Pop Life - personal reflection - (on a review of it)

"Pop Life deserves to be a hit, though, because it tries so hard to get the genie back into the bottle – to distil, as far as possible, a whole chapter of modern times in which a particular kind of art turned itself into pure commodity. " Laura Cumming, Observer Oct 4th

It was so pleasing to read this review. Sorry I haven't seen the exhibition, in the wrong continent, or right one depending on your location and desire to see the show. I was pleased with how, according to the review Pop Art was continued from the historically confirmed Pop Art period of Warhol to the present day Hirst's diamond encrusted skull. It felt good to finally see condensed in words how commodity and commercialism really have been something pervasive and present in the art works produced recently. Personally as an artist I have always found the pressure to brand myself and produce work that fitted nicely into a box frustrating and some how an antithesis to what I considered being an artist involved.

I got tired of the obvious tricks being used in a lot of contemporary art, visual puns that are words based or the blunt conjoining of two things e.g. diamonds and a skull /wealth + death.
"composed of fast art: nothing to detain you for long"  
 Laura Cumming, Observer Oct 4th

It is about time for something new, something more considered more subtle with an positivity other than wealth seeking. I know the art world is all about money, but for artists like myself who actively decided to stop making artwork that was commercially successful to seek something else (and not the only one), it is about time there was some sort of transition from, or re-equaluation of this, or at least more writing from this point of view. I felt that Cumming's review did acknowledge this. Recently I went to an artists/designers talk, one of the speakers said, no artist now makes art 'after working in the paddy field all day', but in reality the majority of artists I know all have jobs to support their art work. We talk about 'professional artists' where we expect the word professional to mean that they make money from it, we should obviously not consider earning money from their art as validity of their role as an artist in society.

I want to go back to the quote  "composed of fast art: nothing to detain you for long".  We need to consider how the internet is affecting us, changing us. Personally I love the internet and have to fight off my surfing addiction. As good as it is, our attention spans are changing, we all have ADHD, flicking from one window to the next. I doubt anyone has read to this part of this post (I doubt I would have). Things around us are not faster, our duration of focus has changed. Things are not considered, conversations are text messages. Please don't think of me as an old fuddy duddy conservative seeking stop change at all costs, but think of me as someone who wants you to see slow life - consideration - empty space, as something new that we can earth to allow us to look at the world with fresh eyes.

some work today

with this picture i drew lines on the paper first but then felt that there needed to be layers, more depth so I cut sections out. Now the lines are edges as well as lines on the paper. This one again refers to the Suprematists.

 This one was just cut up bits of black paper. I was interested in the arrangement and if i up the contrast of the image using photoshop the space or depth would have been flattened more so imperceptable. this one really needs to be in a post of its own. It doesn't work surrounded by other images. I like the human quality of these lines, which is a contrast to my normal ruler lines.

 this one i liked because, hopefully at a first glance it is a cross then you can see that the pencil line travels over the paper.

suprematists

Got really into the Suprematists today. I especially liked Malevich's Suprematism with Eight Rectangles because it was so simple and because it has so much potential for my own work. I'm imagining remaking it or many variations by laying red rectangles on a white piece of paper and then photographing it. This way playing with surface and depth.
 

folds and curves

Getting all excited about folded paper and lines going over them today. Printed of Flusser to read - so I can write some thoughts about. Feel good about getting into drawings relationship to photography - the real versus the representation - this works with my installations too so that is cool.  Some of today's explorations.

Will need to do some more homework/research on getting my white balance right. Still dealing with some dust on my image sensor - frustrating.

thinking about Richard tuttle too - the wire shadow work - will have to explore this too at somepoint - also want to get a film camera and do some more drawing on the film - it is cheap to do this stuff over here in China :-)

Painting

I regularly see these large plastic containers alongside the road when they are doing road works. I see abstract painting and traditional Chinese ink painting when I see these. they are fab.

yesterday investigations

Still trying to work stuff out. Some images look great as are what they are. Others are about geometric abstraction with or without depth showing plains of surface. IInterested in line. Still need to be much more less than more.

abstraction in 3 dimensions

Had a good making day today. Went to art shop and bought some more different kinds of paper so more exploration tomorrow. Really happy about the unresolved problem between the photograph and the object, the drawing, feels great that I have this 'thing' or problem.

I got into cutting holes in paper. I love where I make my art / take photos (same thing) the light is awesome.

 

this is one of todays photos.

I was thinking about the shcontemporary art fair today. I like anthony gormleys drawing things, though I get a bit hmm about famous artists who do public art sculptures but i liked his paper stuff. Also another Chinese artist who had done some wonderful pencil diagonal grid lines. I liked them a lot too.