Glorious!

Searching, as one might, for more on the social history of the clothes peg, I fell across this site. Proof positive that one of something is just one of something, but a thousand somethings is a wonder to behold. http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/peg.html

Tom Phillips, RA

During my artistic career it has become apparent that firstly, there is nothing new under the sun and secondly, that I have yet to have an idea that Tom Phillips, RA hasn't had approximately 20 years earlier. If you don't know him, I urge you to seek him out. His website http://www.tomphillips.co.uk/ is a treasure trove.

His long running project, 20 Sites n Years was has been very influential in my own work and if you're interested in ideas around space and place it's worth taking a closer look - because that's essentially what Tom Phillips does, he looks at small things very closely and with a reverence that is both moving and strangely disconcerting.

http://www.tomphillips.co.uk/sculptur/20sites/index.html

Home again II

Hendrikje Kuehne & Beat Klein, Property, 1998

collage

See more at: http://www.staubkohler.com/artists_popups/kuehneklein.html

Not 'esque - the real thing



Ben Nicholson, 1894 - 1982
small silent siena 1965
intaglio print on paper











image source: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?groupid=999999961&workid=10658&searchid=8770

Home again

Home, rather than house, flat or similar nouns, carries particular meaning. I've been musing on what we mean by home a lot of late and was put onto this artist by Nigel Oxley. I've been making small Nicholsonesque (I wish) prints of domestic detail, the most recent of which was a line drawing of the standard issue South London terrace.

David Hephner has also used residential South London as his inspiration, painting meticulous representations of terraced houses and, more recently, working in mixed media on the subject of mass housing.

Picture sources: Mr. B. the occupant of no.20 leaving the house one morning last January, 1972 http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=56A31016B90F432D, Coldharbour 1, 2003, mixed media http://www.flowerseast.com/FE/Originals.asp?Artist=HEPHER&OC=1

Talking of home...

I've been collecting examples of the way we use home I in spoken language. Any more for any more?

welcome home
at home
home alone
home sweet home
going home
home boy
home from home
home user
residential home
home work
coming home
home maker
home swap
writing home
home page
home run
home is where the heart is
care home
home stay
second home
home cooking
home cinema
leaving home
home schooling
living at home
home safety
home office
dream home
home game
home in
children’s home
home loan
home study
home again, home again…
all the way home
home shopping
home improvement
phone home
home birth
holiday home
home wrecker
foster home
home help
moving home
home made
home delivery

Local exhibition...

More mappers...

and another graphic designer. Paula Scher's painted maps are a commentary on the scientific authority of maps. Her maps are crowded and chaotic spaces in which text replaces topography. Nell McClister writes of her work:

"The handmade quality of the paintings, their ad hoc jazziness, corresponds to their obvious lack of precision as maps: meant to express an emotional comment rather than serve as a reference, they simultaneously point to the shortcomings of all “definitive” maps and express a resonant idea of place itself as an entity that cannot be charted." (http://www.mayastendhalgallery.com/paulaScherPage.html)

Visit the Maya Stendhal Gallery online to see more of Paula Scher's maps.

image: World, 1988

art in words

Barbara Kruger's work is interested in power and how it is manifest in daily life. Focusing on issues around feminism and consumerism, Kruger's art conducts a fierce and forensic analysis of relationships between women, men, children and capital. The use of her work by Selfridges is an unexpected collaboration that has drawn mixed responses (for example http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9706).

Kruger's background is in design and she uses this to great effect, hijacking the format and language of advertising and publicity to put forward uncomfortable and often subversive messages. Her work addresses us directly and asks unflinching questions. Perhaps the first of which is, can we trust the messages that are fed to us in the manner Kruger uses?

In my own work I have adapted Kruger's style (replacing her trademark red with Selfridges' trademark yellow). I AM NOT FOR SALE asks the viewer first to consider who is speaking? The artist? The piece itself? Or a voice representing the individuals in the found image? There are no right or complete answers.

More on Barbara Kruger can be found at http://www.barbarakruger.com/