This Must Be The Plas...

Helfa Gelf is now an annual event - an Arts Trail through North Wales during September that involves hundreds of artists, crafters - creatives of all kinds - in an exciting and varied festival of events. Many creatives open the doors of their studios to the public, presenting an opportunity to interact and share their creative practices. The open studios season is during September and is also preceded - and then followed by - a programme of exhibitions, workshops and courses for creative professionals, interested novices, and all those between. Helfa Gelf presents a unique opportunity to meet and chat with artists, makers and doers in their creative spaces, see them at work, perhaps have a go yourself, and see their finished work - which is often available to purchase at special 'trade prices' - ideal if you want to get some unique Yuletide shopping sorted ahead of the rush...

This year, I will be at Plas Tan y Bwlch for the Helfa Gelf festival, picking-up on the Residency that I began there last year...

There will be readings from my books, 'pop-up' exhibitions of photography and other visual responses, and plenty of chat about art and folklore. Work produced during my 2016 Residency will be on show and I will also host free 'drop-in' creative workshops, and 'taster sessions' from the forthcoming Creative Writing Course: A Sense of Space, to be hosted at Plas Tan y Bwlch in March 2018.

For more info, dates and times, see my Helfa Gelf Artist's Profile Page (click images below) and while you are there, have a good look around their website at all the many and varied artists that will be welcoming you into their work spaces throughout September 2017...

Click here to read about the  Helfa Gelf 2015 Residency that I took part in 

at 'Haus of Helfa' aka 'The Tedder House' in Llandudno...

Oh, My Word, What Have I Done? - The Haus of Helfa Journals (part 3)

Tonight is the night, baby! 

Over the past month, the Tedder House, at 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno, has been brought back to life by thirteen creatives. Every room now contains something different and stimulating, as the artists complete their installations ready for tonight’s official launch, heralding the start of the Llawn03 Arts Festival this weekend. (Come and see for yourself!) All the work in ‘da haus’ has grown and developed since the overview I offered in part 2 of these journals, and some that was not then tangible has now taken definite form.

I have been there all along - as writer in residence - to witness, document and, in my own way, create some sort of ART:

I have responded to the people, the place and its past in my own way using words - like the ones you are reading – as my primary medium. A portion of my responses have emanated from within the house via the ether and now my words, about there, appear here - on the World Wide Web. This has been one response: ‘writer-as-commentator’, setting down a document of the art and artists.

My Haus of Helfa space has, of course, been in the bar - an architecturally re-imagined environment composed of furniture, and imagery, reclaimed from local, derelict ‘has-been’ hotels. The work I had hung on the walls, the ‘calligraphy’ scrolls, were at odds with this ‘strategy against architecture’ and so they have now been assembled into book form, as befits a writer! This ‘book’ is a record of my exploration into where art and writing meet, creating a no-man’s land between the artificial borders that are sometimes perceived to separate the two.

It has been an on-going experiment throughout the residency - an attempt to exploit the visuality of writing as a form of drawing. Using the same pathways - from mind, through brain, to hand - as the written word: utilising those same life-long conditioned hand-writing reflexes, whilst avoiding the deliberate formation of word-language. Creating a unique visual language of mark-making that shares many formal elements with writing, and may express ideas and emotions in a similar way, without the encumbrance of literal meaning… and perhaps avoiding the cultural dogma often attached to words and languages. One perceptive visitor described this as, "a tiny form of dance, recorded visually".

Writing to escape the words... pages from SCANNER / PRINTER, a book
by Remy Dean, exploring the visuality of the gesture in writing as a form of drawing

This expressive exploration provides a foil to my use of ‘traditional’ terminology, when writing about the art happening in the other rooms of the Haus of Helfa. I am aware of the problems of translation that arise when meanings are transitioned from one form to another, such as using text to talk about and analyse visual art. (“Do you see what I am talking about?”) This is, of course, the basic problem faced by all creatives who use their art to represent anything, from the real to the imaginary and back again.

Kazimir Malevich made what is probably the bravest and boldest attempt to circumvent these problems by reverting back to the basic forms he used as a language. With his Black Square, circa 1913, he made art into the thing, in itself. Instead of representing a real world object, his art became an object that presented its own concept, not re-presenting another. You can read more of my thoughts on this here. Graphic design guru, David Carsen, has also pointed out that 'legibility' and 'communication' are not always the same thing.

I have also been exploring different ways of telling stories, using notations, images, interactions and artefacts alongside traditional text. Perhaps my admiration for the late, great Joseph Beuys has led to the outcomes now being exhibited in a museum-style ‘vitrine’, which you will find in the big bay window of the bar area.  (This is the only surviving piece of original furniture belonging to the Tedder House and was also used to good effect in Alan Whifield’s video installation, last year.)

