After creating my first body of work I have tested a display of a collection of objects and sculptures - presenting my own form of sculptural archive.
Beginning to explore assemblage - installation art
Installation art
The term installation art is used to describe large-scale, mixed-media constructions, often designed for a specific place or for a temporary period of time (Tate 2021). These types of installations can take multiple forms - or create an environment within the gallery space - some examples of work can take up entire spaces or be singular pieces which the viewer is invited to walk around. It differs from sculpture as instead of the work being individual artworks - the installation takes on a complete experience.
Connection between installation art and conceptual art as work becomes less about producing physical art objects and instead drawing together of different objects to pose questions to the viewer - question their understanding of the function of art.
The main actor in the total installation, the main centre toward which everything is addressed, for which everything is intended, is the viewer. - Ilya Kabakov
Jesse Darling: No Medals No Ribbons, Modern Art Oxford
Darling's exhibition at Modern Art Oxford combined elements of sculpture within installation art and assemblage, having large structural devices alongside multiple smaller elements such as tinfoil aeroplanes which littered the entire gallery floor. Her work combines industrial materials with everyday objects such as plastic bags to create very strange almost awkward sculptures and installations - explores different gestures and forms a dialogue between different materials. It was also interesting to see how the artist incorporated light within her sculptures - creates a very layered and multisensory experience. This work is a helpful reference for my own practice to consider ways in which I display my own work - building dialogues between my different sculptural elements or if I should consider using these elements to create a larger installation.
Assemblage
Assemblage is art that is made by assembling disparate elements – often everyday objects – scavenged by the artist or bought specially. (Tate, 2021)
Peter Fischli and David Weiss at Tate Modern
This assemblage of objects at Tate Modern recreated the artists studio appearing at first glance to be a series of works in progress. The messy and cluttered space combines many different elements from scrap materials, wooden supports, plinths, buckets, art materials and other objects related to art production. However, what makes this installation interesting is that every component of the assemblage has been hand made out of polyurethane creating a very visual play with materials and subverting the viewers expectation and understanding of materiality. Process of imitation - investing hundreds of hours of time in imitating cheaply massed produced objects.
It also plays with the Duchampian notion of the readymade as well as trompe l'oeil visual trickery and referencing devices of still life painting.
It is interested to explore the different formats that installations can take and the visual references it can create. Within my own work I am interested in museology so it would be useful to consider ways in which my own installations can reference this context through the modes of display I utilise.
Playing with display
Pairing found objects together
combination of fabricated and found materials
Interest in surface, form, colour, composition and texture
Taking throwaway objects and allowing them to be read as art objects
Interest in platforms - plinths - resist traditional format of plinth
stands and surfaces - friction and dialogue between different pieces.
Discarded forgotten objects – interest in outlines – forms- aesthetic qualities of objects
Using lens of fragmenting – methodology is one which is lots of fragments of information and interests – field of fragments – create top down hierarchal system of list is different to fragmentation – splattered in multiple directions – almost like stars – not linear –
Will fragmenting remain at top of list – pairing this up with another concept. E.g. fragmenting and found object or fragmenting and prehistoric landmarks
Keep fragmenting at centre of research
Re-examine own kind of thinking when I’m drawn to something institutively – evaluate what it is – get down deep into heart of concept – why it is enthralling for me
Words are important within my practice - this can be investigated through titling
How do you harvest/gather something – inherent process – can this activate work - my practice involves the actions of collecting
What do I do with these objects that I’ve gathered – how is it displayed - can the display reference museology - relate back to materiality
Is this part of way in which I work – actions are key … how to use these actions to create work – displaying what I’ve found – method to approach – thinking of arrangement of found objects – display of collected stuff – may intervene with – gathering and displaying – very particular
Creating another life for these objects - do they function on their own as art objects or do they need to have a further intervention?
Drawn to aesthetic qualities – pattern - surface texture – what do I do with them – particular process of selecting
There is a sense of geographical mapping within my work
Joseph Kasuth – chair – taking same form and using three different processes – changing understanding of object – how is it different if all 3 displayed vs single one – how do we understand something
Negative positive space – playing with meaning
Geology and time – loose associations with residue – ephemera of time
Making and processes
Contained shape and pattern – how it can expand
Displaying fragments to produce meaning – asking viewer – interrogating – understand how meaning is produced through found stuff and text – way images have been treated – deconstructing how we understand something
Presentation Feedback
Understanding and unpicking a key aspect of my practice
What are the specific things that excite – interest me in my work (these are throwaway objects, geological influences, stones and fragmented shapes, interest in aesthetic and physical qualities of materials.
How are ideas described through materiality of my work?
Become an expert on conceptualism and minimalism – looking at examples of these artists – what do they do – how do they portray their ideas
Found objects – stay forever – fossils – impressions – embossing process –
Work is about a series of actions
Actions – action of archiving or appropriation – different actions –
Range of processes which I engaged with. Archiving more important than appropriation – collecting of materials – how are you archiving that collection? - I can archive the collection through creating a physical display of the objects - or possibly making new work inspired by the forms, colours, textures within the archived objects
Arranging process. Do more with the objects - I need to further play with modes of display to create more of a dialogue between works
What is the collection – how do you archive it
Museological approaches into how objects are documented or preserved – online repository – textual descriptions of condition of objects
Arranging of components – using components to create something else
Classic display tropes – using mini plinths – elevating ordinariness of objects
More ways I can explore
Status of collection and archiving process are key
Display – what that means – what that does e.g., Richard deacon – idea of collection and arrangement and display
What is distinct about these actions. Background of form and aesthetics – inherently within the objects
Sense of manipulation – taking the ordinary and the discarded – taking the mundane and elevating it to status of artwork – through very formal processes
Language of aesthetics – form – proportion – colours – arrangement
Conceptual artist – use textual – how you would describe the thing through the titling – art and language
After reviewing my body of work so far I am beginning to understand that my work is less about the concept of archiving and more about the materiality of objects and the agency in which they inherently have - I am more interested in the actions I can perform or enact onto these objects
The process of archiving seems more of a research method within my work - my process of collecting objects serves a purpose of inspiration - being informed by these objects to create my own work - moving forwards I need to explore ways of exploring the materiality of these objects and seeing how I can take the inspiration of the forms and structures within the objects to create new work.