Overwhelming but fascinating

On Tuesday last week me and some friends attended the Hayward Gallery to see The British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be overwhelming. Overwhelming but interesting and varied once you take a deep breath and with a lot of patience decide to take the experience slowly.

There was so many art works to look at ranging from sculpture to installation, to short artistic films to paintings and photographs. Admittedly one of the biggest aspects I found overwhelming was the amount of short films being showcased. If I had to describe myself  as a type 1, 2, or 3 museum audience, I would definitely say I am a three. I like to read and see everything in detail, taking my time to make sure I don’t miss out on anything. This however was my downfall at The British Art Show, I found myself wanting to see all the short films with very little time, so in the end I had to settle for just two films, my decision based on the short descriptions given outside the space. The first film was Christian Marclay’s The Clock concluded of a collage of clips from all sorts of movies, classics to Mr and Mrs Smith, based on clocks. What I enjoyed about this film was the editing skills and the precision in which tense moments that revolve around time are quickly disarmed by showing a different clip from the one before, or heightened in the same manner. The result is a film in which throughout the whole moment is played the audience expects something to happen, but nothing actually does.

We are all foreign!

Last Sunday I attended the short film screening of “Together as One” hosted by the LAYF (Latin American Youth Forum) an organization based in London promoting the development of Latin American youths through education and the arts as well bringing to attention issues that happen within London and Latin American countries. The film screening was made up of several shorts films by other organizations that worked alongside LAYF such as the Native Spirit Foundation, Refuge in Films, Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Movimientos, and Single Homeless Project. The films ranged from comedy to documentary style touching on a variety of issues such as the consequences of multi-national corporations within Latin America, touching on the violence created in Peru to the resistance put up by farmers in Colombia. As well as this it touched on the topic of being new to a country portraying this in a short film about a youth left homeless and helpless by the refugee organization that aimed to help him, as well as a short documentary drawing on real life experience of what is like to be a refugee in the UK. My favorite part of this being the funny stories of newcomers to Britain, such as the fear of escalators, oyster card mishaps, perhaps the reason being that is a relatable topic to anyone that is a newcomer to any new country.

Thought the Funny Stories was my favourite for its comical factor, the one that I mostly liked for its documentary styles and admittedly the one that received the most applaud on the day was the short documentary titled

What Do You Do For Fun?

Larry Clark

“What do you do for fun?”

I want a baby before you die, Larry Clark

 

The name Larry Clark evokes semi pornographic images of naked teens, teenage angst, sex drugs and more sex. His London exhibition at the Simon Lee Gallery, which runs from the 10^th of February 2011 to the 2^nd of April 2011, “What do you do for fun?”  lives up to the photographer and film maker’s reputation by providing exactly that, an array of images and collages displaying previous works  from the controversial collection  of staged photographs which form “1992”, as well as collages such as “I want a baby before u die”, “The perfect childhood” and an array of smaller collages concentrating on the young teen idols of the seventies and eighties such as Cory Haim, Matt Dillon and cast members from Family an American television drama from the seventies.

“What do you for fun?” came about from the success of the infamous exhibition of “Kiss the past hello” showcased at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2010. An exhibition so explicit that the mayor of Paris ironically deemed the images of under aged teens taking part in Larry Clarks usual portrayal of hedonistic adolescent life unsuitable for under eighteens, causing an uproar of criticism within the young people of Paris, as well as the French media. In contrast to this, no such action has occurred in the London exhibition.

Brian O’Doherty’s “Inside the White Cube.”

Brian O’Doherty’s Inside the White Cube describes the modern gallery; its history and meaning to the world of today. In the introductory chapter O’Doherty attempts to relate the idea of the gallery to the notion of time and space, and the way in which the observer views it. His descriptions on the role of the gallery, seem mystical and sanctifying, for example he likens its construction laws to those of a medieval church, “a gallery is constructed along laws as rigorous as a medieval church”, as well as mystifying it by stating that “the outside world must not come in”. This in itself gives the gallery an air of sacredness that should not be influenced by the outside world. Later on in the paragraph O’Doherty makes this statement clearer by describing the gallery as a private and clean enough space for the art to be free and “to take on its own life”. Which may suggest that by not letting influence fro m the outside world come in the such as extra furniture, decorations to give a vague example, and by keeping the surroundings controlled and clinical it allows for the art work to be viewed for what it is, without taking influence from its surroundings . However this is very ironic due to the fact that “white cube” styled gallery even as neutral as it attempts to be is not very successful at not influencing the art works. In fact like O’Doherty states earlier on that the “context becomes content” it is to say the gallery space (context) becomes as much part of the art (content) as the art piece itself. An example that he gives is the idea that even a simple object such as a firehose in a museum looks “not like a firehose but an aesthetic conundrum”. So the question is if the white cube space has the power to influence the way the audience look at an inanimate object that was not introduced as an art work in the first place, then how does it affect an art piece.