'Corky' and his cicorc chums in situ at the bar, earlier...

‘Corky’, the Cicorc Conwy, represents the main piece I have created in response to the site and the maritime heritage of Llandudno, and so has pride of place on top of the display case. He is accompanied by ten other ‘replica’ cicorcs that are up for adoption and will leave the space to have their own continuing adventures. The story, which could have been told using a variety of other methods, is ‘disguised’ as an ‘add-on’, in the form of an attached booklet. The ideas of transaction, transport and depletion were all poetically linked to cargo, voyages and farewells.

Within the coffin-like glass ‘tank’, you will see some other artefacts that relate to my #WordsOnWednesday series published via twitter @DeanAuthor every week during the residency.... and, there is still time for visitors to add their own words to the postcard gallery.

...and now, from me to -

The work of Iwan Lewis has now fully occupied his space. Iwan is primarily a painter, or perhaps a poet of paint. He has produced a series of pictures that run in a loose, dream-like narrative. The story they tell seems to suggest nostalgia and fantasy, appraising the similarity of the two. Were those times that provoke nostalgia actually as we recall them, or have they been lightened - or even darkened - by the touch of our own memory brushes?

Memories are made of...
Iwan Lewis worked in and with the room

I have seen Iwan place the pictures, which range in size from place-mat to dining table dimensions, and then un-pick their narrative, carefully considering their running order and relationships in different arrangements. The colour palette used across their painterly surfaces picks up from the hues around – the warm russets of the brickwork, the cool blues of breeze blocks, the minty vibe of ceiling plasterboards above, the dark ingrained floorboards at our feet… His artist’s statement gives a clue to the rather personal responses he is expressing, mentioning childhood visits to Llandudno, on family shopping trips, and using the memory of how bitter limeade tasted as a Proustian starting point.

Ronan Devlin, possibly best known for immersive and interactive art using light, has installed a pair of sculptural pieces. Light is conducted up through perspex panels, interrupted by the laser-etched patterns embedded in them. The illumination changes colour to a rhythm that draws our attention to the rhythm of the compositions carried on the otherwise clear surfaces. One is a geometric series of forms that interplay from one layer to next, creating interference patterns that respond to the individual position of the viewer, and change as they move towards or around them.

Ronan Devlin using LLight and pure pattern - that's a moiré 
(photograph courtesy of the artist)

The other piece in this pair uses similar effects, though within the patterns we see words. There is a dialogue of forms between layers and this sets up a dialogue between the two pieces. The words selected in the second piece all utilise the double ‘L’ element, as in ‘Llandudno’. The pronunciation of two ‘L’s is different in Welsh and English. In cymraeg, 'LL' is a single sound and stands in the alphabet in its own right, in saesneg, the doubling of a letter is often used to affect the sound of its neighbouring vowels – perhaps a hint of the political here? Layers of visual language belaying linguistic meanings and evoking non-linguistic rhythms that create pattern through mutual interference… (“Do you see what I am talking about?”) ... and, on return to the other piece, we now notice the subtle LL motif echoed within its geometrics...

Ronan has placed his works at one end of the large blacked-out room that is half taken up with Neil Coombs' Lost Infinities: These four, fish-tank-like, glass cubes now contain magical illusions that challenge the audience to re-assess how they see 'reality'. One of the images we see within each of the cleverly mirrored light-boxes is the ‘real thing’, but receding away in all directions are infinite copies that exist as light, without substance. These ‘copies’ seem to spill out across the real space inhabited by the viewers, passing through and beyond their bodies, but cannot be touched. The real objects cannot be touched because of the invisible glass panels, which we are made aware of by their slicing-up of the repeated reflections. Clever and fun.

Neil Coombs - boxes of delight.
? tsrif emac hcihW

The first box, as you enter, contains a little man who moves and beckons. ‘Contain’ is not really the right word, because he seems to float outside the glass cube, from one angle he becomes a ghost, repeating his actions out on the landing…

Another cube shows us books, starkly lit by a bare light bulb, reflected to infinity in all directions, the text on the book jacket flipping and reversing as it recedes. Another box has a tiny tableau set in a cemetery where something mysterious is happening as the walls are stormed by protesters, who find death offensive – this beautifully crafted piece reminded me of the sense of dramatic wonder conjured in the work of photographer Gregory Crewdson.

