I have recently visited both the Ikon Gallery and the Barber Insitute of Fine Arts and found them to contain tow very different exhibitions. The Ikon was showing a collection of work by late artist Len Lye. His art spanned a variety of media, including film, paint and sculpture, and the exhibition was laid out accordingly. The paintings were shown in a basic white cube style space, the films were projected in darkened alcoves and his kinetic sculptures, which I found to be my favourite part of the exhibition, were installed in black-painted rooms with the occasional light to illuminate the quivering, dancing metal of the sculptures. I found it interesting how in a modern art exhibition it is acceptable and even beneficial to view work in circumstances such as in the dark- the sculptures would perhaps not seemed as effective and ethereal in a white space with all the lights on.
I compared this exhibition to that at the Barber Institute, which contains work by such masters as Tintoretto, Van Gogh and Manet. It is a traditional gallery in the sense that the paintings are hung close together on the walls in chronologically ordered rooms, with most of the older works in ornate gilt frames.
As our exhibition will be a contempory one with an antiquated theme (Victorian-style freak show) something to think about could be including traditional elements among the more wacky ones, such as the way we hang the paintings. A modern concept which I think is important will be the lighting so it might be time to start thinking about how we can illuminate our exhibition.

Emily

Work I'd like to see in the exhibition

Craig: I had a look around the level 5 and 6 spaces and found a few interesting pieces I think would fit our theme. Most of them are of a more sadistic nature but there are few that are fun. I picked a few of the pieces based the idea of a fun house/carnival.  

 I think this type of work would look good scattered around the exhibition. 

  

I decided on this piece to fit in with a fun house theme although we're going for the freak show idea I still think this could be used.

I think the idea of a freak show is great. I instantly thought of the 1980s film Elephant man.

I Think the films photography is something to note. The way the black cloth is put over the head of the beast uncanny & unknown. I'm not sure if everyone wants to do the whole bright colours fairground style as I believe that using less saturated work would give the exhibition a bit of personality.
I have had a few ideas on ways of enhancing the overall exhibition, I am especially interested to work on sound installation, something like the chatter and bustle of people going on in the background (slightly warped perhaps) If we were going to try and capture the essence of a freak show/ fairground i also believe smell is going to be important! I'm keen to work on both these aspects and will post another blog later today with more ideas.

In response to Beth saying about dressing up i think the clown idea might be a bit to obvious however i do understand that that may be something we were aiming for. I think the white shirt idea is great; however i think that if we were a travelling freak show our clothes may not be top notch and we would probably be quite poor. So maybe a play on the face painted clown.
Only a few ideas I will add more later today.

'Exposed'

Maxwell: I went to see an exhibition at the Tate Modern a few months back in October. The show was called 'Exposed' and it was labelled as "the most intrusive art exhibition Tate Modern has ever held." Although it may seem to not link perfectly to our initial idea I think ideas can be drawm from it. It basically worked with the idea of an unseen photographer capturing shots of people without their knowledge. Throughout the 250 photographs the viewer is exposed to a wide ranging series of snaps going from very amusing to brutally shocking.

The show looks into the idea of surveillance and how the world seems to be obsessed with it these days. I read that England is the most surveyed country in the world, through means of CCTV, youtube and camera phones for example.  It also raises a constant question in the viewers mind for everyday life as to who's looking at them and how are they looking.

I think the underlying point of this exhibition was that for me I felt like I was looking at images that i'm simply not supposed to be seeing. As a result I felt very uncomfortable and even helpless in some cases in the knowledge that i'm distant from what's happening in some of the photographs. The pictures in this exhibition wildly range from intruding on people in their most private times to shocking photos of people about to commit suicide.

The initial idea for our project was looking into the idea of a twisted funhouse, a lot of the photographs in the 'Exposed' exhibition were most definietly twisted. We could look for L5/ L6 art that actually makes the viewer react in a strong way. Maybe we can look into ways to present the pieces and alter the lighting aswell. For example we could almost create our own kind of house structure where we literally assemble the art in such a way that you can walk through a gap and literally be surrounded by walls of work. Through this they're not just looking at the work they're actually inside the work.

Just a thought.

Maxwell.

:)

Entrance to the exhibition.

The night watch ... Stranger No 1 by Shizuka Yokomizo

Something to look at...

