Nottingham Trent University

Taking a trip to Birmingham today has got me wanting to write, although as usual lacking in time.

A new set of shows opened at the Ikon, Ikon Eastside, Eastside Projects and Vivid just last weekend. The highlights of the trip for me were Jamie Shovlin’s ‘Hiker Meat’ at Grand Union and AVPD’s ‘Hitchcock Hallway’ at Ikon Eastside. Also over at Ikon the unusual video work tucked away in the tower, ‘Nail Biter’ by Anthony Goicolea is well worth nipping through Donal Judd’s exhibition to get to.

Jamie Shovlin’s exhibition ‘Hiker Meat’, takes as its jumping off point 1970s and 80s horror films, a subject I’m very fond of. The 60 mis-matched monitors playing clips from films of this era, which when watched in order apparently build up a rough idea of what the film ‘Hiker Meat’ would be, are central and overwhelming in the room.

‘Hiker Meat’ is not yet a film. It is at present an unrealised screen play but has a full score, is at the stage of casting but also of research. There is a full poster and it can be watched through a collage of film clips but as the exhibition opens has not had a scene filmed. Evidence of Shovlin’s research and responses surrounds the central monitor installation, the horror film dissected into its component parts. The project, as I am pleased the press release makes clear, is at once a deconstruction and a homage to the horror films of this era.

On Saturday I’m heading to Manchester to see among other exhibitions and screenings, ‘Unspooling- Artists Cinema’ curated by Andrew Bracey and David Griffiths. Depending on how I find the exhibition, it could potentially link back to ‘Hiker Meat’ and the following work as i try to examine the curation of film and video.

‘Hitchcock Hallway’ in experience runs in a similar vein to Mike Nelson’s ‘Coral Reef’, which I mentioned in an earlier post. The audience enters a small confined space, only to be confronted with the same small space, again and again and again. The same blue carpet, white walls, gloss white door and silver handle in repetition extended over a longer period that might be initially expected. While Mike Nelson has set up an extended narrative through his numerous and repeating interiors, in which characters feel absent and artefacts are weighted with information, the collaboration behind AVPD have created a minimal but increasingly tense situation, in which I felt caught and compelled into action.

Part of me wonders if this is really the place to be writing in so much detail about exhibitions. For some reason a small white block with a limited amount of space seems to contain a lot more freedom for me to express opinion than a daunting blank word document. Its probably because of the speed at which a post can be produced, skimmed and then sent. There’s no feeling that this is going to be examined in detail and flaws underlined.

I now know my tutor: Craig Fisher, my weekly meeting time and my first two deadlines. Sometimes knowledge can fail to make you feel empowered. My first critical review deadline is much earlier than I had hoped and my statement of intent, which has laid dormant in a folder for the last few weeks, really needs a lot of work before the 12th.

Off to work now. Really need to carve out some space for thinking. Doesn’t seem to happen when I’m within the studios. Thinking about what AVPD say, ‘the human being is a spatial animal unconciously affected by the fundamental laws that define our everyday lives’. I can’t help but feel that as my environment is key to my productivity I would much prefer to be in the relative quiet of a busy office than the sprawling open plan studios.

Still a month until I start my third year at Trent and I’m starting to consider what I have done with my summer. I’d hoped to spend more time in London taking in the Blockbuster summer exhibitions. I managed to visit the Hayward, the ICA, Tate Britain and Modern, the Sepertine and the Royal Academy, but over a two day trip they all went past in a blur. I had also hoped to spend more time reading, more time travelling and more time earning money for the new term. Four months seemed like such a long time in June.

I have been trying to keep a few notes on topics for critical writing over the summer. I’ve been wanting to write about the big exhibitions which thematically link installation artists, as has been seen for a few years at the Hayward over the summer (Psychobuildings, Walking in My Mind and to a lesser extent Ernest Neto), for a while. I’m interested in the curation of installation work in large scale institutions like the Hayward, which allow for serial submersion in artists’ visions. Taking on this strand of immersion, of the exhibitions I have visited so far highlights for me included Mike Nelson’s Coral Reef and Oscar Tuazon’s My Mistake, along with the screening event of Cameron Jamies’ video work put on by Nottingham Contemporary at the Savoy Cinema just last week. In Nelson’s Coral Reef entering the exhibition felt like dropping off the edge of the gallery, even stranger when leading off from the overwhelming public spectacle of Fiona Banner’s jets. In a similar way Cameron Jamies’ collage of footage and droning sound offers a clean break from the world as they induce a trance like state and Tuazon’s minimalist wooden structure plunges the audience into a consideration of the gallery space, its limits and potential, without distraction.

As Nottingham has become quieter, which I was warned it would, I’ve started to think more about the outside world. Nottingham can feel like a very insular scene, although Germaine Greer recently describing New York as parochial reminded me that every community is just a bunch of people. Last weekend I got to spend a few days in Bristol for the first time and later this month I am planning to head up to Liverpool to see the Biennial and try to get a more thorough feel for the city and its galleries. Seeing art in new places has to go higher up in my priorities after Sideshow/BAS. I’m keen to find the independents in new cities I visit and now feel like I have a few starting points due to the Tethervision ‘Hither and Thither’ project.

I have been thinking about my future after my degree, which is helping me put off worrying about the coming year, but at the same time presents me with a whole new set of problems. I am aware that I am lacking in background knowledge in art history, exhibition design, etc. so taking control of my education (rather than my career which is far too unwieldy) seems the obvious answer. I’ve been thinking about Gallery Studies, as a starting point to Curation. Possibly a long route but I’m hoping they will provide a more general form of education in how to think critically about exhibitions and galleries. I’m trying to get more up to speed on the big ideas of Curation (I see the capital ‘c’ as denoting an academic approach, as opposed to my current vocational angle), which involves reading important texts like ‘Inside the White Cube’. I had a lot more fun reading and looking at the pictures in Jeremy Deller’s ‘Life is to Blame for Everything’ a very small and slim book that chronicles his DIY/alternative exhibiting methods. I think I need to find a balance between practical experience and research. I’m normally far too academic for fine art so its funny to find myself feeling too practical for curation.

Since the last blog felt like a document of what I had been dong this summer I thought that this post should concentrate on what i had been thinking about, which is why it may feel a little less coherent. For me it feels useful after not writing about art for a while to pin down a few ideas and worries before I get back to producing writing for the portfolio.