Neil’s final magic box contains a single egg. Is this an incubator of ideas? In place of a heat lamp, a projector shines down brashly coloured collages from above. Images, interrupted by the ovoid form, dance across the surfaces at a frenetic pace and then reflect off to infinity. I am sure Neil will not mind me pointing out that the egg is a well-established symbol in Surrealism, because it hints at things yet to come, the beginnings, the unformed idea of a thing. From the egg, something will emerge that has never been observed by anyone before… It is also an ancient symbol of resurrection (hence Easter eggs) which follows on nicely from the ‘down with death’ tableau.

…and, of course, “which came first…”

Tucked away in a top-most corner of the house, we now find the work of Alana Tyson. In a doorway, two walls of billowing orange fabric form a tunnel, its silky brightness counterpointing the rough dark wooden beams around. This ‘breathing’ passageway invites us to push on through and into…

The obvious suggestion is one of transition, from one place to another and perhaps of birth, as we push through the tunnel and out into the light. I feel sure that Alana’s current ‘expecting’ status has been an influence here…

Up in the rafters: the 'tangerine dream' of Alana Tyson

The colour and form of the fabric suggests a civilian parachute, though remains in keeping with the RAF heritage of the Tedder House. Once we have pushed through the tunnel, we find ourselves standing in a small room with a bright window. (It may well be a 'happy accident' that the lichen encrusting the outer windowsill is a very close colour match.) The space is almost filled with the silky forms that are kept inflated and rippling by fans from within. It is also reminiscent of a tangerine version of ‘Rover’, from The Prisoner television series, and so carries an element of threat. The bulging forms look alive, ready to envelope and absorb their viewer-victim.

The room is seemingly filled, but mainly with air, the material itself is just a thin surface. This brings the parachute metaphor to the fore – a thin fabric that can mean the difference between life and death... and so too, that moment of new life when the baby passes from the warm, safe environment of the mother, into the big, bright world.

So, for  now, “I’m bailing out!” …but I look forward to discussing all this with you, over a nice glass of red wine! You will find me in the bar.

It is all happening tonight, beginning at Oriel Mostyn Gallery at 7 p.m. (where you may find some examples of my photography on show) and continues, just around the corner, in the Haus of Helfa at 8 p.m. before the cultural art-crawl moves on through a wonderland of smoke and mirrors, bingo and ‘top entertainment’...

… you wanna be there.

[read part 4]

More info can be found at these websites:

Oriel Mostyn

Llawn Festival

Helfa Gelf

CALL

Read also The Haus of Helfa Journals: part 1 & part 2

A is for Cow - The Haus of Helfa Journals (part 1)

It was the 70th anniversary of the atomic blast that levelled Hiroshima.

The sound of the ceremonial peace bell still chimed through the world media.

It somehow seemed fitting that my first visit to the space that I have been allotted in the house, at number 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno, was on this solemn day of remembrance, 6 August... Because, along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the firestorm created by the bombings of Dresden ranks as one of the decisive horrors of the Second World War.

RAF Marshall, Arthur William Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder, GCB, 1943
(picture courtesy, Imperial War Museum)

Dresden was suggested as a target for ‘strategic’ bombing by British Air Marshal Arthur W Tedder. This was the same man who was instrumental in devising the grid system for the RAF ‘low-level marking methods’ used to coordinate the carpet bombing so dreadfully showcased during February 1945. It was not only Dresden that burned, the very air in and around the city caught fire. The true number of casualties will never be known, but estimates range around 25,000 with some historians putting the figure much higher and into hundreds of thousands. The destruction of Dresden is often explained as a response to the bombing of Coventry... Number 26 Augusta Street is still locally known as ‘The Tedder House’, it was renamed in honour of Arthur W Tedder when it became an RAF servicemen’s club.

The building now stands empty, its interiors hacked back to the brick. Like an evacuated, gutted house evoking the emptiness of those buildings in post-bomb Dresden, or the ground zero monument of Hiroshima.  Now, that emptiness will be challenged by its antithesis: Creativity will transform the inner space once more. This year’s artists in residence are set to occupy those empty rooms and bring the dormant house back to life.

Here is an account of what happened in last year's Haus of Helfa.

Ghost writer in residence at Haus of Helfa?

I have been placed on the ground floor, where big bay windows let the light stream through into the darkness. The room is a blank page, quite a big blank page. So, can they install a bar? Yes they can!

So what does it mean to be the first writer in residence for Haus of Helfa?

It is all about art.

There are to be twelve ‘artists’ in residence, plus one ‘writer’.

So, is a writer not an artist?

Or, are writers a special type of artist?

What is art, and what is writing?

