Articles in Historic

Notes from the Studio - Joanna Sands / December 1, 2014

Who are the artists, architects, or designers you most admire and who have had the greatest impact on your thinking and your work?

Some of the biggest influences on my work when I was at college were Eva Hesse and her contemporaries, including Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Richard Serra and Robert Smithson. Out of those I have to say Carl Andre was probably the one I felt the most affinity towards in my work because his sculpture is a very physical response to material. His writing was also much easier to understand.

Another big influence was Gordon Matta Clark because of his physical relationship to pre-existing architectural space. I really admire the architect Peter Zumthor. His buildings are very beautiful and are as much about materials as their effect; his work has a very tactile quality and you can tell he has the knowledge of a maker.

You have said of your work that it often becomes an intervention into the space it inhabits and refers to the architectural characteristics of the surrounding environment. Can you elaborate on the importance of architecture to your work?

Well, the works relate to the surrounding architectural environment in many ways: scale, dimensions, the type of building, when it was built and who it was built for. All these factors allow that building to create a sense of place and I would like to think that the works become part of that.

As an artist who works site-specifically, the unpredictability of the site and its surroundings must have characterised many past projects, for example, when you initially worked in squats. How do you deal with this aspect of site-specific work?

Yes, it has, and I think you just have to roll with it. Lots of stuff happens that wouldn’t happen in a gallery. You don’t have any security, people don’t know where you are or how to find you, and they can be reluctant to venture into these unknown spaces because they are difficult to access or scary. It’s hard to publicise. Although having said that, at the time you don’t think so much, if at all, about these aspects; you focus more on the opportunity it creates. You couldn’t have created that particular work had you not been there in that place at that time; it gives the work a vitality the gallery space denies. You have the great advantage of freedom.

In his 1966 essay “Notes on Sculpture II”, speaking of the reduced forms of the Minimalist aesthetic, Robert Morris stated “The object itself has not become less important. It has merely become less self- important.” When thinking of the impact you hope your work will have on the viewer, would you relate this to the key beliefs of Minimalist theory that focus on real space and unmediated experience or do you anticipate a more interpretive emotional response?

In general what I hope to do with my work is to make something that relates to the space so that you are more aware of the environment you are in. It becomes an experience as it were. There is also usually a physical or formal narrative. To me that might be something very simple such as a curve which goes up and down across the room. Whether or not the work inspires a narrative in the viewer is really up to them. As Frank Stella said, “What you see is what you see”.
In regards to the Minimalist aesthetic, I am not sure there is ever such a thing as unmediated experience; I don’t believe you can take the self-expression out of art but I do like the work of people who do. I like geometric forms, the use of repetition and simplicity but I would say I am more a materialist; I like the physical properties of the materials I use, its weight, its patina, its texture, and its presence.

You frequently use wood to create you work. Does the material you use inform/form your work or is it the nature of site-specific work that informs your choice of material? Have you always worked with wood? Are you committed to using wood as a medium?

No, I’m not. I like using found materials, recycled materials and building materials that come in standard sizes. My use of wood has probably come out of the fact that I have always had to move quite quickly in the space so all my tools have had to be easily movable and packable. Wood is a lightweight material, you can construct with it, and as a building material it’s easily available. I also like using wood. I have nothing against using other materials, but at the moment it works for me and my practice. Obviously that may change in the future.

As part of your Sculpture Shock award you will be making a limited edition print. Is drawing part of your creative process and how will you approach the print?

Drawing is definitely an important part of my process. I tend to ‘draw’ first with models. In the back of my studio space there are hundreds of little models; sometimes at that point in the process it is easier to think through making.
As I am used to thinking in three dimensions, it’s easier just to get a piece of card and start that way. These models are not maquettes and I don’t always make a maquette, it usually depends on the space and the potential cost of the materials.
Then drawing in the traditional sense comes after the three dimensional, at the point when I am trying to narrow down what I really want to achieve with the sculpture.
I often draw when I want to record something because it’s quicker than writing notes. I also use photography to document my work, but I find if I do a drawing I slow down and I observe more information and details than a photograph can convey. When I come across them later in sketch books the drawings are often more meaningful than the photographs for this very reason. I also use drawing to plan my work and I was thinking of developing a version of one of these for the print.

What is the fate of your site-specific work after it is exhibited? How do you feel about the temporary nature of the work?

I sometimes recycle work and use the materials to make a new work and other times I just destroy it. It always exists in documentation, so traces of the work always remain. 

