Transmission rambling: My firth transmission day (07th Oct 2009)

By Xesko

Finally after three weeks of boredom, the MA began. In the first day, I attended a lecture by an artist couple, rather peculiar.

When I was informed that every week we would have these kind of shows my first thought was: ******* (it is better not to transcribe my thoughts). I was wrong, at least for this first one.

The beginning was a little bit desperate, so they had put a photograph of an in works storefront. I thought that would be a boring talk about that kind of contemporary art that only the artist understands and that no one else knows what is about, leaving the others persons out of the creative context, but… Something changed my idea. They have put a background music of Aphrodite’s Child, “Rain and Tears”, a group that happens I know very well because I was and somewhat still am, fam of Vangelis and Demis Roussos, two the founder members of the group.

From that point forward it was a parade of conceptual ideas, many of them based on the Pink Floyd albums, also a conceptual music group.

The main idea of the lecture was nothing more than recreations of the random day-to-day art. That is, capturing what the artist saw around him, recreating (plagiarizing it?) with artistic eye creating a single engagement with the public.

However after the presentation remains the idea that the common thread that is the driving force that moves this couple of artists, is none other than the great unknown/known, the ideas of the vastness of the universe as we know it, their misunderstanding and intimate links with the darker parts of our being, basically what makes us live and that we, in spite of knowing intimately, at the end of the day remains unknown.

In other words, most of the ideas are developed around our internal organs, healthy eating and the mystery of the universe and its best kept secret, the design of a living being.

Summarize it in one word. Liked.

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Transmission lecture: Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle

Posted by ‘Anon’

Bevis Martin and Charlie Youle. Two young presenters, collaborative artists and partners. Gave an intimate picture of their struggles and successes, difficulties and triumphs encountered during the early years of trying to maintain momentum post graduation as practicing artists. All this and within the alienation of a foreign culture and art market too.

The audience are transported to Nice, France and some of the early slides were, just like holiday snaps. Nothing wrong with that. Young couple in France, artists too. Exploring the culture, enjoying it and inserting this as a part of their practice. Planning work and installations, working it out together. It must be nice to work on a project like this with some one so close to you. Fantastic. And that, largely, is what you get. Yule logs.

It’s refreshing to see, and they manage to jettison the sense of  portentiousness that you sometimes get with installation. Installation for them becomes a response to their everyday experiences and new surroundings, if you like. I think this is why I like them so much. Balls. The balls to do it in the first place and the guts to stand here in front of this packed auditorium and its crowd of dark, coughing silhouettes and tell them how it is.

Through their personal experiences we are guided with humour, some brilliantly realised photography and a real sense of some of the relationships they have forged. You had to admire the way they forged on in the face of indifference. Constantly rejected by galleries in the area through two years of applications. Ultimately having to settle for a shared room in the towns community centre complete with squatters rights and a swingers club on a Wednesday evening. “Anybody can apply for a show there, they never turn anyone down, you just have to wait your turn!” Again, fantastic, what a refreshing attitude.

A slide change – an image of part of the exhibition, a large room, semi-darkness, dirty carpet, a torn armchair and matching ‘pouffe’. An uneccesary apology. “We kept moving the chair out of the way, but they kept putting it back in the same place so..” A large painting on the wall behind ‘Tears of Golden Spunk’. The no-nonsense attitude further illustrating the already obvious low-level budget, [it must be hard to enough to start life in a new country] but they make up for this in terms of putting the hours in. Mmmm, am loath to criticise but maybe less in terms of the amount of work and more attention to detail on certain pieces.

Next show, another community centre. An installation of small objects on the stage or dance floor. The building today is being shared by a group of ‘war-gamers’. They want to know if they can use some of the objects in their next game. Oh God. Permission is granted. The artists go with the flow and shoot some startling and very amusing photographs. They, the war-gamers [grown men] have selected a plastic mock intestine and two small spheres painted to look like planets. More slides, and an explanation. The title is now ”Two Small Planets Attacking a Human Organ’.

Further elaboration upon the part of the artists wouldn’t have gone amiss, but then you don’t want to tell the viewer everything. Some may say that it raises questions about how far you can actually go with a situation at the drop of a hat, give it a witty title and still get away with calling it art. That’s me too, but on this occasion I’m going to waive that right - I think it was more to with an insight into their working methods and practice, than a final realised piece – and I thank them for bringing it along to share with us.

Towards the end of the lecture the lights are raised and its question time from the audience to the guest artists. It’s always nice for at least a few questions before rushing off to the bar. A slide is still faintly showing on the screen, or is it a cast shadow? There had been a thing like it shown earlier, a small white moulded or carved? Object. A thing of no real form, scratched into, a rough misshape or a found object? A lady nearby raises her hand and the microphone is passed along the row of seats to her. “Hi, what was the white object, on the slide, near the end? It looked like a human embryo, or it could have been one of a fish”.