Label Your Words by Remy Dean (photograph of assemblage, 2015)

Lines drawn with a pencil can be just simply that – nothing more than marks on paper – yet, through some intangible and subtle act of transformation, they can become art… and also, lines written on paper can be just simply that – nothing more than a bunch of words – though a collection of words can somehow become more that their collective meaning, sometimes they may transcend their basic code. A diagram is one thing, a work of art is another. A shopping list is all very practical, a piece of literature is something else. Same tools, same ingredients… different end results.

To confuse matters – a diagram can be elevated in status to become a work of art and a shopping list could become a poem… depending on the skill of the creator, the context in which it is experienced, the intended meanings and the perceived meanings. Something to do with, as Charles Bukowski put it, STYLE, or with what William Blake described as the POETIC GENIUS. The style and poetic genius of the creator or/and the audience.

Artists are dealing with something beyond their means, wrestling or dancing with ideas that cannot be fully expressed by the physical tools at their disposal. They are hinting at something, exploring ideas that cannot, or should not, be fully expressed. A piece of art is on-going, never fully finished. After it leaves the domain of its maker, it continues its journey and begins to consolidate its meanings in the minds of the users – a conversation ensues between the work (and its intended meanings) and the viewer (and what is understood from it)… Art, therefore is a PROCESS.

A butterfly, fluttering across a meadow of summer flowers, its colours flashing in the sunlight, stirs the senses in a way that a pinned specimen in a museum drawer cannot, and the memory of seeing it can be more beautiful than the experience. A few words can evoke that scene in a very similar way as a skilled sketch may do. I just caught a butterfly in my mind and I gave it to you – is your butterfly the same as mine? I think mine was a comma, but its flight was so lively and joyous that I could not be sure.

The pinned specimen was different – a blue variety, and something I can also do is carefully blow the pale dust from its delicate, iridescent wings, unpin it from the display tray and hold it in the palm of my hand. Watch closely and… yes! Its wings tentatively move again, part closing then opening like the pages of a book that will not lay flat. It is delicate and shimmering in the light from the open window, little legs grip the very tip of my finger for a moment before it takes flight, the blue of its wings flashing against the blue of the sky as it flies free and far… we smile, until the bird swoops and takes it. Are we now happy for the bird to have something to feed its nestlings? Or are we saddened that a specimen that had sat in a dark dusty draw for more than a century only got to enjoy its miraculous resurrection and new found freedom for mere moments?

Do not worry, the bird was not really there – I made that bit up – we watched as the butterfly flew away, a diminishing fleck in the vast dome of bright sky… and was gone.

'The Visual Arts' is an often used term of differentiation.

From the very simple butterflies example above, we can see that text and writing are within the visual arts. See what I mean?

A is for 'Cow'
(a manipulated vintage illustration)

Reading, with your eyes, has an obviously visual element, yet in good writing that element vanishes and we see the evoked mind-images, instead of the visual text. Painting and drawing are much more ‘in your face’, yet often it is internal dialogues that have led to the creation of the piece and are then sparked off in the minds of the audience. The image creates words. Many artists will argue that they express only emotion and the response in the viewer is purely emotional – many writers will also claim this – though this is clearly not the case. Art deals with far more than emotions and, probably, if we could sum up everything a piece of art is or does, then it would be reduced to a document and no longer be art.

So, all visual arts are attempting to express something from the artist and elicit responses from the viewer. What differentiates each piece of work is the materials and languages used, and the codes conveyed. Writing began as the drawing of sounds, visually recording those sounds that make up words that are the codes of a language - and through the understanding, or at least an interpretation, of language a meaning is arrived at. Visual art also uses languages, such as theories of form and colour, there are codes, and through the interpretation of those codes a meaning is arrived at. Different interpretations = different meanings.

Let us start at the beginning, when drawing and writing were the same thing...

This meant ‘cow’:

A Cow

We can still understand the visual code here as a simple portrait of a generic 'head of cattle', the broad curve of its horns above the tighter 'U' shape of its head. Originally devised as a means of accounting to keep track of cattle, which were used as currency, and to aid with the introduction of taxation. The glyph was scratched into soft clay, which could be re-wetted and wiped clean for re-use.

“How much does that cow cost?”

“One cow, please.”

“I already have a cow…”

“Well that’s one cow you owe me.”

“Hang on a minute…”

When there arose a need for more permanently accurate records, ones that were harder to tamper with, clay was replaced with stone. It was more difficult to etch curves into harder materials, so the cow glyph was simplified and adapted into straight lines only.

Three Cows

Imagine reading one of these stone tablets upside down... perhaps this was the reaction to that first ever tax bill:

 " A A A "

The letter for ‘cow’ survives to this day as the first letter of the Alphabet - a testament of the central importance of cows to ancient western societies.