Historic, Notes from the Studio April 29, 2019

Notes from the Studio – Nika Neelova 'an Anonymous Philosopher’s View' / November 1, 2013

The Artist’s View

Melencolia I of 1514 is an engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. It is an allegorical composition which has been the subject of numerous interpretations. It depicts the Dürer’s Magic Square and the truncated rhombohedron, which became known as the Dürer’s Solid.  There have been various articles disputing the precise shape of this polyhedron. Although Dürer does not specify how his solid is constructed, it has been noted that it appears to consist of a distorted cube which is first stretched to give rhombic faces with angles, and then truncated on top and bottom to yield bounding triangular faces whose vertices lie on the circumsphere of the azimuthal cube vertices.

Polyhedra have been part of the fabric of mathematics for two thousand years. Anything which is bounded by flat surfaces and which has well defined corners has a polyhedral form. It has a significant presence in architecture as well as in nature, in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms. They have been used widely in philosophical or scientific explanations of the world around us. As well as being part of the practical discipline of geometry, polyhedra have acquired symbolic value as artistic motifs appearing as an evolution of the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition, in studies of linear perspective, in ornament and disguised in architecture and headwear. In nature a striking example of polyhedral structure are crystals. Bounded by flat planes, their obvious geometric features contrast strongly with the more irregular qualities frequently found in natural forms. In the 19th century, the study of polyhedra and crystals led to the geometric analysis of symmetry.

In his analysis of cinematic moments, Gilles Deleuze describes the movement of temporality in a crystallized formation,

‘what constitutes the crystal-image is the most fundamental operation of time: since the past is constituted not after the present that it was but at the same time, time has to split itself in two at each moment as present and past.. Time splits in two dissymmetrical jets, one of which makes the present pass on, while the other preserves all the past. Time consists of this split and it is time that we see in the crystal... we see in the crystal the perpetual foundation of time.’

The Borgesian aesthetic contains numerous allusions to the spatialisation of time, its nonlinear and bifurcating nature. Borges regards the movements of time as flowing from the future into the past and thus as a ceaseless production of the past. In his short story Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, he imagines a civilization that has developed a novel relationship to metaphysics, ‘For them the world is not a concurrence of objects in space, but a heterogenous series of independent acts.’ In this civilization producing, discovering and exhuming are one and the same, so the archaeologists of Tlon can just as easily invent the objects they exhibit as unearth them.

Similarly, the object-crystals displayed in the installation question their own origin, whether they have been created just now or in fact originated elsewhere a very long time ago, like unearthed pieces from an unfamiliar landscape or rock formation. The installation alludes to an excavation site, a descent into archaeological time toward eroded fragmented stones pointing to another system of beliefs. All the fragments are parts of each other and are completing each other, though the entity itself is never presented. A system of equations colliding with the forces of entropy and decay leading to the deconstruction of a devised system.

Artistic, Sacred, Metaphysical Space: North Taurids. Following the Meteor Shower – Claire Mander

When faced with the challenging environment of the magnificence of Holy Trinity Sloane Square, she was filled with awe at the multitude of architectural detail, the overwhelming scale of the space and its sacred function.  Described by former Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman as the ‘Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts Movement’, its architect, John Dando Sedding, believed that a church should be ‘wrought and painted over with everything that has life and beauty—in frank and fearless naturalism…’, an aim which he achieved not least in the monumental stained glass windows by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.

Neelova had a challenge before her:  how to create a work that responds and encapsulates a place so laden with artistic, sacred, metaphysical and spatial enormity.  Her eye quickly moved from individual architectural elements and rested on the geometric patterns repeated throughout the church.  Her research took this further and she quickly understood that all space can be explained through geometry which strives to reduce space’s immensity to a human scale, within the boundaries of human understanding.  Everywhere there was evidence of the ‘sacred geometry’, the belief that God created the universe according to a geometric plan, which is the foundation of much sacred art and architecture since ancient times.  Plato reasoned that the entire universe could be understood through the interpretation of the five Platonic solids, which are polyhedral forms (namely solids in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges), on which Neelova based her work.  While this exploration took her into an increasingly abstract world of thought, she discovered the overwhelming presence of polyhedra in nature, in particular in the complex and compelling forms of crystals. Nature and mathematics became one.

Neelova then applied her research to the physical act of creation.  She folded a wooden table top to form two hollow polyhedral vessels.  These two wooden structures were used as casts into which she poured concrete, wax, marble dust to create fragments of the whole. Every one of the shapes could be fused together to recreate the two original polyhedra: all the fragments are part of each other, completing each other.

The origins and materials of the object-crystals in the installation are intentionally ambiguous. Resonant of the site of an archaeological dig, the fragments link the past to the present both in terms of material and systems of belief. She is presenting fragments of a cogent representation of the universe resulting in a quiet, contemplative work which does not battle with its environment but becomes part of it.

