OPINIONS

Opinion


MARTIN CREED
HAUSER & WIRTH COPPERMILL

It seemed common opinion before the show was that it was going to fail and why was he doing it, how could his very slight conceptual work fill this vast space ?
Well he did succeed at the opening to an extent. Creed did manage the space with four well placed pieces. Upon entering a chamber orchestra can be heard performing Creed’s composition, you are then confronted by a vast film screen (of cinema proportions) depicting a large penis penetrating a ladies pretty ass, shoot in profile.
Angled from the left side of the screen was the orchestra, sitting in single file with
the conductor at the head, through the formality and pomp of the orchestra coupled with grand mating (it was if you were watching show horses). It was hilarious.
This was framed by a large metal sculpture of three possibly thirty foot in length r.s.j’s atop each other graduating scale in pyramid fashion, the other large sculpture was made of wood, and these worked simply well creating a decent show. However the show was hampered by six small wall pieces that were sight in effect as to what they were about but managed to destroy much of the drama by being there. Its believed that the chamber orchestra was only there for the opening, without it I fear the show will fail and the film will look like a cheap idea lost in a vast space.


A FRAMING DEVICE

I find Les Liasons Dangereuses of interest (I don’t care for how Magritte applied paint ) but the framing of a picture atop a picture excites, because of its abstract implications. The cut edge (bevelled edge) of the mirror, for myself is the most real moment, the light fracture/distortion is the action time that plays against the shadow.
The framing device of the mirror’s edge is the reality within this picture.


DANIEL SINSEL
Sadie Coles

Sinsel’s work hits and misses with me. I feel it works best when he’s fetishizing objects that he has painstakingly made from a wide range of materials of high/ low value. Untitled (edelweiss) 2004, oil on eggshell, plaster, diamonds, yellow sapphires, horsehair, antlers works particularly well, on levels of meaning, and in having a fresh slant on aesthetic. On the other hand a piece like Cement Glasses was heavy handed in both meaning and execution (no pun intended).





NOTES ON TASTE

Taste as knowledge or taste as personal ?
Can they exist together ?
What makes something to be of value ?
And why is something not of great intrinsic value ?
Values which give pleasures of varying degrees – is it of importance ?
As common values where and how should they sit ?

Society must have it’s plateaus, that, where we aspire to. If you homogenize and degrade culture to the point that there is only an instant relationship between what is being created and what is being understood, we are in denial of having any depth, and are only buying into a superficial consumerist mind set. As culture we do need substance and a meditation on subject matter. As society we need a multi cultural mindset, but it needs to find equality between low, middle and high concepts. We can except play between them, as in low-high values which are so rich in a poetry that speaks about our very selves. This is not the issue. Maybe the issue is about formalism/classicism having a place in our society. If we do get rid of it , then what have we got left ? post modernism ? anything goes – I’m for it. But I’m also for formalism/classicism and that frightening word discipline. It doesn’t matter what kind of artist you are, you have to have discipline, your work IS a discipline, and its not such a bad word. The ongoing war between high and low aesthetic, is not about positioning or about sitting on a fence. Its about inclusion and respect. I don’t have a problem with street culture (although there exists a hierarchy within it) it does not aspire to go anywhere, which is fine, why should it ? but if that is all that is left as a signpost of our time, we are leaving selfishly very little. Instantly understood, self explanatory images with superficial surfaces having only a monetary meaning is existing as near nothing. We have to get over our affair with existentialism, in retrospect it appears as just a spoilt juvenile delinquency. We all need all kinds of process to respect the other, and we need the continual fight. If we lose high culture the loss will effect the very foundations of our society, as indeed it is showing signs of doing we all need dignity and respect culturally and high – low vulgarity.






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