FRIDAY 15TH MARCH 2019
SAATCHI GALLERY
I visited the Saatchi Gallery on the last day that I was in London, as advised by my tutor Steve. Knowing of Charles Saatchi's importance in the art world, through being on this Foundation course, I felt it was important to go take a look at the art he'd chosen for his gallery. "Charles Saatchi, the most important British art collector of his generation" [theguardian.com].
On the base floor was the option to take part in a sensory, immersive art installation. This section of the gallery was ticketed and came with a fee. Not knowing of this work prior to my visit meant I was unable to take part, as all the tickets had sold out for the day. I understood that it must have been in the papers or shared on an online platform for the amount of popularity it had received. This made me realise that I ought to research galleries before I visited them, in order to be knowledgeable on the content and any necessary further purchases or admissions I would have to make.
Nevertheless, the gallery had set up this space with an almost 'viewing area' and so not taking part didn't mean you were completely excluded. The people immersed in this artwork that "blur[red] the boundaries of installation, live performance and virtual reality" became an artwork in themselves. They became so transfixed with the world they had placed themselves in that they didn't seem self-conscious of being watched, they couldn't see that there even was an audience. Watching them move about the room and interact with each other and the space was deeply fascinating. Below is a video of some of the imagery that might have been present to those taking part. I can understand from just watching the video why the people were behaving in such a way. If this was a 360° landscape surrounding me, equipped with auditory, and vestibular/tactile sensory depth, I'm sure I would respond in a similar way.
I was really very struck by a couple of pieces by Tom Howse a young artist in his early thirties. The work above is titled 'A Glimpse into the Future is Best Left Unseen' and below is a work titled 'Botanical Selection'. I like the simplicity of his work and how the objects don't quite line up. It is all clearly intentional and it works. The chair is slightly suspended off the floor or the leaves of the plant don't have any stalks connecting them to the plant pot, they're just streaks of green, the teapot has a face. The works are slightly wonky or skewiff. In the gallery handbook, he writes about his practice:
"As humans we will never fully understand our existence, so through science and mythology we attempt to apply logic and meaning to the universe. But the closer our interpretations get to the core fundamentals of this, the more blurry this division between fantasy and reality becomes. I like to incorporate these collisions of truth and nonsense into painting where fantasy and reality exist with equal relevance and attempt to create a rational meaning to our nothingness, and that through this we may find some comfort in our bizarre and beautifully irrelevant place in the universe."
There is a real sense of this in his work. Where he's portraying something very familiar: potted plants or a home setting but he pulls the rug a little so these pieces are only half believable. What he says is true and I think is a stimulus for many artists, the lack of purpose we have, although we as a human race try fight to imply our status.
'City Of The Weak Heart' (2007). Silkscreen, egg tempera, paint on canvas.
'Spinnen' (2007). Silkscreen, egg tempera on canvas.
'Chewing' (2007). Silkscreen, egg tempera, paint on canvas.
Tillman Kaiser created the three works above, an Austrian artist born in 1972. I had never heard of the painting method 'egg tempera' before but upon further research I have learned that it is "a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. It is a very long lasting, primary method of painting used up until 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting".
At first I did not like the work of Kaiser and had not really given it much of a look when walking around the gallery. However, I got up close to one of his pieces and was really amazed. There is a lot more detail when you look deeper in to the work than from observing at a distance. For example, in his work 'Chewing', he has included a tiny image of a mass of humans all working together to create what appears to be a human pyramid. This is dwarfed by the scale of the surrounding piece and so only really evident upon closer observation. That attention to detail I really admire about his work. How he's making the audience work a little bit and not just handing them all the information very noticeably.
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Upstairs in the gallery was a huge photography exhibition of the work of photojournalists: Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen. They were the award winners of the 9th edition of the Carmignac Photography Award.
"In 2009, while media and photojournalism faced an unprecedented crisis, Edouard Carmignac created the Carmignac Photojournalism Award to support photographers in the field. Directed by Emeric Glayse, it funds annually the production of an investigative photo reportage on human rights violations, geostrategic and environmental issues in the world. Selected by an international jury, the laureate receives a grant, enabling them to carry out in-depth research on the ground, with logistical support from Fondation Carmignac. The latter presents a travelling exhibition and the publication of a monograph upon their return."
The Arctic was this years chosen geological subject matter. Being at the top of the globe, it engages a range of countries with a diversity of race. The six nations claiming territories up there are the United States, Canada, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Norway and Russia. These photojournalists traveled alone to discover more about the extremities of our world.
