Natheniel Mellors article on art and humour

http://blog.frieze.com/art-humour/

Marck Leckey: Artist Film Club @ ICA

Leckey's early video work has a heavy stigma of 90's dance music attached to it, which I initially couldn't help being repulsed by as is it is so unbelievably hip and fashionable right now. Once I got over this I was able to enjoy his absolute poetic depiction of this era in , 'Fiorucci made me Hardcore', 1999 (below). Works following this continued to look at aspects of 90's culture, with a rave seemingly in someone's bedroom and, 'Parade', a video named after a men's porn magazine in which Leckey's appearance is seemingly influenced by a phantasmagoric procession of images (stills below).

Then came the favourite for me, 'Green Screen Refrigerator'. An epitome of consumer fetishism, this film based around the artist's self confessed infatuation with a Samsung fridge is a spectacle about a spectacle. Leckey's personal attachment to his work is the thing that inspires me. It doesn't matter that I wasn't old enough to go raving in the 90's, this era was strewn with DIY ethics that are ever present in my own interests, this is enough to relate to and appreciate his great and interesting work.

BANG!

BANG! (2012) by Matthew Noel Todd ""There is no universal history that leads from savagery to humanity", said Adorno. But there is now a film with talking dogs that traces the development of the world spirit from Plato thru August 2011 riots to today. BANG! is a materialist history of the present that uses the language of internet memes, advice dogs, and infantilised avatars to tussle with the journey from an organic society to the surreal subsumption of capital; the unfinished story of communism for a world that's gone to the dogs."

Barby Asante and Sonia Boyce: Peckham Space

Asante is interested in creating works that stimulate dialogue around the cross-cultural and multicultural and how we view and frame these questions in contemporary Britain, often using familiar or popular culture triggers as a means to begin the dialogue.

Le Pétomane

I am going to make an anus that either constantly farts or plays music. For the music I was thinking of when I call up virgin media to pay the internet bill, something similar to what they play when I'm on hold would be perfect. Le Pétomane was a performing farter, a fartist, a sound artist

Tino Sehgal; Artist Talk

After a few return visits to Sehgal's Unilever commissioned piece, 'These Associations', I was delighted to attend his artist talk at the Tate this weekend. He made some key points that I related to regarding his work and the wider spectrum of contemporary art in general. He explained that people visit museums and galleries to see art, as if to suggest that is where art belongs, then you can differentiate between styles and forms within that setting. He talked about Western culture and the western world in general, relying on change and how art has to be different than what was deemed current before it. I agree with this idea of opposing what has gone before but not as the totality or complete basis for an artwork. He talked about it being hard for a painting to be an artwork because it is so familiarised in society, which is something I have been constantly puzzled by thinking about the painting course here at Wimbledon and the idea of dividing fine art up whatsoever. Finally, he talked about his lack of involvement in the work and his restrained mehtod of imposing instruction, " the performers know more about the piece than I do", he exclaimed, whilst referencing to those involved in the work that were seated in the auditorium. In response to an audience question about the future of 'live art' and where it sits in the time line of contemporary art, he talked about the work of Joseph Beuys and how his charisma got in the way of the work which was ground breakingly conceptual. This made me think a lot about where Sehgal draws the line, after all I laughed and enjoyed his talk, answers were delivered with charisma, would I be a different kind of spectator if I went and viewed the work after seeing him sitting on a stage answering questions?

Jack Strange

‘Spinning Beach Ball of Death’, 2007, Pencil Crayon, Card, Wood, Motor A friend suggested I look at Jack Strange a few years ago, describing his Mac Book piece, a led ball resting on said computer's letter G on the key pad. Probably after seeing this piece I always thought about making a work of or around the colour wheel of death, also from the Apple tree of creations ( no pun intended). Due to the universal annoyance of this symbol, it is not surprising that Strange himself has come up with a work reflecting the frustration that this spinning emblem inflicts.

Lis Rhodes; Light Music

Appreciation levels become confused with works such as 'Light Music', made in 1975 it was no doubt an advanced installation for its time, but this is forgotten as people whisk in out and out in the year 2012, amongst checking their emails and facebook on their iphones. I started my BA with a keen interest in celluloid film, later to realise it was a purely aesthetic desire and that other mediums made more sense for the message I wished to communicate. However, the somewhat primeval feel, in the grand scheme of art history, that I obtained from this installation left me amazed and with an after thought for the use of film and also smoke machines!

Tate Modern: Tino Sehgal; These Associations

"The work of the British-born German artist Tino Sehgal exists solely as a set of choreographed gestures and spoken instructions acted out by performers in gallery settings", explains Arthur Lubow for Tate etc, making the work immaterial as such. Very much in the category, if any, of relational aesthetics, Sehgal's piece for the unilever series in the turbine hall is at times like a dance that represents scientific molecule movement. It is an epitome of relational art, inviting the spectators to participate by way of conversation with the performers and also by simply being in the space alongside them as they circulate rapidly. There is no short term time frame for this work, you could stay all day if you wanted to, observing the movements and interpreting them any which way you wanted, this is what makes the work interesting for me, I value it on its accessibility.

Claire Fontaine

John Smith on margate project

Harmen de Hoop

http://www.harmendehoop.com

Beagles and Ramsay

http://www.beaglesramsay.co.uk

Products go crazy

Pure Products Go Crazy from Frieze magazine on Vimeo.

Article attached - http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/features/warenwahn/?lang=en

Counter Culture and Relational Aesthetics

http://www.rainevasquez.com/Text/Counter-culture_and_Relational_Aesthetics.html

Lenka Clayton: Mysterious Letters

I don't know whether this is an intervention or a type of relational art. I don't want to start constantly blabbing on about relational aesthetics all the time just because I'm finally working out that aspect of my own work, but it definitely has a place in this idea. The dimensions I can see are, fluxus style instructional art existing in the form of documentation via the internet (http://www.mysteriousletters.blogspot.co.uk/), an intervention into both public and private space e.g. the mail system and people's houses and the relational aspect of the letters being read and the effect they have on the reader. embedding disabled - http://youtu.be/7fx5McC-_Tk "Lenka Clayton is a conceptual artist whose work exaggerates and reorganizes the accepted rules of everyday life, extending the familiar into the realms of the poetic and absurd" Bush video -

Exploration of Art as a Commodity

Douglas Gordon

Jeremy Deller - "Folk Archives", Reviewed by Rachel Withers

Gurning and Embroidered Knickers - http://www.newstatesman.com/node/150706

Re-Thinking the Digital

Chris Gere was suggesting the importance of digital media and links to pre-analogue times through philosophy. He made some very valid points, I have copied this from the twitter feed, - 'the 'white cube' is end product of centuries of privatised idea of self'. I find this statement interesting in relation to my own thoughts on fine art currently being treated as a vocational subject. In our recent placement presentations I was surprised at how little of a connection there was to fine art. I am not against 'art' or rather, 'the creative industries', (which I believe is a more appropriate name in this case) being used for monetary gain, but the approaches on which I am commenting on , e.g. photographic event coverage, have no critical value and therefore in my personal opinion have no relevance to fine art. Student's are being taught that you show work in a white cube space and that is simply 'what happens', with little thought on how this environment arose or possible contradictions it may hold in the viewing of contemporary art. To be continued............