CASE STUDIES
ART PARLOUR AT WCA
13.02.2013 - 15.02.2013
This was a three day long investigation of the London Art Ecology, with CCW alumni Scott Mason (ex Wimbledon MA Fine Art), Holly Stevenson (ex Chelsea MA Fine Art)) and Anna Baker (ex Camberwell MA Fine Art). We were split into 3 groups of approximately 18 students (MFA and MA part-time 2d year) and I was allocated in to Anna's group. Furthermore, each group was split into 3 smaller groups to present their findings collectively afterwards
Following websites were useful:
www.deankenning.com
http://www.southlondonartmap.com/galleries/area/bermondsey
http://www.futureproofhandbook.co.uk
www.woodmill.org
1st Day
Mapping with Dean Kenning
in the Gallery SPACE STATION SIXTY-FIVE, Kennington Rd, London SE11 4PS
Dean Kenning's presentation of his work to the students from MFA WCA
Projects: Prospects for Growth Keyboards Plants Metallurgy of the Subject Dulwich Horror
Metallurgy of the Subject
Dean Kenning constructs hermetic sociopath-political systems based on mental maps or diagrammatic structures (memory, imagination, intellect, reality): The individual as a privatized being is opposed to a common being and being-in-common. Kenning shows engagement with the political philosophy of Bataille and Deleuse by incorporating mythology of the subject's sacrifice (in form of beheading) to be absorbed in 'common being' and to "represent unrepresentable". He calls this "Metallurgy of the Subject" following the free masonic language. Symbols and diagrams play an important part in his mystical world construction.
In his moving machines (plants and keyboards), Dean Kenning is influenced by Yves Tanguy and Alexander Calder's kinetic sculptures. His keyboards installation uses sound to construct a kind of compulsive aesthetics of random movements caused by rubbers hitting the keys.
"Dean Kenning works as an artist, researcher, curator and writer. He has exhibited work recently at Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh; ASC Gallery, London; James Taylor Gallery, London and Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea and in art collective ‘The Work in Progress’ as part of Whitechapel Gallery’s commissioning programme of art outside the gallery space. Kenning’s artworks create a non-contemplative aesthetic of material compulsion, B-movie horror and idiocy.
Often working in a directly communicative manner, concerned with political subject matter or used in pedagogical situations.This combination of cognitive recognition (communication and humour) and non-recognition (strangeness) as a dialectical method of production relates to the question of specific artistic function.
Previous works include paintings of monsters on estate agent signs for The Dulwich Horror: HP Lovecraft and the Crisis in British Housing (Space Station Sixty-Five), Sunset Over Civilization, a psychedelic slide-show lecture by a decrepit kinetic art professor, and Metallurgy of the Subject, a project encompassing animation, drawings and performance which allegorizes recent philosophical re-conceptions of ‘community’ and communism (Nancy, Badiou, Agamben, etc) as a process of alchemical sacrificial transmutation." from: Space Release #9, Dean Kenning— Double Dip Depression, 2012
Drawing the Mind Map with Dean Kenning
Context of the artwork: structures, organizations, social-work, feelings, fiends - social body mind maps
3 Models how art (a symbolic system) works:
1. Origin: brain - art ------------ Expression: artwork
2. Origin: studio practice: object ----------- Outside - art world: galleries, critics, collectors, audience
3. Social world: cultural practices, norms, social structures, hierarchies, distribution mechanisms ------------ Reflection theory: artwork (Peter Burger)
Splitting of artwork (from Renaissance - abstract) ------- Reflection: subjective works, structure criticism, reflecting the system
Iconography: imagination, instinct, drive, insanity, strength, obsession, cognitive capacities, language, other human social structures
Dean Kenning's mind map
MFA students drawing their mind maps
My mind map on that day aims to encompass the whole world, from nature to theory / intellect, from processes to randomness, from science and rational to occult, from life to death and includes also the Unknown as a big black hole. Within this diagrammatic structure, my art is symbolically depicted as a big canvas lying on the desert soil surrounded by sand, sea, sound, music and the horizon. In the vertical position, the canvas is subjected to the law of gravitation that causes the flowing materials on it to slide down leading to gaps, folds and shifts - the preliminary states of entropy and like all tectonic processes on Earth and presumably in the entire Universe - thus my canvas is also a window into a bigger something / the whole and is a world in itself.
2d Day
Travel with a Text
Journey on the District Line
Text on the tube was 'A Protest Against Forgetting' with Gavin Wade interviewing Hans-Ulrich Obrist, a Swiss curator and a former Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
'A Protest Against Forgetting' |
Tutorial with students from the Hovering 6th Form College
The one-to-one tutorial with the student, Sunaina Patel, from the Hovering 6th Form College highlighted the other side of the tutorial processes and gave me an opportunity to proof my ability to be a responsible and attentive mentor / listener to a younger aspiring artist in the making.
3d Day
Evaluation
with Anna Baker, Holly Stevenson and Scott Mason
in WOODMILL GP, 6-8 Drummond Rd, Bermonsey, LondonSE16 4BU
Some MFA students from Anna Baker's group exhausted after the intense 3-days long 'Art parlour' experience
The 3 days long, off-site project 'Art Parlour' differed from the usual studio practice routine as it aimed to broaden one's mind by ways of expanding the boundaries of the own perception of the London Art ecology, equally, strengthening the sense of community in the group through the same experiences during this 3-days' long event. For me personally, the investigation of the London Art ecology was highlighted by the artist talk with Dean Kenning and my interview with the 6-form college student, Sunaina Patel. They both are quite characters and artistically gifted, being at different moments in their life and art carrier. Dean is an established artist with an enormous treasure of work and experience and Sunaina is a very young student, just starting to explore and develop her artistic potential. I wish her the best for her application to the Foundation Course: Art&Design at Camberwell. Unfortunately, the very intense and time-consuming 'Art parlour' off-site project and its follow-up: the presentation of findings a week later, coincided with the Assessment preparation and, above all, with my own project, the sculpture-installation 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'; with the consequence that this work was interrupted in its natural progression and not finished.