‘about art’

I know I haven’t been upto date with this but all will be resumed!! You may notice that I haven’t posted an artist with I as the initial letter – to be frank I couldn’t remember one that I like/has influenced me. No doubt, there are one or two and hopefully I can recall them at a later date.

So as a bonus I am including two yes 2 artists just to make up for the lack of ‘I’

Both artist work influenced me in my early college days and I have selected works that I remember seeing for the first time and thinking wow, other images are ones that I have chosen because of the mark making/drawing technique. Enjoy

Following previous posting about nails and the artist David Shrigley I found an interesting interview by him from the Independent, it follows; I like his earthy honesty and sense of humour – shame about Notts Forest: although I agree with him on his understanding of their skill!
I will tootle over to the Haywood Gallery in the next week or two to have a butchers at his latest exhibition – running 25th Jan to 13th April

Contemporary art borrows the structure of a joke, then takes out the humour – that’s what makes it art. In my twisted mind, it makes sense. But pretty much everything Gilbert and George do is funny.
* My aesthetic is a form of shorthand. I made a decision that I wasn’t going to draw anything in a more sophisticated fashion than it needed to be.
* My parents are not at all interested in art and never thought I would be an artist.
* Art is not a great career path, as very few people make money from it. Then again, nobody expected to make money from it when I graduated, so it’s changed a lot.
* Art can be a bit of a rich kid’s thing to study, in the United States particularly.
* There’s always good work coming out, there always has been and there always will be. I think it’s ridiculous to say there’s no good art around. It’s true in any discipline. People always say there isn’t any good music around, but they’re not looking for it in the right place.
* I’m a big consumer of music. Now I’ve made some money, I really like the fact that I can buy records without having to worry. That’s a big luxury in my life. The ironic thing is I get lots of freebies now.
* I tend to put too much emotional energy into following Nottingham Forest, but they’re never on TV because they’re crap.
* ‘The Mighty Boosh’ is the best comedy on TV by some distance. It’s crazy, but quite sweet and innocent at the same time.
* I’m proud that I do what I enjoy, and I can do it and support my partner. And I don’t have to get up dead early in the morning. I can wander around the house in my pyjamas and do drawings. That’s quite nice, but I’m not sure if that’s an achievement or just a stroke of good fortune. Maybe it’s both.
Interview By Luiza Sauma

(picture doctored by myself for fun!!)

Came across this – it tickled me, even the ‘great’ have problems with their art!!

Buying a work by Damien Hirst is always going to be a costly exercise. He is, after all, the highest-selling living artist on the planet whose pieces command unprecedented prices. So spare a thought for Oslo’s Museum of Modern Art, which was forced to return the artist’s installation of a bisected cow and calf for repairs after the tank of formaldehyde they were in sprang a leak.
Just over a year after Hirst’s famous shark was found to be suffering from rot, a second pickled piece, the 1995 Turner Prize-winning Mother and Child Divided, had to be sent back to the artist’s studio for emergency repairs, The Art Newspaper will report in its October edition. The tank was on display at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo when the leak was spotted. The work was immediately sent to the artist’s studio in London for emergency repairs. It brings into question the longevity of contemporary works of art that are made with unconventional materials. Gunnar Kvaran, the museum’s director, said the damage was caused by a flaw in the glass, and some formaldehyde was lost. “Our insurance will probably have to cover the costs of conservation,” he added.
Although only one case in the work was found to be damaged in June, all four parts of the installation were sent back to Hirst. The work was the gallery’s most popular and will not be returned until next year.
Grete Arbu, head of collections at the museum, said it had been discussing conservation of the work with the artist before the leak was discovered.
“It had been installed permanently in 1997 and it was just getting tired,” she said. “The pressure inside the container is enormous. We just noticed a small leak on the floor beneath the glass, and we sent it back within the week.
“Formaldehyde is very dangerous material. The same container will be kept but the layers of glass will be replaced. We could see it needed to be conserved.
“Many of the contemporary artists’ works need to be repaired because they work with so many different techniques, so these things can’t last a thousand years,” she added. The museum is believed to have bought the piece in 1996, for about £135,000 from White Cube Gallery. It has since acquired several other pieces by Hirst. The intricate restoration work is anticipated to be “quite expensive.”
A new version of Mother and Child Divided will be lent by Hirst for the Turner Prize retrospective opening next week, which traces past winners in the prize’s history. The original was deemed “too fragile to travel” by the Tate, which has used the artwork as a key image in its promotional poster campaign. A spokeswoman for Hirst’s company, Science Ltd, confirmed the leak was being repaired.
A statement read: “The 1993 work is undergoing repair as a minor leak has appeared in one of the tank’s seams – this is not a major repair job. Damien has made a second version of this piece for the Tate retrospective.” Last year, Hirst was to replace the rotting shark in his The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, which was bought by the American collector, Steve Cohen from Charles Saatchi, in a deal brokered by the Gagosian Gallery for a reported £6.5m three years ago. It was found to have deteriorated dramatically since it was unveiled at the Saatchi Gallery in 1992. The chemical solution that surrounded it had become murky and the shark had changed shape (source: independent)