Historic, Notes from the Studio April 29, 2019

Notes from the Studio

Notes from the Studio - Hanna Haaslahti / November 18, 2015

An air of seriousness and enquiring quietness encompass the studio.  It is filled with materials: plastic sheets, a smoke machine, water, boards of frigolite, large paper cut outs of body shapes.
Hanna, sitting by the table with a book in her hand, looks at me with a secretive smile - as a magician about to reveal something extraordinary. The book she is perusing is about classicism, or more precisely, Greek sculpture.

"Did you know that Chiswick House once received a bequest of one of these sculptural bodies?", she says pointing at a very perfectly shaped Greek sculpture in the book, noticeably with missing arms.  She explains that copy after copy of the original sculptures were made by the Greeks and then the Romans, each society reflecting the ideals of its era in the human forms. Hanna speaks about her interest in Classicism and how she wants to know more about  this 'everywhere-underlying' element in western culture.

"We all think we know something about classicism", she says, "but in fact we know very little. Many of these sculptures, including the ones in Chiswick House, have lost limbs because of refurbishments, moving, wars, or other unfortunate accidents.”

What are the missing limbs? Their gestures and meanings of the missing limbs intrigue Hanna... and me.

She explains that she is not intending to make yet another copy of the sculptures that were housed at Chiswick House. But she will with use materials that can float, be transparent, and move, reflect what was once there ... like with a whisper from the past the artist or, as I feel tempted to call her, 'magician' gets to work...

Respectfully and with the serious approach of a Nordic Artist she will let us wander around the Ionic Temple at Chiswick House and its beauteous grounds, letting the whispers of the past meet the present, and bring us into yet new wonders and questions of the wonderfully ghostly magical uncertainties of the future and its forever changing ideals. Let us all be quiet, so that we can hear our thoughts and give space to these enchanting whispers.

Written by Nina Wisnia
Notes from the Studio April 29, 2019

Notes from the Studio -  Amy Sharrocks / August 1, 2013

What excites you most about live art/performance as a genre?

AS: The delicacy of each moment. The shifting, fluid possibilities of each minute. What could be more thrilling? How each person involved can alter the piece, the power it gives to each participant to shape and grow the work. I enjoy offering the gift of co-authorship with each live piece. The focus needed. The hugeness of the power of live art: the transformative possibilities inherent for everyone. How much I learn each time… that each piece takes me beyond what I know already.

What made you want to undertake a Sculpture Shock residency?

AS: I trained as a sculptor, and I have always thought of my work as much as sculpture as live art. Each piece is sited, has a clear shape, is fashioned by hand and experience… I think about the architecture of a moment, with a shape that can be moulded. People often like to label work clearly as one thing or another, yet I have always recognised a dual understanding in a work. I am glad in some ways also for the weight of the tradition of the Society… a weight it confers on the live work… live art, because it may be ephemeral, is often described in terms of its fragility… this seemed to appreciate its power. I like that it can skip round you, but still hit you like a sledgehammer.

Could you explain the process of creating one of your works from the germination of an idea to its realisation?

AS: Sometimes ideas can come very quickly, in that glimmering moment before you are fully awake perhaps, a bit of a Eureka moment, and then it is a question of trying it out, effecting the plans, making it and seeing what happens along the way. This was a residency however, and I wanted to start from an empty space (the gift of this beautiful studio), and see what developed. I knew I wanted to start from the beginning, from nothing. I had ideas of working from a seed or a fall. So I literally started with nothing. I chose to use the time to think all about falling, because it seemed to be the very first step – even before the very first step in fact – that before a walk there is a fall, a flop, a drop.

You are often asked where the artwork resides. You say that it lies ‘in the architecture of a moment that is made between people’ in situations which you facilitate. I sense that this belies the conceptual strength of your ideas. What is more important to you, concept or execution?

AS: Concept. No, execution. No, no, wait. Concept. No, execution, I believe in rigour. I believe in months of work and research that you can throw up in the air at the drop of a hat for a moment that was born, well, … of a moment, and a situation that arose with that one person, in that one place, at that particular time. Which might have been different a second later. It may be my concept that each work springs from, but it is utterly malleable in the execution by the person who meets me. And thank goodness for that. I believe that we have all fed into every moment that we have now, and that ideally, we can be alive to all those possibilities and memories, and draw on them to shape the moment. But each moment is otherwise shaped by someone else, and it would be a poor exchange not to let them in. I’m not in this just to get my point across. It is of course everybody’s right to squander time as anyone sees fit.  

