Heading closer to completion, here's a few the images so far:
Well worth checking out the website!
Showing posts with label jenny holzer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jenny holzer. Show all posts
Friday, 23 December 2011
12 Months of Neon Love
Beginning on Valentine's Day 2011, and set to finish in 2012, Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater's collaborative project 12 Months of Neon Love doesn't seem to be a million miles away from Jenny Holzer's work. The project is UK Arts Council funded, and presents romantic song lyrics (1 a month for a year) in red neon on a rooftop in Wakefield.
Heading closer to completion, here's a few the images so far:
Well worth checking out the website!
Heading closer to completion, here's a few the images so far:
Well worth checking out the website!
Postmodernism at the V&A
Back in October, I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum, London to see their latest exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990. I intended, of course, to post about it much sooner, but life got in the way a little...
The exhibition sought to provide an introduction to Postmodernism for the general public, offering an insight into its manifestations in a number of different arts, from art, design, and architecture, to film and fashion. I have to say that I really enjoyed it, but I was disappointed that postmodernist experimentation in the literary arts was almost completely neglected. My visit was rather a long time ago now and so, rather than attempt to review the exhibition, I'm just going to mention two works that seemed particularly powerful and evocative to me.
The exhibition started with the death of Modernism and the uprising of Postmodernism. The museum information stated that while any attempts to date the shift from Modern to Postmodern has been controversial and contested, Architecture critic Charles Jencks points to the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project (with its embodiment of modernist design in concrete with its simple lines) in St. Louis at 3.32pm on 15 March 1972.
At this point in the exhibition, the work of Italian architect and designer Alessandro Messini was cited. His art work, Destruction of Lassu Chair (1974) seems to perform and embody the rejection of modernism.
A Lassu Chair, simple and and pure in form and design, was set on fire, photographs laying witness to it as a burning sepulchre. The images captured by the photographs embody an attack on modernist design, the end of an era, and the emergence of a new cultural moment.
The second piece that I instantly loved was an image of a light installation by Jenny Holzer (whom I've mentioned previously in relation to the avant-garde art collective Franklin Furnace - see here). The installation in question, quite typical of Holzer's neon and light projection work, was installed on a billboard between 1984-6.
'Protect Me From What I Want' is beautiful in the way it speaks directly to deeper human emotions while simultaneously working with its location and environment to offer a critical commentary on consumerist desire and capitalist economy. I love this.
Anyway, that's enough from me.
There's still time to see the V&A's Postmodernism exhibition - its on until the 15 January 2012. There's also a basic but interesting powerpoint, intended as a teacher's resource for those interested here.
The exhibition started with the death of Modernism and the uprising of Postmodernism. The museum information stated that while any attempts to date the shift from Modern to Postmodern has been controversial and contested, Architecture critic Charles Jencks points to the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project (with its embodiment of modernist design in concrete with its simple lines) in St. Louis at 3.32pm on 15 March 1972.At this point in the exhibition, the work of Italian architect and designer Alessandro Messini was cited. His art work, Destruction of Lassu Chair (1974) seems to perform and embody the rejection of modernism.
The second piece that I instantly loved was an image of a light installation by Jenny Holzer (whom I've mentioned previously in relation to the avant-garde art collective Franklin Furnace - see here). The installation in question, quite typical of Holzer's neon and light projection work, was installed on a billboard between 1984-6.
Anyway, that's enough from me.
There's still time to see the V&A's Postmodernism exhibition - its on until the 15 January 2012. There's also a basic but interesting powerpoint, intended as a teacher's resource for those interested here.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Franklin Furnace
On Wednesday, I went to a fascinating research seminar at DMU's IOCT, given by Toni Sant who lectures at the University of Hull. Toni was talking about a New-York based avant-garde institution called 'Franklin Furnace', on which his book Franklin Furnace and the Spirit of the Avant-Garde: A History of the Future focuses. I'd never heard of Franklin Furnace before so I was utterly intrigued.
Founded in 1976 by Martha Wilson and originally based at 112 Franklin Street, New York, the avant-garde collective was started to collect and archive ephemeral art (which itself seems somewhat paradoxical). Initially, they produced and showcased Artists' Books, which took many forms from the limited paper editions of Ida Appledroog to the more conceptually challenging (in terms of the notion of Artist's Books) work of Timm Ulrichs who in 1986 produced an artists' book called 'Concrete Poetry' which was, in fact, a block of concrete produced in an edition of 50.
For me, what was really interesting about Franklin Furnace's interest in Artists' Books was the way in which 'the page as alternate space' was not confined to a particular medium. It could be in book form or concrete or later what Franklin Furnace conceptualised as electronic artists' books, featuring works such as Jenny Holzer's online project 'Please Change Beliefs' which invites participants to alter the cultural idioms available on the online site.
I also liked the political radicalism of Franklin Furnace, demonstrated nicely by the project 'Bikes Against Bush', an interactive Graffiti project that printed text messages sent by web users directly onto the Manhattan streets.
Franklin Furnace is still active today, but has now moved to the web - http://www.franklinfurnace.org/ - where you can find its art archive.
Founded in 1976 by Martha Wilson and originally based at 112 Franklin Street, New York, the avant-garde collective was started to collect and archive ephemeral art (which itself seems somewhat paradoxical). Initially, they produced and showcased Artists' Books, which took many forms from the limited paper editions of Ida Appledroog to the more conceptually challenging (in terms of the notion of Artist's Books) work of Timm Ulrichs who in 1986 produced an artists' book called 'Concrete Poetry' which was, in fact, a block of concrete produced in an edition of 50.
For me, what was really interesting about Franklin Furnace's interest in Artists' Books was the way in which 'the page as alternate space' was not confined to a particular medium. It could be in book form or concrete or later what Franklin Furnace conceptualised as electronic artists' books, featuring works such as Jenny Holzer's online project 'Please Change Beliefs' which invites participants to alter the cultural idioms available on the online site.
I also liked the political radicalism of Franklin Furnace, demonstrated nicely by the project 'Bikes Against Bush', an interactive Graffiti project that printed text messages sent by web users directly onto the Manhattan streets.
Franklin Furnace is still active today, but has now moved to the web - http://www.franklinfurnace.org/ - where you can find its art archive.
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