ch - Group Tutorial

Today I attended the group tutorial of one of my peers, she was also on the BA course that I finished last year, so I kind of have an idea of what her work is about. She takes various (seemingly random) generic objects and arranges them in ways that almost make them seem like accidents waiting to happen. The work reminds me very much of Fischli & Weiss aswell as work by Harrison & Wood. The wall is covered (although not completely) by degraded black and white photocopied images of these assemblages annotated with explanatory phrases like "Blue Wellington Boots" referencing/explaining what the images contain. The photocopies are affixed to the wall with torn squares of black electrical tape, some copies overlap - folds in the paper provide a way for lines to combine. Much of the work responds to the space that it's in, a crack in the wall might be continued with a dark black line created as a result of the photocopying. There is a definite humour here, akin to that of Charlie Chaplin or even Wile. E. Coyote and Road Runner (suggested by another student).

In the middle of the studio space hung an 8 litre tub of white emulsion at the end of an elasticated rope, hovering about an inch or so above the wooden floor. On the lid of the tub was a pooling blob of what seemed to be black enamel paint or gloss, parts of which weren't quite dry. (The tutor pulled it back and it began to swing and for a few minutes the piece was alive.) Next to the suspended paint pot were a pile of breeze blocks which appeared to have trapped the other end of the rope. Looking up towards the wooden beam that supported them, you could see that they were not infact connected by the same piece of rope and the breezeblocks were not helping to suspend the paint tub. I did say that I was a tiny bit disappointed by this in a way, probably because the sense I'd tried to make of the work didn't now add up. I'm not saying this is a bad thing though, it provides you with another challenge.

Talking to the artist after we had tried (somewhat successfully) to get a handle on the work, she told us that what we had read into it was correct for the most part - the disappointment was a good thing because that is what she had intended - a kind of entropy (energy loss) in terms of reading the work is attained in this way.

All in all a really good group crit, lots discussed and certainly lots to think about!