MFA Oct 4-10 2021
Crit installation and presentation
1.Crit Presentation Resolved
This is the final installation completed after the crit discussion. By reducing the installation to only 4 elements (mountain, forest, sea and veil of threads) it allows the space between each element to be more activated and dynamic and the viewer isn't pulled in too many different directions. It feels a more cohesive experience and the space operates as a whole. The materials themselves have very little mass and substance, yet occupy space in a manner disproportionate to their physical materiality.
The poetry book Nested Nows offers insights into my journey of discovering the cultural landscape around me. This is a reflective document that is in keeping with the meditative space of the installation.
I'm really proud of the last two installations - they capture a lightness and subtlety of feelings and impressions, and make space for the viewer. This minimalist style is what I would like to continue exploring in my art practice next year.
Process of reduction
After the crit discussion I reduced the installation to create the atmosphere I had hoped to achieve. This reduction process is something I am learning to understand - install, go away and revisit, reduce ...sometimes this take a few cycles but given the issue of the room being available only on the Sunday it meant I didn't have time to reduce by Monday morning crit. To accomodate Juileanna's request that the crits be a discussion of the thesis proposal meant I put objects in that were not necessarily part of the resolved installation.
So after the crit I removed -
all the tissue waves bar the one Simon had placed closer to the thread. I left this one because it echoed the triangles in the tetrahedron tape object in the far corner
cut away the threads looped high in the corner that were meant to show potentiality
removed the white crosses on floor and walls that referenced past objects placed in the room, and
cut away the tissue paper watercolour pencil drawing of the forest that discussed what I intend to focus on next year. The paper had been sprayed with water to allow the colours to drip to the floor, echoing the ancient moist forests that have been destroyed in Aotearoa. Its drips remained on the floor as an memory trace, which I thought was even more evocative.
Crit Responses
Lilly - referencing older works, poetry book too much writing, too intense works speak for themselves
poetry floating in the room, spoken floating,
?maybe I could have written them on paper and torn and dropped them on the floor
threads arelike a loom, playful manipulate shape
Julieanna - in Iowa in winter students threw white fabric on outside walls, fabric would stick to walls frozen and as thaw shards would fall to ground
tissue waves... formed by some process? material shaped
I explained they were formed in the sea as the tide retreated..
Simon suggested I don't answer how I made work as it interrupts viewers engagement...needs something else...artwork subtle and needs time to engage with it, quite demanding
Belinda looks like they were thrown, simple words
Julieanna didn't like pattern of how they were arranged, too controlled, suzy's work is lacking provisionality (too contrived)
if this is suzy's site, room as site ....poles?
I asked how Julieanna and Simon would have arranged waves? Julieanne would have tied wave to threads as a discussion, Simon placed just one close to threads (I smiled!, yes that's my aesthetic too!)
Simon - just one is more evocative, see sand, like a plastic bad caught in the eddy of the sea and space
Julieanna - taking away? maybe more of them 1000?! FORMLESS...transformation grouping, multiplying, adding something what does it add?
Rothkos video, loop clarifies eddy
Julieanna - Tide made tracing paper in water, pushes it up or away? Does it transform it if I pick it up? Embodied knowledge - tide like in its own making what is Suzy's intervention played out...foam, undulating line blown away. (I explained making! Dogs, wind and litter!) Suzy learning about phenomenon away from culture and nature.
Looks like wind action through them all - action that holds them all together.
Installation and exhibition all one.
x's cementing and connecting other installations - memory. Temporality of time ... future? suzy's site?
Lilly - x's are unnecessary as we remember previous installations; corner thread too much
Simon - works not in conversation as they could be...need one strong work
Jacqueline - floor white might have helped connect?
Julieanna, tape on centre thread no good why there? Too controlled. see them all as separate works doing different things with material and space
Simon...LIGHTS!!!! lol had forgotten to turn spots off ... makes everything different..
Me, yes more twilight and threads in centre of room are the focus of the installation
Julieanna - wet painting dripping on floor naïve and disappointing
Poetry book conversations aware of presence of yourself in space and other
Sound?
Simon suggested A Third Mind (middle eastern philosophy) and Gabriel Orozco https://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/56-gabriel-orozco/
Julieanna suggested A Third Eye by Paul Kleen (nature and nurture)