Freak Show

Beth: I went to London Art Fair last week, apart from looking at the art I spent a lot of time people watching. Through the snobbery of at least 90% of visitors at the fair, I was completely appalled at how much I felt out of place, even as an art student at the event. I felt I wasn't good enough and looked down on just because I didn't have the money for the overpriced work.

Art is something to enjoy. Why then was it just presented at the show at a price for people with the biggest bank account.

I think we should make our show fun.

I love the idea of the fairground, but why not take on the theme completely rather than it just being a vague connection between the pieces and making the audience try and guess the connection, make it completely obvious.

The work that you've looked at from the second and third years all fit into the idea of a Freak Show. We could take the existing idea of the Freak Show and make our art show a new version. By selecting works that are both fun and sinister, like the sewn together toys we can allow the audience to embrace the idea.

A freak show is an exhibition of rarities, "freaks of nature" — such as unusually tall or short humans, and people with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics or other extraordinary diseases and conditions — and performances that are expected to be shocking to the viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.

The Freak Show is already an existing exhibition of weird and wonderful things so it would be appropriate to make another exhibition from it.

Not only basing the work on that, we could engulf the carnival theme. Advertise the exhibition through posters for a Freak Show, perhaps not even letting on about it being about art, just letting people come to find out. We could have fake "Wanted" posters for other freaks.

Freak shows are fearful, perhaps we could have a dressed up clown just walking around the exhibition, not speaking to people - not distracting from the work but just silently walking around as if he belongs there..he could perhaps give out colourful balloons which would look fantastic to look in on from the outside with colourful balloons filling the room and each selected person taking a little of the exhibition home with them.

If not the clown idea, we could all dress the same, white shirt, black trousers, dickie bow and all wear the same clown masks like a performance art, almost like the "10 Embarrassed Men" at Frieze by Anneka Strom.

 Let me know what you think....Beth.

Street Art Exhibition

http://www.theherbert.org/index.php/home/whats-on/street-art

Recently, I went to see the street art exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry. One of the things that caused a lot of speculation was whether street art should be brought into the gallery, not only because of the idea of street art losing its original connotations when in a gallery setting, but also because the Mohammaed Ali room, (and also one of the large scale pieces by Ben Slow) continued off the work and onto the wall. the way the space was used i though was really interesting, it was split up into sections, aside from the Mohammaed Ali work being in one completely separate room, the exhibition highlighted the political connotations of street art, and sectioned the work off accordingly. I thought it was a really great way to show the work, because it really demonstrated the underlying tones of each piece which emphasize works with obvious text and strong visuals.

I think it something we need to think about with our exhibition, maybe talking to the artists to find out their intended meaning behind their work, then selection works that fall in the same area, not necessarily political, but also include works that maybe contradict it. I also thought that using the space as an extention of the work was very effective, obviously we wont be able to get people to draw on the walls, but maybe we could have a loot at ways we can display the work.

Just something to think about, Steph

Mohammaed Ali Room

Ben Slow's contribution - although the floor was protected by a glass sheet, this was drawn straight onto the walls of the gallery. 

Initial Ideas

Emily: Some of our group met up on Thursday to take a look around the level 5, 6 and MA studios and take photos of pieces that inspired us and that we could link together in some way.

We all agreed on which of the pieces were the most successful, and we seemed to drift towards the more theatrical works. As some of the pieces that appealed to us were colourful and fantastical, and others were of a darker, more creepy nature, we decided to combine the two elements and base our first ideas for an exhibition around the notion of a twisted funhouse, where fun meets fear.

If we can get these works of art into our show, they show enough variety of texture and structure to keep it interesting, as we would incorporate both painting and sculpture.
Some works which stood out to us were...

We really like this strange, fun sculpture.

We like the theatrical nature of this.

These clay figures were quite disturbing.

This piece isn't finished yet apparently but the inclusion of balloons is relevant to out funhouse theme.

This piece is colourful and complex.

These structures are fun with their shapes and fluffy texture.

This painting is creepy- the child sports devil horns and facial hair.

This amazing painting would be part of the "horror" element of our exhibition- a face looming out of the dark would contrast well with the more fun works.

We liked this collection of paintings. I especially like the large one at the top as it has the air of a blurred photograph, taken secretively.

These toys look sweet until you see the way they are stitched together to create one entity, which is quite creepy in a way.

This piece is quite decadent and theatrical with its folds of material and swathes of glitter.

This sculpture is reminiscent of cobwebs or a cage.

We will find other relevant pieces and pick the best, then begin asking students if they would mind us using their work for our show.