Strike the Empire Back, exhibitions at Tate Modern

At the Tate for a workshop on how to talk about your work, run by Emerge and Shape. info here Very useful, I took a brief look in some of the galleries and at Michael Rakowitz's exhibition, Strike the Empire Back.
The exhibition posed the influence of science fiction on the American and Iraqi military, especially Star wars. Michael Rakowitz took the symbol of the arch, crossed swords, used in Iraq and made his own arch in the gallery the swords are now light sabers and helmets at the base are cast in resin with components from action men. Review here.

Rakowitz writes that In 1995, Saddam Hussein's son Uday presented his father with a prototype helmet that was an exact replica of Darth Vader's, for the Fedayeen Saddam,( a paramilitary organization responsible for assassinations and intimidation.)

After the fall of Baghdad in 2003 paintings by Science fiction illustrators were apparantly found in Saddam's palaces, including the poster for the 1980 Star Wars sequel.

Cy Twombly and Network of Buddhist organisations exhibition

I went to visit the Cy Twombly exhibition at Tate Modern a few days ago. Surprisingly it wasn't very busy for the opening week, but perhaps it's because he is not a household name. For me looking at a lot of the canvases I thought there was something of a dairy feel to the work. Something about recording a particular place or time with words, signs and symbols, emotion and thought.
Although some of the work was concerned with the colour white,( the symbolic whiteness of the poet Stephane mallarme ) colour was also applied by hand and fingers in other paintings, great dollops of paint, drips and smears. Underneath and on top, notation, writings that could sometimes be seen but were often hidden or undecipherable.



It's always good to leave an exhibition with the desire to make work yourself, and with the Cy Twombly exhibition I left thinking about my artists books and a book or page the same sizes as some of his canvases.

Four of my Buddhist works, including this one, Guardians of the Blue Planet, have been down to a conference organised by the Network of Buddhist Organisations and hosted by The Institute of Oriental Philosophy at Taplow Court.
It was an opportunity for artists who are also Buddhist to show their work. I am looking forward to hearing people's responses to the work.

Artist's Diaries and Tate Modern

I've been working with the theme of artist's diaries recently, in other mediums, film, photography and painting. This follows an inspirational couple of workshops at Tate Modern, where we looked at some artist's diaries including Jo Spence, Sophie Calle, Larry Clark andGilbert and George. Discussed work and then brought examples of our own diaries to share with the group.
Some pages from my visual diary here.

While I was at Tate Modern I couldn't resist taking some photos of the " slides"I do quite like their sculptural qualities and who can really argue about a work of art put to good use by keeping children and some adults happy.

Talks and artist's diaries

I went to a very good talk by the artist Thomas Hirschhorn, at the South Bank as part of their 100 ideas event. Hirschhorn was talking about his project,The Musee Precaire Albinet, which was a temporary museum in a social housing project on the outskirts of Paris.

The project, Hirschhorn called it an Intervention, was over 18 months in preparation, mostly because the artist wanted to borrow works of art from the Pompidou Centre. This amazingly happened in the end and work by artists such as Mondrian, Dali and Warhol went on show, in a programme lasting 8 weeks. The original works were very important to this project because they posses a power, and for Hirschhorn, just a moment of real engagement in front of such a work can be enough.

The community were part of the whole event and there was a range of activities every day including a shared meal on Sundays. Hirschhorn uses everyday materials in his work, plastic, felt pens, cardboard etc and he spoke about the importance of temporary art works, the precarious nature of work, that gave it it's edge. It was something about anything is possible in the moment if I am awake and aware.

I really responded to his insistence that art was a potential force for change, but that it should not be in service to governments, social services, or regeneration projects. He said in 2004 about this work that " I am an artist, not a social worker. Le Musee Precaire Albinet is a work of art, it is not a sociocultural project. This affirmation is that art only as art can obtain true importance and have political meaning."

The other event I have been to is one about artist's diaries at Tate Modern, I am working on a diary of my own to take in on Saturday the second part of the event. It was good to see examples of artist's work, mostly photographic in this instance, I came away with lots of ideas.

Some more photographs came back this week, and I have a new collection for my art cards. Marketing them is slow, I need a plan I think. One of the films was in black and white, I don't usually work in black and white so it was interesting seeing the results.
A couple of images, a little pen and ink of the Ivy and one of the black and white photos.