The SCI-FI genre - dominated by men!

Turner Contemporary

  Just over one month old, the Turner Contemporary is the newest gallery in the UK. Last weekend i went there, to look at Revealed: Turner Contemporary Opens, the first show.
  The artists displayed all had one thing in common: the influences in their work could all be drawn back to Turner. The art as a whole, and the gallery, was brilliant, but three artists stood out for me, Daniel Buren, with Borrowing and Multiplying the Landscape, Work in Situ, Mirrors, Self-adhesive vinyl, Yellow filter, 2011

 This work made great use of what the area already had to offer - a fantastic clean new gallery, and of course a beautiful coastline.

 Next up was what i can only describe as the highlight of my year! Limit of Everything, 2011 by Conrad Shawcross. Constructed from metal, oak, lights and powered by a mechanical system, the work looks at science, geometry and music. This is a kinetic sculpture of a chord in music. I sat in the room for at least 45 minutes! Heres a video i took of it:

Lastly, we have Ellen Harvey's Arcadia, Mixed media, 2011. This piece looked very intimately at Brighton, where the new gallery is located. As well as a projection of the sea including sound, and 6ft letters spelling ARCADIA, a room was built within the room. This is the part i'm going to talk about. The room was not lit from above, or with spotlights, or in any other conventional way. Inside there were lots of (i didnt get the exact number - at least 20) clear persex sheets, backed with black, and etched into them were views of margate, put together to make a 360degree experience. It was quite breathtaking:

I learnt that, although you have a starting point, (and in this case six artists had the same starting points), the outcome can shoot off in an unexpected direction.

As well as attending a perspex engraving workshop, I bought the book - a bit pricey at £20 but i figure it'll be a kind of souvenir. I'm definitely going back to this gallery!

RASHBLOG 26/05: My legs are now painfully prickly, as is EVERYTHING downstairs. There are small red dots on my underarms now - not as many as the ones surrounding my privates.

METALWORK UPDATE!!:   IT FELL THROUGH!! I sent the artist a text message, being really nice,  but i didn't get a reply. I've adapted a screen print from the same idea, and during the holidays i'll be creating the 2 sculptures anyway, using glue and solder for the metal one.

RazorBurn Blues...(and reds,and tiny black lines)

 On Sunday I decided to go ahead with an idea I’d been weighing up for a few days. In order to reverse the roles of 'Macho hairy men' and 'Pretty hairless women’, and the abuse that comes with being the opposite, I shaved off all my body hair. This piece of performance art is accompanied by a spice jar containing the hair once attached to my body and a set of photographs of my hairless body.
 Part of the art is the reaction it evokes. My female feminist friends tell me that the response to them not shaving their body hair tends to be something along the lines of 'EWWWW THATS FUCKING DISGUSTING!!' As WE ALL know, body hair isn’t an unhygienic thing - it minimizes sweat and rash.
This successful piece of art is titled Hairiness is next to Furriness - an adapted quote from The Female Eunuch.


Hairiness if Furiness, Glass, Plastic, Human Hair



RASHBLOG day 1 (Sunday 22/05): Removing my hair with a disposable razor was unbelievably painful. Once finished, I noticed my increased perspiration, so I applied roll on deodorant - woops. It stung like hell!! Although the shave was close, it wasn’t close enough - I’m covered in spiky hairs (its especially painful downstairs...). I cut myself 13 times.
RASHBLOG day 2: When my legs experience too much friction the cuts open again.
RASHBLOG day 3: I'm noticing tiny red spots around the newly grown stubble around my pubis and the tops of my thighs. Some of them are filled with pus - I guess they're infected...
RASHBLOG day 4 (today - Wednesday 25/05): Moving today is painful-really painful. The hair is downstairs is a couple of millimetres long now. I've tried several creams and ointments, nothing helps. I anticipate at least a week of this pain...

Bell Hooks

I've found this - a quote by male feminist/anti-racist Bell Hooks...


"After hundreds of years of anti-racist struggle, more than ever before non-white people are currently calling attention to the primary role white people must play in anti-racist struggle. The same is true of the struggle to eradicate sexism—men have a primary role to play…in particular, men have a tremendous contribution to make…in the area of exposing, confronting, opposing, and transforming the sexism of their male peers."

Weld-Done!

So i wrote in my SOI that i'm going to try out 'steriotypical masculine and feminine practises' - sewing and welding. When i submitted my SOI i thought 'woops, might've shot myself in the foot - i dont have any access to this...'
I was having lunch with a few artists in Uxbridge and it turns out one of them knows an artist who has a studio in Finchley. He works with metal - BINGO!! I'm gonna fone him soon and arrange a meet. I'll let you know

In other news i'm on my way to the PayneShurvell gallery off Curtain Road to watch, then interview a pair of feminist performance artists, The Girls.