Isn’t it amazing, as soon as you start on a piece of work/idea you start seeing things that are related. Its like when you want to purchase a new car and it appears that every other car on the road is the one that you want – I can’t remember the official terminology for this but I bet there is one, rather like there seems to be a phobia about everything. (once did a pub quiz and asked players to match 12 phobias to particular words) ….any how I digress!

I was searching for the now infamous nail painting/sculpture of Leonardo by Saimir Strati

when I happened across some great work by an artist.. David Shrigley

whos use of language combined with his artifacts are brilliant, I had a butchers at his site an loved one piece -

Then came across another sculpture who uses bent nails, in the same manner as Terry Border (bent objects)by pjlighthouse

whos slant is that of a comical approach. Also on the trek came across Bill Secunda who makes huge sculptures using a combination of nails and other materials.

Well, enough time spent trawling, time to get back to the nails!!!

Following my interest the the artist Banksy there is more news on his work -
Now you see it, now you don’t . . . and now you do again. A large-scale artwork by Banksy, the “guerrilla” graffiti artist, disappeared last weekend after a rival graffiti artist sprayed white paint over it.
Just as everyone assumed that the original work – painted on the wall of an arts centre two years ago – was beyond saving, it somehow materialised again yesterday.
The stencilled figure of a chambermaid appearing to lift up part of the wall like a curtain to sweep away some dust is protected by both the Roundhouse arts centre, northwest London, on whose wall it is painted, and Camden council, which spends thousands of pounds removing graffiti from its streets.
Whether someone removed the white paint or painted a new version of the Banksy work is unclear.
Banksy, who insists on anonymity, enhanced his reputation in a more conventional way on Thursday night, when one of his works sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York for a record price. Keep it Spotless, a spray-painted canvas depicting a chambermaid appearing to lift up a Damien Hirst spot painting to reveal a brick wall, was sold for £950,300. A year ago the most that had been paid for a work by Banksy was £102,000. (source:timesonline)
I am aiming to use this stencil style to produce some lettering for a piece of work within current project, having drawn out some sketches and currently experimenting with materials I’m in the process of formulating an image with which it can be combined.

Having had my work on the saatchi online gallery for some time and entering the ongoing voting competition, I very much doubt that my work will feature into this venture!! One can only hope….
Charles Saatchi is to open one of the world’s largest private galleries of contemporary art and go into direct competition with Tate Modern.
The new gallery, in King Street, Chelsea, is replacing Saatchi’s previous site at County Hall, which closed after the collector breached the terms of the lease.
The new location will feature 15 large rooms spread over three floors and cover 50,000sqft.
The Tate features a huge Turbine Hall and three floors of galleries that run the length of the 200 metre-long building, with a total of 371,350 square feet floor space.
Like the Tate, the Saatchi will be free to visitors when it opens in spring.
It will have longer opening hours than any other British gallery or museum, running from 10am to 10pm most days, thanks to sponsorship from New York-based auction firm Phillips de Pury, which is opening a British European HQ and auction rooms in Victoria later this month.
Saatchi, 64, is planning to launch his gallery with a show featuring his vast collection of contemporary Chinese art.
It will be followed by an exhibition by new US artists and then a show of contemporary Indian art.
The latest purchase by the collector, who has fostered the careers of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, is a painting of Nazi Holocaust mastermind Heinrich Himmler. Saatchi paid a reported £3,000 for the portrait by Jasper Joffe, 32. (source. evening standard)

Follwing some comments left on my other site http://paultalbotart.blogspot.com/� and past posts I have located an old drawing that I produced in the late 80′s. Roughly 20cm x 12 cm, mixed media. The series of work was based on conflict of relationships and a number of large canvases were produced (sadly lost over time!). Some of the influences of the F post maybe be seen and possible Moore, I still like to produce quick studies in this style although looking at my recent paintings this would not appear so! I think of them more as doodles.

Eeeeezzzzyyyy!!