How do you feel about the intangibility of your work? In what ways are traces of your work left for people who did not experience the live work?

AS: Occasionally I long for some solid mass to exit my studio into the world, that I could point to and say “Look at that! I did that!”, but it always seems a little grandiose. I have no less grand claims - I want to change people’s lives, explode their minds with the possibilities of things, change their days and ways – but I don’t make grand claims for things, but for people. (What traces have your favourite artworks left in you? If they are really great, they have changed your ideas about the world.)

There’s always traces left of work… there are a lot of photographs, but I reckon you mean something different… For the people who weren’t there, there’s the story your friend tells you the next day… the conversation you have had that might stick with you, there’s the idea that occurred to you – perhaps while you were thinking of something else – there’s your response to the photo you saw, the feelings generated in you by looking, talking, almost being part… maybe you’ll take part next time eh?

I am a bit weirded out that I have a growing number of websites… I have a slight horror of being formulated, so I make sites (yes, intangible, virtual sites) for the works, not for me… but sooner or later I will have to own them under one banner perhaps.

I get my joys from people’s responses. People contact me and tell me wonderful things. Sometimes they wait a long time on the off-chance they can make a piece, and I am so thankful of the time and effort people offer sometimes. Sometimes it’s not easy to leave the house, but some people cross the countryside, spend hours getting there: someone once drove from London to Cambridge to drift with me, and people came from miles and miles (Northampton, Whitstable, Brighton) to donate water to the Museum of Water. I am pretty proud that 3 people have written poems after joining in different works of mine.

And I love word of mouth – from one person to another, in huddles of excitement perhaps, or dreamy memories? What could be better than to be on somebody’s lips, the voice in their ear… ‘you wouldn’t believe’…, ‘I did the most…’, or even, ‘I still don’t know what to think…’ and it always begs the return question… ‘what did you do?’… ‘how did you spend your time?’…

The first time I visited you in the studio, you had a book of etchings of Elisabeth Frink on your bookcase, and nothing else. As an extremely emotionally receptive artist, how did you react to working in the studio where such a great sculptor once worked?

AS: I gathered stories about her for a while… My dad said he had met her once, and shook her hand and been amazed at how strong her handshake was… She would do, wouldn’t she, being a stone mason… but I felt for a while that I could feel her handshake. I like a cool, strong woman, uncowed.

That book came from my mother’s studio, and was a gift from my sister, so I guess I was taking Elizabeth Frink in… into my story, making my own connection with her and the other women in my family… and seeing how we got on together… I had a slight sense that I was trying to get on her good side too. She’d been kind enough to let me in. I am very thankful to her (and very pleased to borrow her vacated space). I like that idea of leaving space for someone. What a gift it’s been for me.

During your residency for Sculpture Shock you are creating a series of works that examine falling. How have the boundaries of the work changed during the residency?

AS: I’m not sure there were any boundaries to the work, that’s one of the things that has been most interesting. As you said, I started with nothing, and have been entirely open to everything. I have welcomed every suggestion, every sketch, every gift that I have been given since the start, and tried to be as open as possible to any one of their prompts. And not only people… I have looked at nature closely for 3 months, noticed the changing of the seasons, chased after each moment and stage, each tree and flower. I have lurked in parks for weeks on end. I have made sculptures and films, live works and my first performance piece. A dance, of sorts! I couldn’t be more surprised! I have used my body and other peoples’ as material. I’ve used us all as research. But we have also been co-conspirators, co-authors, colleagues and supporters. Now we will be dancers and participants too.

You have a pronounced interest in literature and the significance of words. How have you applied this to your Season of Falling?

AS: Concept. Execution. Words.

Who are the artists you most admire and which have had the greatest impact on your thinking and your work?

AS: Rembrandt. TS Eliot. Sophie Calle. Luce Irigaray. Susan Hiller. Adrian Piper. Orlan. Baudelaire. Bas Jan Ader. Yayoi Kusama. Yoko Ono. Martin Creed. Shakespeare. Anne Norman. Leon Kossoff. Marina Abramovic. Lone Twin. Roni Horn. Paul O’Kane. Cornelia Parker. Sarah Lucas. Arte Povera. Richard Long. I think that’s enough?  I like a lot of specific pieces:  The canned shit and fistfuls of plaster by Piero Manzoni, Alighieri e Boetti’s Airplanes, Baldessari’s The backs of all the trucks. The Merzbau. The impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.  I am part of a marvellous artist’s group, full of extraordinary and strong women artists, whom I admire. I am enjoying the way we are impacting on each other.

 April 29, 2019