Ha! What a fantastic way to finish up.

Anon.

Transmission 7th Oct Bevis Martin and Charlie Youle

(a) Fun, pleasure, the pleasure of learning. The planet orbs, the bright coloured shapes, the geometry, the comedy and the awkwardness make me think a little about Daniel von Sturmer at the site. I almost asked ‘do you think pleasure is underrated in contemporary art, which is what I asked Daniel in our interview and Annie and Frederique the other night, but I don’t want to be known as the person who just asks that question. And besides, what would they say? Its clear they don’t underrate pleasure, “golden, spunky enthusiasm’, is how they described one piece. It is full of enthusiasm. They seek methods for making work which include acting on silly impulse, following ideas that are embarrassing or not very good, a foundation tutor once told me to just make the work and think about it later, (Napoleon is quoted as saying something similar in war and peace). Yes, just get on with it, some work might be bad, it doesn’t mean that this wont lead to better things. This is why the other day I said I wanted to be like Bowie, the creative energy exudes/ed from him, some of his work is really bad but some of it is the best. Their undeveloped foetus, so full of potential, but remember, man was not made perfect, the imperfections are the things we love. Middle eastern carpet makers include deliberate imperfections into their designs because only God can be perfect. For a GCSE project they have done pretty well, that is to say, they’ve drawn upon their own resources, recall. In an art exam you can take all your prep in with you. It seems as if they want to resolve the learning they made at school, undo the mistakes, go back and do it their own way. Create their own institution, museum like the man blong of the soloman Islands. The people there kicked out the Christian missionaries, threw off their western clothes and reinvented the traditions that had been as best they could remember, keeping a hold of various bits and pieces that suited them. Like the name of the ceremony, man blong, they formed a kind of pidgin religion. Bevis and Charlie made a pidgin museum, totally hand crafted, totally their own. All the work that was childish, inadequate and seeking approval reminds me of what I’ve been trying to do, my father died and I was thrown back into childhood and adolescence, because that’s who I was when that relationship was formed. I allowed myself to become a child because I still seek approval while at the same time try to kick against it. I wish I’d thought of the pasta, no actually the defaced text book. When I was at school I drew a fart and an afro  hairstyle on nearly every photo of a person in my tricolour, there was also a particular page in one of the history books that a little scrawled message told you to turn to. The page had a picture of a beheading, a photograph, the figure is kneeling, the executioner has just swipped the blade, the head is rolling on the floor. There was sometimes graffiti on this page. I am drawing over obituaries in a similar way to the tricolour graffiti, which, I suppose, is disrespectful but it seems like the right thing to do. Bevis and Charlie have the confidence to be naff, when you’ve got that you can do what you like. Jaspar can pretend to be confused but even he wouldn’t deny them the pleasure of such a naïve criticality.

Art has a function, sometimes this fails or breaks down-the intention- it always has an effect though ( is this different from affect?) Its morning and the moon is still out, waiting in the wings, waiting for the sun, the roar of the fountain. The anthropologist Alfred Gell says that art does have a function, magic or not and that the artist wants a reaction of some sort- he wants the viewers gaze to go a certain way and for them to think certain thoughts. Even an artist who says ‘ this work is open, it is whatever you want it to be’ would still enjoy it if you told them you understood their intentions, saw what they wanted you to see, felt the way they felt. Whats this got to do with our heroes? They spoke of the function or purpose being weak- they play up to it, turn it into subject matter and ultimately a strength. It still ‘works’, that is the beautiful irony.

Transmission review: Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, a presentation of their work (07th Oct 2009)

By BROOK DAVIS

On the past Wednesday, the artist’s couple, Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, made a presentation of their work to a group of students from the Sheffield Institute of Arts (SHU).

In a little over an hour they have summarize all their work, done essentially in Nice, France, where they live now.

The presentation was centered around the idea of our ordinary day-to-day and taking advantage of all that exists around us and its artistic reconstruction. From a simple in works storefront and abandoned objects, all they are an inspiration to recreate art.

Another of their obsessions is the immensity of the cosmos and its interaction with the living. The main idea that remained at the end of the presentation was that they try to recreate through art the absence/lack of something in their lives. However in fact isn’t this the biggest asset of the artists? The ability to consciously or unconsciously, fill their failures and losses through a concept that are in sight to all to see, but normally aren’t within sight of ordinary mortals? In fact, if this is the spring that moves the artists, this couple has the ability to make the extreme of a conclusive and understandable way for the common citizen.

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