Neither painting nor sculpture

Today I went to my favourite-gallery-at-the-moment-in-London, Haunch of Venison. Every time I go there I discover a new stunning artist or at least I see amazing pieces from some people I already know. They have a very accurate eye to choose the art pieces that will be shown. This time the curator connected four artists that were influential to the 60’s and that can show the issues this generation was dealing with. Those are Enrico Castellani, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Günther Uecker.

I was specially fascinated by the work of Dan Flavin, as I am a colour enthusiast and a light-lover. This Newyorkish guy started to work with electric light in 1961 and especially with the fluorescent bulbs at 1963. The pieces are visually stunning, they completely change the environment where they are put. The thing is that when working with light there is always a scape dimension, a space out of the object that is modified, and that is still part of the work of art itself. It captivates the observer as a source of light seems to be surrounded with vividness. Besides, there are figurative intentions in some pieces that also approximate them to the pop art without loosing the impact they could do on any.

Other minimalist that struck me was Donald Judd. Another American but with a different trajectory as he worked in the army, studied philosophy and had a great career as an art critic. His works with Plexiglas and aluminum results in a rigid mix of colour and brightness, where everything seems calculated and in its proper place. There’s also a sense of organization, scheme and as he stated his work is clear, strong and definite, and art should not represent anything, it should simply exist.

Kristin Baker

I went to Saatchi Gallery a few weeks ago and was moved by one of the rooms which exhibited Kristin Baker works. At first, I got impressed by the size of the paintings and the movement that they seem to capture. As I got closer to the paintings I realized that the geometric frames or the superposing blocks of acrylic that she uses to create those huge images had an even more delicate mixture of colours. There were many layers of this material that resembles collage but with a distinct technique to create a kind of futurism-realistic-abstraction.


She is hyper talented and hyper realist. Her attempting to show a moment of pure disaster, this transformation of a intense chaos in a snapshot, the contrast between the use of knives and scrapers to create strong images with transparent blurs and crystalline shapes, all this exemplifies how up-to-date she is, mixing and matching to rebuild one of the most loved themes of modern times: the speed car.

Links:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/kristin_baker.htm?section_name=abstract_america_painting_sculpture
http://mocoloco.com/art/archives/000978.php

Take a look!
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/10/hussein-chalaya-and.html

Petra Storrs

Petra Storrs is a London based, creative set design artist that released my new friend Liria´s padlock from the bike she lent me to use here in London. We went upstairs to talk for a while passing through a series of corridors which flats were mainly opened showing that the place was full of people wanting to share or to stare with-at each other. As I’d been drinking the blackcurrant with cider it was a delicious shock to drink an organic one, such a remarkable fresh air in the middle of their amazing messy flat in this kind of warehouses building.

As she was really sweet and attentive and captivating I got really more addicted to her. Her work is something considerable… The way she deals with different materials, building forms, volumes and images is really proper and beautiful. I saw a performance designed by her at the V&A friday late dedicated to the 25^th anniversary of London Fashion Week. She used the materials that are shown in the images above: pleated paper and this mirror kind of plastic… What she did was to create an environment of movements and scenery with a group of dancers where the models walked through with looks from latest collections of up and coming design talent.

The mirror material besides reflecting the images that were surrounded also reflected back the light, what was most surprising to see. The pleated paper was used as some kind of wings, that the dancers could move and form geometrical combinations that kept changing until the end of the performance. Beautiful, well-done and elegant. At the end I met Petra with her sweet-witty-constant smile. Santé!

www.petrastorrs.com

Rosalind Nashashibi

I hadn’t heard about the English Rosalind before going to her exhibition at ICA. I was first attracted by the frame of her video "The Prisoner" that was illustrating the Time Out review. I must admit that I couldn’t get deeply in some of her videos, except from the one I mentioned above, that is really the easier to be caught by, and also the one that is most close to nowadays aesthetics and kind of fashion orientated - even not having this subject around...

The film is screened through two adjacent projectors, so that the same footage is seen on two screens with only as much lag time as is required for the piece of film to travel between the two projectors. The camera follows a woman leaving a place and going to another, her passage through a grey space, passing by people, turning and also playing as if it was someone’s eyes, focusing on her legs, hair or clothes evoking the solitude of herself meanwhile being followed.

Unlike this immediately engaging 5 minutes video, “Eyeballing” could sounds like a slow burner but it actually hooks us as time passes by. She filmed Police officers outside their station at NY during some days. As we watch them, she inserts series of anthropomorphic faces that she finds through the city. At the end, it seems to be a game where we watch and we are being watched.

Here I leave some good articles about her work, to which it may interest. Xx!

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/rosalind_nashashibi/essay%281%29.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/apr/30/arts.artsnews

http://news.scotsman.com/arts/Art-review-Rosalind-Nashashibi.5645764.jp