Friday 27 January 2012

NATHAN ANTHONY: LYRICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

When asked which thread of his many projects he considered most successful in expressing his ideas, Nathan Anthony struggled to find a single answer: ‘I always think it’s the latest thing I’ve done’.  His instinctive response elucidates well his endless ‘learning by doing’ as he darts from one idea to the next with an ever-expanding list of resources and approaches. Windows in a local chapel, sand from Edinburgh beaches, tinned meat, mushrooms, tape cassettes and crumpets are among the disparate subjects amalgamated in his studio space. Each is scrutinised, dissected and reassembled in the creation of new and peculiar forms, revealing or emphasising certain qualities of the original object. Although Anthony looks upon this process as a form of empirical investigation, his work seems to be motivated rather by an insatiable curiosity and delight.  

Anthony often unites the organic and the artificial to draw direct comparisons. In one series, wide bands of cheap faux-wood vinyl are used to vacuum-wrap natural logs in a suffocating embrace of plastic; discs of vinyl are stuck to their ends, smothering the natural rings. The horrible artificiality of the wood-print synthetic sheeting seems ludicrously far from the raw, porous wood that it is intended to imitate, and the juxtaposition of the two materials has us contemplate their material properties in a novel and original way.


In another untitled piece, Anthony unravels a roll of sticky tape against a sandy beach, to collect grains of sand; he then re-winds the tape onto its plastic wheel: the peculiar sampling method of a meticulous arenophile. The tape, once it is neatly coiled, expands to almost three times its original size choked by layers of minute grains. In themselves, the wafer-thin tape and minuscule grains are inconsiderable, but combined, the two elements have a stronger presence than before. On discovering what exactly we are looking at, our perceptions of both elements shift just slightly, in an amused ‘Oh, yeah!’ of revelation.

Anthony’s fixations on the properties of SPAM meat (Shoulder-Pork Ham) and of OSB (Ordinary Strand Board, used to cover broken windows), were interesting as in both, natural materials have been pulverised and industrially re-synthesised to form a new solid that is an expanded or altered version of its original form - a process that draws parallels with Anthony’s own artistic processes. OSB interests Anthony for its being ‘almost a contradiction in terms’ as a kind of man-made wood. In another untitled piece, he investigates the multi-faceted identity of materials by playing with our preconceptions of a physical object. He cuts a panel of OSB to the basic shape of a slim Gothic window, and, leaving the majority of the surface bare and exposed, Anthony paints and varnishes certain individual strands or fibres of the board in an aesthetic rainbow of colours which sing out from the base material. Once again, his novel and poetic treatment of form has us re-evaluate the otherwise ordinary, cheap, industrial material. The blocks of varnished acrylic convert in our minds to the sophisticated, rich and revered colours of stained glass windows, and the solid, durable wood, usually a tool in the protection of buildings, suggests the fragile glass of a chapel window: the rarefied object of conservation. Although Anthony insists on the ambiguity of the piece, the immediate and inescapable religious connotations of the work set it apart from the rest of his practice. His decision to hang the piece relatively high on the wall in a recent exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art recalls how Malevich blasphemously exhibited his Black Square in a top corner of the gallery, linking with domestic Russian Orthodox icons.

Originally I thought Anthony’s approach with the OSB window was incongruent with his works in which he focussed on material objecthood, but in fact it can be seen as an extension of his exploration into our perception of objects. He has said repeatedly that he wants interpretation to be ambiguous. In their renewal of our understanding of objects, Anthony’s unexpected transformation of objects has strong parallels with the work of Tom Friedman, although Anthony’s choice of natural materials establishes an organic and lyrical aesthetic that is quite different to that of Friedman’s often glossy finished pieces. For Friedman, ‘Subject and object dissolve into the “suchness” of the thing itself’; Anthony’s selected objects similarly take on an identity of their own within the studio, undergoing transformations that speak of no explicit artistic significance or societal function, but which open our minds to a poetic reconsideration of the objects we see every day.  





Wednesday 25 January 2012

SCOTTISH PEONIES IN A CHINESE VASE

A postcard of this painting has been tacked up by my bed since somebody left it at the box office I was working at a few years ago at the Edinburgh fringe. It really made my day then and I still love it now. 

As the postcard has yellowed with age, the colours of the image have become richer – like the darkening of a varnished oil painting. Strangely, I prefer my postcard to the painting itself, which is tiny and swamped by a bulky frame.

It’s sometimes oddly reassuring to be really drawn to an artwork whilst knowing absolutely nothing about it. I was happy to discover that George Leslie Hunter is Scottish – Happy Burns Night!



George Leslie Hunter  (1877-1931) Peonies in a Chinese Vase, c.1928 Oil on board, 61 x 50.8cm, The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation





Monday 23 January 2012

10 TIPS FOR ART CRITICISM FROM OLIVER BASCIANO

This weekend I had the great opportunity to meet Oliver Basciano, assistant editor at ArtReview magazine, at Vilma Gold gallery in Bethnal Green. Very nice guy, very relaxed. He gave some general pointers on art criticism which I have compiled as ten points to share with you here!




1. The thoughts and analyses of the artist will be outlined in the press release; a review doesn’t need to service these. If an artist hasn’t put across his intended ideas, it doesn’t mean that they have failed. You are offering an explanation of the work, not the explanation.

2. Criticism needs to have teeth, but not for the sake of it. Even if you’ve hated an artist’s work in the past, try as much as possible to have an open mind – you may be surprised.

3. It is unadvisable to read press releases before visiting an exhibition, though it is advisable to look at them afterwards in case you have made a glaring error.

4.Take a note book. Write down everything that comes to mind in as much detail as possible. Some ideas can be dismissed later.

5. Address the details of the work. See what the artist did and didn’t do. Don’t be put off if a show is quite minimal - this means that you are freer to make your own associations.

6. Sometimes it is helpful to look at other people’s reviews to see the ideas and themes that they explore. 

7. Situating the work within the entire body of the artist’s work can be useful/informative.
The title can also be a starting point: some artists use the title to describe the work’s ‘meaning’. This said, some don’t – use them with discretion.

8. Occasionally it is useful to focus in on one piece of work that will bounce off the rest of the exhibition.

9. Think about audience in terms of the accessibility of the language you use. Try not to think about the galleryist or artist who might read the review – it isn’t for them. Make it interesting.

10. Be prepared to argue your case if questioned on your ideas; written pieces are somewhat collaborative with editors and may be discussed with up to three people within the magazine.



Now I've got to write a short review for him on Brian Griffith's show at Vilma Gold, for which Oliver's advice about minimal exhibitions is going to have to be at the forefront of my mind...