F is for ‘cow’

It is the same story for the letter 'F' – adapted from Fehu, the first letter in the Viking Futhark, the ancient Germanic alphabet.

This glyph started out as a simplified pictograph of a bull or cow, seen from the side: a horizontal line representing the body of the animal with two upstrokes for horns. I see it as a cow fording a boundary river, as it is driven from the territory of one owner onto the land of its new owner.

Lucky Cow!

This rune came to represent wealth and prosperity, and became upright when it needed to be used in conjunction with other runes in a row of writing. Later its form was simplified to what we recognise as our letter 'F'.

Words become pictures become words become pictures.

B C N U xxx

PS: The shortest SF story ever, written by Forrest J Ackerman and first published in Vortex Magazine during the 1970s, was titled Cosmic Report Card: Earth and consisted of a single letter…

NB: Due to copyright, I am unable to reproduce the story here.

& so with that, I shall F off ...until next time.

For more info about the Haus of Helfa Residencies, see the Helfa Gelf website

[read part 2]

citations: 

(this is art not academia, but if you are interested in more info on the origins of writing)

Origins of Writing at The New York Metropolitan Museum of Arts's Heilbrunn Timeline

Writing Timeline at the Ancient History Encyclopedia

The Story of Writing at Historian.net

History of Writing at History World

(click here to read part 2)

Remy Dean Joins The Residents

I am glad to announce that I will be the writer in residence at Helfa Gelf’s Haus of Helfa 2015.

Haus of Helfa is part of the 'Lost Spaces' project, a collaboration between Helfa Gelf, Oriel Mostyn and the Llawn03 Festival. It facilitates the use, by creative artists, of otherwise disused buildings. Haus of Helfa is the flagship of this project and is located at 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno AKA The Tedder House.

The Tedder House at 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno
 has been many things... now a home for creativity

Beginning in August, I will be joining twelve other artists who will be working in, and with, this unique and stimulating art space. Every weekend through September, the doors will be opened to visitors who can watch the work in progress and chat to the artists about their ideas, concepts and methods. The residency culminates in the launch of the Llawn03 Festival on the weekend of 18, 19 and 20 September.

I enjoyed Haus of Helfa 2014 and wrote a piece about it here on this weblog. It was a great success and I hope we can, at least, match its success this year.

I intend to develop work in collaboration with the other residents, and also with visitors and the wider communities. It is early days yet, Jack, so watch this space (or follow me on twitter @DeanAuthor) for more details!

In the meantime, YOU can get involved simply by sending me a postcard...

A selection of contributed postcards will be displayed within my exhibition area linked to this year's Haus of Helfa theme: Revisit / Reveal. You can write a postcard linked to any one of the three stimuli below:

1.  send a postcard to your former self (or to your future self, because one day you will be your future self's former self), imparting some significant nugget of information, or asking yourself a few questions - funny or philosophical.

2.  describe a place and time that you would wish to revisit but cannot ever again - poignant, pensive or polemical...

3.  or simply recount an anecdote of something that you have experienced when in, or near, Llandudno - be as straightforward or poetic as you like!

It is up to you what postcard you send, I would suggest one representing your local area (from whatever far-flung part of the world you live in), or your own original drawing or design. Suitable postcards will be selected for public exhibition at Haus of Helfa during my residency in September 2015 (I would recommend including no personal details apart from name and location, if you so wish). Postcards will be considered as donated, cannot be returned and will not be used for any other purposes other than those linked to this artistic venture. Some may be published on-line or in resulting printed artifacts. As I will not be able to reimburse you for the cost of postcard and postage, I will, on your behalf, donate £1 per card for the first 50 received, to local Llandudno charity Hosbis Dewi Sant.

Please send your postcards to:

Remy Dean
Haus of Helfa 2015
P O Box 1
Blaenau Ffestiniog
LL41 3ZB
United Kingdom

I look forward to receiving your contributions!

You can check out my Helfa Gelf homepage here...

Fantastic Feedback

'Adventures in Feedback', an exhibition of recent work by Mark Eaglen is currently on show at Galeri Caernarfon. A couple of the smaller pieces were ‘premiered’ last year alongside my ‘Night / Light’ photographs at Oriel Maenofferen, and those small but beautifully formed sculptural pieces were just a hint of what was to come from the mind of Mark in the twelve months since. Some of the work you will see in this current show is not actually there…

Eaglen is a technomage, merging lo-fi audio-visual technology and high-brow showmanship. The work is highly personal, yet the yearning nostalgia for analogue and childhood wonder will resonate with many. The ‘Transmission Call’ holographic piece brings to mind afternoons rushing back from the shops and eagerly awaiting the television picture to ‘warm-up’ as we listened to the recap from the previous week’s episode of ‘Doctor Who’. The sculpture is a simplified 1970s TV set laying on its back, as if discarded at a particularly clean and respectful recycling depot. As the viewer approaches it, the dark screen seems to exude a faintly glowing form, the reaction of the viewer attracts the attention of those nearby, who of course cannot see the same thing unless they too come closer. They are drawn to this holographic ‘sculpture’ that floats above the screen like a ghost image, as intangible as a memory.

