Glasgow International 2010 Alice Channer Teachers' Resource

Teaching Resource

ALICE CHANNER www.glasgowinternational.org

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For Teachers

Getting Started

These teaching resources have been aimed at S2 students, though much of the content could apply to years: P7, S1, S3, S4 and S5.

Please use the cursor keys to navigate.

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Contents

Introduction About the Artist The Project Discussion Activities Art Term Glossary Contacts and Links

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ALICE CHANNER

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For Teachers

Introduction

Visual art happens all year round in Glasgow but for two weeks every two years, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art puts it firmly in the spotlight.

From artists’ studios through to major museums, by way of a vast range of venues new and old, the Festival is the perfect moment to get to know more about contemporary art and how and where it takes place in Glasgow.

Packed with events, talks and tours as well as major world-class exhibitions some by artists living in the city and others by leading international figures, the Festival is Glasgow’s art scene at its liveliest and best.

Alice Channer Inhale, Exhale

‘The UK’s best visual art festival’ The Guardian, December 2009

Thu 15th April 2010 - 8th May 2010 Mackintosh Gallery: The Glasgow School of Art, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G3 6RQ For GI 2010 Alice Channer was invited to make her first solo show in Scotland in the Mackintosh Gallery, within the Glasgow School of Art, entitled ‘Inhale, Exhale’. www.theapproach.co.uk Themes: the body, architecture, installation, fabric, materialism, print, drawing, clothing, scale, metaphors, drawing, transformation, movement, site-specific, environment, construction, sculpture.

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For Teachers

Introduction

‘Among the many sights to behold in the GI festival is Alice Channer’s first solo Scottish exhibition. For this remarkable and imaginative piece of work, Channer, who has recently had two works purchased for the Tate Collection, has clothed the space within Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s architectural masterpiece as if it were a person. Channer’s work often takes the form of swathes of material which she pleats. Stretches and folds. Through exhibitions, she explores the potential for places to have feeling of being inhabited, paralleling the way clothes are worn on the body. Inhale, Exhale swaddles Mackintosh’s work, moving with it in some places, away in others Channer explains ‘I have approached this exhibition as a two- person show, with my work complementing and moving with that of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s. The individual works are not, as is o be expected from figurative sculpture, bodies themselves or equivalent for bodies. Instead, in Inhale, Exhale, the body is everywhere that the work is not. The body becomes the floor, ceiling, walls and volume of Mackintosh’s Gallery’.

The Herald, 2010

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Inhale, Exhale Installation at Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

Inhale, Exhale Installation at Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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For Teachers

Alice Channer was born in Oxford in 1977 and lives and works in London.

Alice Channer is an artist who lives and works in London. As an ‘installation’ artist, she makes her work thinking about the particular spaces she will exhibit within. She often thinks of the gallery space as a body which the work will ‘clothe’.

One of the main themes in Channer’s work is fashion, with many of her works directly referencing garments and fashion accessories. Within her sculptural installations, there are pieces that are concentrated, and others that are stretched. The works themselves, some like fabric, are largely very flat. Flatness becomes a form of compression, a means of concentrating potential into a surface. Channer’s past works have done this using pleating folding and scrunching and stretching.

Channer uses simple actions to transform a particular material, paralleling the way in which the simple addition of a fashion accessory can transform ‘the look’ of an outfit.

About the Artist

Channer explores the themes of transformation and fashion through her 2 dimensional works on paper, by abstracting the details of clothing through the manipulation of scale, presentation and deconstruction. As viewers we recognize something familiar within those works on paper, but can we be quite sure of what?

On closer inspection we can see the traces of a garment within her prints, there are some recognizable elements, the curve of a neckline, the form of button or a press stud.

The garment has been transformed into something new, its history almost wiped away by the simple actions of this artist.

In Channer’s work, choice of materials, colour and method seems simple on first glance, but when the viewer goes closer to the work they can see that there is much detail.

Alice Channer’s first solo exhibition, ‘That Make Up Some Things’, was at Associates Gallery, London, in 2007. Since then she has exhibited in numerous group

exhibitions, including Strange Solution, Art Now, Tate Britain (2008), Boule to Braid, Lisson gallery, London, curated by Richard Wentworth (2009); Quiet Revolution, Hayward Gallery touring show (2009-2010), and finished her MA in Sculpture, RCA (2008). She is represented in London by The Approach.

She has shown in numerous group exhibitions including Boule to Braid, Lisson gallery, London, curated by Richard Wentworth (2009); Quiet Revolution, Hayward Gallery touring show, curated by Chris Fite-Wassilak, 2009-2010; Strange Solution, Art Now, Tate Britain, London, 2008; Dogtooth and Tesselate, The Approach, London, 2008; Associates, