30/04/19 the tate

TATE EXHIBITS

sculpture - transformation - materiality - trauma - minimalism - process - feminism - humble/poor materials - entropy - ritual - abjection - environment - performance - chance - accumulation - action - surrealism - energy - body art - indeterminacy 

drawing no.4 'path of movement of a point' after k. malevich (1922) - sand-blasted mirror glass - 2003 - goshka macuga

This work was inspired by sketches of Kasimir Malevich, a key figure of the Russian Avant-Garde. his concept of Suprematism sought to develop a form of expression that moved away from the world of natural forms in order to access the supremacy of spirituality. Malevich believed that this new form of art could change society. Here, Macuga pays homage to this Utopian project and ideology. Of her work, the artist has said: 'I think what Malevich was trying to do was this attempt to create some kind of system, an ideology... I am fascinated by individuals who make that attempt.'

plank piece I-II - 2 photographs on paper on board -

1973 - charles ray 

Ray was part of a wave of artists during the 1970's who addressed sculpture as an activity rather than as an object. In the iconic two-part photographic work Plank Piece, the artist documents the use of his own body as the sculptural component. the static photograph belies the performative nature of the activity presented. Contrived through a complex balance between weight and gravity the artist suspended his body using only a plank of wood, creating a minimal, graphic image that is at once humorous and unsettling.

relation of aesthetic choice to life activity (function) of the subject - lithograph on primed canvas with neon gas tube - 1961-2 - billy apple

Repeated four times, the found image of a customs officer was appropriated by Apple from an article in Ark, the magazine of the royal college of art, where he studied (1959-62). The neon tick indicates which image apple felt was the best of the identical photographs. He explained that the work depicted 'a customs officer who inspects baggage, often making arbitrary decisions about who to check. I selected one of four, singling it out for specific inspection.' as such, the arbitrary 'aesthetic choice' named in the titled mimicked the 'life activity' of the subject.

  

desire - abjection - body - gender - objectification - surrealism - automatism - feminism - fragmentation - psychoanalysis - sexuality - homosexuality - nude - part object 

Ernst studied philosophy and psychology in Bonn and was interested in the alternative realities experienced by the insane. this painting may have been inspired by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's study of the delusions of a paranoiac, Daniel Paul Schreber. Freud identified Schreber's fantasy of becoming a woman as a 'castration complex'. The central image of two pairs of legs refers to Schreber's hermaphroditic desires. Ernst's inscription on the back of the painting reads: 'the picture is curious because of its symmetry. The two sexes balance one another.' 

              

 "op art in focus"

 A major development in art that emerged in the 1960's, op art - short for optical art - uses bold contrasting colour, lines and geometric shapes to dazzle the eye. Its leading figures included Bridget Riley, Jesus Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely. drawing on colour theory, they experimented with perception to create effects ranging from the subtle, to the disturbing and disorientating. This display presents an expanded and more international account of op art, showing how its effects continue to influence artists today.

Julio Le Parc introduced kinetic elements into his works, including 1963's Continual Mobile, Continual Light. Le Parc saw the viewer as an active participant, intending to expand the role of individual perception in the meaning of his works. Heinz Mack similarly created works that opened up new forms of perception, responding to the technologically-driven optimism of space age.

              

white field - painted nails on canvas 

and board - 1964 -

gunther uecker 

Ueker began to make reliefs using nails in the late 1950's. The white composition allows the nails to create patterns of shadow across the surface, responding to the light in the room but also seeming to change in relation to the viewer's own position. Ueker, as with others in this op art display, was a member of the artist's group, Zero. The group aimed to establish a new beginning in art and culture and its name related to its last point in a countdown before a rocket is launched. 

continual mobile, continual light - 

     

painted wood, aluminium, 

and nylon thread - 1963 -

julio le parc 

After moving from Buenos Aires to Paris at the end of 1958, Le Parc began to paint pictures with simple geometrical forms because he considered them more neutral than irregular forms, therefore closer to his aim of removing all trace of the artist's touch and of subjective points of view. He soon started experimenting with movement and chance by suspending plastic or metal shapes on thin nylon threads in front of a contrasting background. 

   

3069 white dots on an oval background - wood, nylon, and motor - 1966 - pol bury

Bury was interested in what he called an 'aesthetic of slowness', creating mechanical constructions that were characterised by almost imperceptible movement. In this specific piece, white dots move intermittently in front of a plain surface. Sudden twitches of movement are often caught on the periphery of the spectator's vision, creating a sense of disorientation. The work is activated once a button is pushed [ on the wall beside the piece].

                                      

light dynamo - aluminium, glass, wood and motor - 1963 - heinz mack 

Mack founded the group Zero with fellow artist Otto Piene in 1957 in Dusseldorf, Germany. Zero felt their approach to art making, which used light and motion, opened up new forms of perception aligned with space-age aesthetics. In this relief, an aluminium disc decorated with a reed pattern rotates under glass that had been moulded with a similar pattern. The movement itself cannot be perceived, but the disc appears to dissolve into a rippling light. Through optical illusion, this seems to be continuously reforming itself as an oval while, at the same time, remaining a circle. 

                                               

love is the message, the message is death - video, colour and sound - 7 min 25 sec - authur jafa

American artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa's Love is The Message, The Message is Death is a video portrait of black American identity expressed through archival and viral footage. The work alternates scenes of everyday life, among which are acts of racism, and clips including musical performances, and sporting excellence. It uses material from an array of sources including news broadcasts, Youtube clips, and Jafa's own footage, set to musician Kanye West's hip hop-gospel Ultralight Beam 2016. Love is The Message, The Message is Death, demonstrates the resilience and creativity of black culture in the face of violence and discrimination. For Jafa, it constitues a new form of black cinema fused with 'the power, beauty and alienation of black music'.