Like most of the work here, this piece is an exploration of feedback and its form has been created by recording an (analogue) feedback pattern, selecting a ‘frame’ and then assigning the colour and tonal values a three-dimensional depth using a (digital) computer. This three-dimensional ‘graph’ has then been converted to a hologram and now appears as an object that does not really exist.

It relies on basic interaction with the viewer, who has to stand in a particular place in order to see the complete picture. The person stood next to them will see something slightly different, in much the same way as no two people see exactly the same rainbow. I am reminded of the time I saw Marcel Duchamp’s kinetic sculpture from the 1920s titled, ‘Rotary Glass Plates (Precision Optics)’, at the Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona. Duchamp’s piece consisted of sets of glass plates mounted on a motorised drive shaft. On the plates were arcs carefully painted to create partial circles. When the motor switches on and spins the plates, it creates the illusion of concentric circles hovering in the air – this illusion only works for those stood one metre directly in front of the machine.

Duchamp was the first artist to really start examining art as a process and to really recognise it as an ongoing ‘conversation’ between the artist and the wider social circle of the audiences. Though nearly all art relies on some sort of object, the art is not that object. The art begins in the mind of the artist, and then continues in the mind of the viewer. The object is a medium. By focussing on feedback, Eaglen has extended this consideration of process into another ‘loop’: an artist does not create in an isolated ‘bubble’, they are a product of the way that their mind interacts with, and is influenced by, many aspects of the culture that surrounds them. By exhibiting their work, they are presenting it to that wider culture which, to a lesser or greater extent, is then altered by its presence. That altered culture is, in turn, experienced by the artist. A feedback loop has begun.

above: an example of optical feedback from Wikimedia Commons

Other works on show include series of intricate little drawings that shimmer with silvers. Again, the viewer must experience these, first-hand, as they will not translate easily through scans or prints and even these change, depending upon the position of the viewer and the angle of light. There are some audio-visual works and an interactive piece that uses video cameras and projectors to create a feedback loop that you can play with, providing endless delight for children and the child within us all – and again, no two experiences of this subtle work will be the same. There are many tiny delicate forms and a larger wire mesh sculpture that creates a feedback pattern in the eye of the beholder as they approach the form. It looks like it could be a scientific model of something organic.

Although the art space at the Galeri is small and oddly shaped, this exhibition fits perfectly as it has lots of small detail, cleanly and elegantly presented. It is not a large exhibition, but it will reward the viewer who spends time to engage with it. The lasting impression that I came away with was a simple beauty born out of chaos and complexity.

You can see examples of Mark Eaglen’s work at his website here...

Or go to the Galeri website for more information about his current exhibition.

'Evolution of Western Art' by Remy Dean - NEW Book

Firstly, thanks to all who took advantage of the free downloads offer from amazon Kindle store on World Book Day. If you get the time to read either Final Bough and/or Scraps, I hope they are sufficiently entertaining...

My new non-fiction book is now also available (as from today) - alas not for free, but for a very reasonable price. It is a ‘history of art’ text book called, Evolution of Western Art by Remy Dean.

Click image of the cover above to find out more

It is a text book supported with a dedicated weblog: http://dean-evolution.blogspot.co.uk/

Publisher’s Product Description:

'Evolution of Western Art' by Remy Dean is an essential resource for the art student, novice practitioner and general art enthusiast who would like to expand their knowledge, and enhance their appreciation, of art.

This fresh approach to art history follows a timeline that spans more than 40,000 years, from pre-history to the present day, using clear language and specific examples to chart the development of key ideas and major concepts along the path. Art is the ultimate expression of a culture and often survives as the only evidence of how people thought and acted. Could art be one of the factors that saved the human race from early extinction? Do we make art because we are intelligent, or has human intellect grown as a response to our art? How does our art define us?

This text book has been developed by a teacher with more than a decade’s experience of lecturing in art history and contextual understanding to young adults (levels 2, 3 and 4). The aim is to remain clear and concise without over-simplification and not shy away from the important concepts. Each example is approached using a method of analysis suited to the work.

