The Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi that’s currently in development.

This lecture in particular has been extremely eye-opening, learning about all these emerging cultures and how cities grow to become epicenters for that culture is important to know I think for us emerging art historians and people in general. Mainly because it teaches us about what goes on behind the scenes so we become less ignorant and more aware of what is going on in the world and what we can do to shape that.

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Realism

Today’s lecture was looking at the introduction of Realism and how modernism played a role in that as well as the movement away from academies and their traditional teachings.

Through this lecture it secured the thought in my mind that every little bit of change is somewhat rebellious before it becomes the norm. Looking at modernist works compared what was coming out of the Academies in France they contrast greatly and almost make those traditional arts look foolish as they rhapsodise on about myths and the great past seemingly ignoring the present. This ties into their class though, many of them in the academies would be middle class and they would just live amongst the clouds compared to the working class who would see the everyday life and the struggles that came along with it. The traditional art was out of touch with the public and the academies became nooses around artists necks dictating what they could and couldn’t draw.

James McNeill Whistler,  Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862 - I love this one as it caused such ruckus with the public and critics purely because there was no deeper meaning behind it or mythology. 

Realism was shocking to the art world in Paris but now we view it simply as art and is far from what we consider shocking which is what I love about art, it’s consistently changing and evolving and is constantly rebellious, going against what society wants and just what it wants regardless of anything.