"The forces of tourism, militarisation, exploitation of gas and mineral resources, and the opening of trade routes means that the Arctic is today the site of clashes between countries and multinationals who are locked in a chaotic competition for control of these zones, which have taken on strategic importance in the history of humankind due to the effects of global warming."
MELTING OF THE ARCTIC SEA ICE
"The melting of the polar sea ice is changing he map of the world forever. By visiting all the affected regions and countries in one expedition and by showing how the different parties - starting with Russia and the US - are working to conquer the North Pole; we will reveal how the impact of climate change in the Arctic is of global significance for the rest of the world." - Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen Arctic: New Frontier
When entering the first room of the exhibition I found it interesting to observe two people being distracted by their phones, seemingly just sitting to take a rest rather than to really take in the importance of the exhibition. There's imminent issues surrounding the arctic and these issues are extremely significant and current. It was fascinating to pair my entrance to the exhibition: what I saw on the walls, the visible destruction of climate change to the environment with the audience switching off, creating distractions for themselves.
POINT HOPE, ALASKA, USA, MAY 2018
Gordon Omnik stands on watch to spot bowhead whales. The local Inuit community is allowed to catch 10 of them each year. Normally, the hunting starts when the sea ice breaks in the spring: the whales migrating up north use the channels to come up to breathe. If the ice melts, the whales can swim around with more ease, which makes them much harder to hunt.
Kadir van Lohuizen
POINT HOPE, ALASKA, MAY 2018
The skin of a polar bear is being dried to be prepared for clothing. The Inuit community is allowed to hunt polar bears, which are eaten and used for garments.
Kadir van Lohuizen
POINT HOPE, ALASKA, USA, MAY 2018
The big jaw bones of bowhead whales are used to mark the boundaries of the local cemetery.
Kadir van Lohuizen.
HUDSON BAY, CANADA, JUNE 2018
The Amundsen, Canadian ice breaking Arctic research vessel, moves through thick sea ice. Apart of its coast guard duties, the ship tours the Canadian Arctic every year with an international group of ice specialists, biologists and oceanographers, who work in its twenty-two on-board laboratories.
Kadir van Lohuizen.
POINT HOPE, ALASKA, USA, MAY 2018
Steve Ommituk, wearing a traditional Iñupiat mask carved in driftwood, is a whale hunter.
Kadir van Lohuizen
VERKHOYANSKY DISTRICT, YAKUTIA, RUSSIA, JULY 2017
These mammoth tusks hunters had just uncovered a treasure by tunneling underground with water pumps adapted from firefighting gear and snowmobile engines. The price for one kilogram of ivory being $60 that year, a single tusk could cover their expenses. They found another one shortly afterwards.
Yuri Kozyrev
NORILSK, RUSSIA, JULY 2018
A man on a boat next to the abandoned buildings of one of the oldest nickel factories in Norilsk. Other plants in Norilsk have taken on the operations of this 74-year-old monster which emitted 350,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide each year. The final stages of production have been transferred to other plants in the Murmansk region, accused by Norway of sending "death clouds" of pollution across its borders.
Yuri Kozyrev
YAMAL PENINSULA, RUSSIA, SEPTEMBER 2018
Saying goodbye to the Hudi family.
Yuri Kozyrev
LONGYEARBYEN, SVALBARD ISLANDS, NORWAY, JULY 2018
The archipelago and its main island, Spitzbergen, are under Norwegian sovereignty. Their population of 2,500 more than doubles when a 300-m-long cruise ship like the Mein Schiff 3 ("My Ship 3") disembarks its 3,000 passengers and 1,000 cre members.
Kadir van Lohuizen
I found the photographs that had been taken of people much more impressive as photographs in themselves. However, when reading the description placards, some of the images that I hadn't been drawn to as a case of liking the image, then became more prominent to me because of the story behind the image. The images with people in them, had a lot more personality. There was a connection you felt to these people, even though their lives are very different to what is deemed normal by us. Just by being human and therefore recognisable or relatable, it gives us as the audience something to identify with in this part of the world which is unfamiliar to us.
The exhibition, I felt, could not have been more relevant or necessary than in the current state we are in. This was something I felt that was creeping back in to art, like in the Photographers Gallery where there was an exhibition Laia Abril had developed, looking at multiple facets of abortion. There's an expression or outcry happening through art and the topics that are being focused on are topics that are hot in the news of the time anyway. It's interesting for us as am audience to observe all this imagery coming out of the Arctic in an honest way without propaganda. The photojournalists seemed to just be showing us all this footage, they were not forcing anything on their audience. This I liked because it felt unbiased, they was a genuity about the exhibition, you could trust that they were just showing us what they saw.