This book guides the reader along a path that runs through the major landmarks in the evolution of western art. It takes in ancient art, mediaeval art, the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, the art of the Enlightenment, the Romantics, Impressionists, Expressionists, Modernists, the Abstract, the Post-Modern, the Conceptual and the contemporary scene…

Best Art Resources On-line

Often 'clever', usually entertaining and accessible, always informative, the Artchive is a huge virtual 'museum' with multiple galleries and an extensive arts library. Mark Harden has collected a list of most of the most important critical theory in one section and in another section you will find good quality images of most of the most important works from art history in a well-organized set of galleries with accompanying notes that often qualify as essays. In the 'Juxtapositions' section you will find reviews and some thoughts expressed in various modes of post-modern cross-referencing...

ArtLex is a dictionary of art for everyone interested in art production, collection, or history. You will find articles on thousands of art terms, along with images, pronunciation notes, great quotations, and links to other resources on the Web. Michael Delahunt is at the hub of this extensive resource and has woven a web of meaning that spills beyond the pages he administrates, making ArtLex a portal to the arts on the internet.

Both of these inspiring websites have headed the reading lists I have been handing out to students for years now. They are well designed and the writing is clear. Both sites are run by people who know what they are talking about and the content is well-validated. I suggest these as 'first-ports-of-call' for any web-based research into art and artists.

Another really useful on-line resource is Olga's abc Gallery. Here you will find basic biographies of many important artists along with many good quality scans of their keyworks. The best thing about Olga's is the layout of the galleries: thumbnails arranged in chronological order. So what you get, 'at-a-glance', is a visual history of an artist's work and its development through their careers. They claim to have more than 10,000 images on-line...

The blog to accompany my history of art textbook, Evolution of Western Art, is also a good 'stand-alone' resource that provides a visual chronology of the major developments in western art over several millennia from pre-historic to the twenty-first century!

EVOLUTION OF WESTERN 

ART

To keep up with contemporary art as it happens I like to visit MocoLoco - a lively and continually up-dated blog-style resource that covers contemporary arts, crafts, design, architecture and media. Most of the features are image-based, making this a feast for the eye, but when you see something you like, there are ready made connections to other articles for you to follow along with links to relevant web-sites and resources. There are also well-selected international exhibitions listings with sample pictures.  The MocoLoco layout can be unorthodox - hint: scroll sideways, get lost, enjoy

...and if that is not enough, there is plenty of current arts content at 

 The Guardian | Culture ...

Only born once...

NB: Since uploading this review, borndigital seems to have been wiped from the web! I feel like I've lost touch with an old friend, and the www community has lost a great resource... but why? (The conspiracy theories can start here.)

The website http://www.borndigital.com/ is the definition of a cool.com... It has been around since the 'ancient times' of world-wide-web weaving, with its first uploads in 1994. Since its birth, the site has been often imitated - accept no substitutes! For the 'retro-cyber-chique' design alone it is well worth a visit. It retains the internet aesthetics of the 'hacker ethic', from a time when information and the internet was still striving to be free and to champion freedom - of information, speech, thought, expression...

Broken down into sections that look like fragments from the conscious and subconscious of Timothy Leary, the content is indexed into loose categories such as: Spirit/Consciousness/Magic, Politics/Sacred Cows, 'Sampledelic Meltomedia', Art and 'LSD' (contains flashing imagery, and then some!).

Browsing the site is like going to a dinner party with fellow boffins, artists, acid-heads, philosophers, techno-geeks, 'flaming liberals' and well-read nerds. The content is abundant and the essays and texts will inform, incite, excite and challenge. So have a look for yourself, but be warned, the mind that does not bend snaps sooner.

My Top Ten Pieces Of Art

In the latter months of 2010, I have uploaded a countdown of my personal favourite Top Ten Pieces Of Art on my other ‘brother’ blog, I’M HOT GOAT. These are not necessarily the pieces of art that I think are the most important in critical terms, but ones that have made a memorable or important impression upon me. (Some of my all-time favourite artists are not represented in this list, a forthcoming Hot Goat entry, I think…) So, in reverse order:

10: Dalek – the cultural icon designed by Terry Nation and Raymond Cusick

9: Black Circle and Black Square – Suprematist paintings by Kazimir Malevich

8: Stray Dog – photographed by Daido Moryama

7: Blue Velvet – the film directed by David Lynch

6: The Large Glass – hugely important piece of art by Marcel Duchamp

5: Songs Of Innocence And Experience – written and illustrated by William Blake

4: Plight – the installation by Joseph Beuys

3: Stalker – the cinematic masterpiece by Andrei Tarkovsky

2: Spiral Jetty – large scale earthwork by Robert Smithson

1: 20:50 – the perception altering work by Richard Wilson

Read more at:
 
I'M HOT GOAT
 
... and ALL the very BEST for 2011

Information is Beautiful

"The eyes and minds of beholders..."

I just bought this lovely book by author-designer-thinker, David McCandless, a contributor to Wired magazine and The Guardian newspaper, amongst other things. He uses visual communication and infographics to clarify many complex issues, uncover what have been generally perceived as accepted truths to be, well, clearly not truths at all, and to make some very sharp cultural and political observations via crisp colour-coded diagrams that are more than the sum of their parts...

Much of the graphs and graphics are lovely to behold, regardless of their sometimes very serious and worrying content. Their poetic 'balance' is often reminiscent of minimal art such as the grids of Piet Mondrian, or Suprematism, whilst others look like bauhaus designs or its antithesis, Pop Art... and like Pop Art often reappropriate the symbols of our everyday environment. And these visuals, unlike some minimalist art, convey very clear and easily assimilated meaning.

Anyway, rather than reading my words describing his visuals, why not just take a look at his rather excellent and generous website: Information Is Beautiful. Yes it is.

Is This Good Art?

"Time to reflect upon the meaning of life..."

Whilst trying to come up with a general definition of art with a group of students, we found ourselves discussing this image of Anish Kapoor’s ‘Turning The World Inside Outside’ (1995). As far as I recall, this piece was exhibited for part of the year in a clinically white gallery space, and then for part of the year in the open air amongst the Rollright Stones (near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire).

We thought that this does what good art should do. It is attractive and engaging. It does not initially challenge, offend or seem to be ‘really serious’… and it is a beautiful object.

It is something like a big silver apple, or a bauble off a Yuletide Tree. Like other reflective pieces by Kapoor (such as the great ‘Cloud Gate’ in Chicago's Millennium Park) it also has that funhouse mirror thing that entertains children and invites you in. As you approach it, you realise that you have been incorporated into it - your reflected image is now part of the ‘work’.

You cannot actually see the object itself. You can only see where its surface disrupts and distorts its environment. It does not stand apart from its surroundings, it alters them and reflects them back to the viewer, who is also altered and reflected back. By doing this, it presents us with a new viewpoint that incorporates the piece of art, its environment, and ourselves.

Perhaps this shows us what good art can do. Its presence changes the way we see our environment, ourselves and others within that environment, but to some extent, it is up to the individual to respond to that view and reflect on what it could mean. So good art should either reveal something to us that we were not previously aware of, about ourselves, others, or the wider world - or change our view of these elements and the way they interact. Hopefully by doing this, (good) art enriches our experience of being.

Or maybe it is sometimes enough for art to reflect reality and show us how subjective that concept may be…

Anish Kapoor Homepage - worth a look!

I discuss this work in the book Evolution of Western Art

What Is Art?

“I don’t know much about Art, but I know what I like… ”

This old cliché may be one of the best definitions we can agree on! There has always been difficulty in defining exactly what Art is. The perceptions of aesthetics vary so much from culture to culture (even from person to person). The definition of art is closely linked to the aesthetics of the culture that produced it. Oh no! Now there are two more words that we need to define: ‘Aesthetics’ and ‘Culture’… perhaps art is its own definition and the art a culture produces, defines that culture.

The word, ‘art’ comes from the Roman Latin word, ‘ars’ – meaning ‘art’ – which they defined as ‘a thing of beauty that was of human (as opposed to natural) origin’. (I think it's pronounced 'arz' but it gets more laughs if you say 'arse'.) Hence other similar words such as ‘artificial’, ‘artifice’... but just because something is artificial, it does not mean it is art… which means that there has to be a judgement of whether the thing is beautiful or not. So, what is ‘beauty’? And...

We’re right back to cultural differences and aesthetic perceptions…

In antiquity, there was not just ‘art’, there were ‘the arts’, which were perceived to be of two orders:

The first order were the liberal arts, or artes liberales, which were: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Music and Philosophy – which was the highest of all and from which all other arts were derived. Aesthetics was a philosophy of beauty.

The second, lesser, order of arts were the technical arts: Architecture, Agriculture, Painting, Sculpture… and other manual Crafts, which seems closest to how most people think of 'the arts' today. (Perhaps we should show more cultural appreciation for the farmers' ploughed furrows as eARTh art.)

So what is art? I don't think there will be a definitive answer, though we can explore and discuss what makes good, or at least sucessful, art. That is a thread that I expect will run through this blog.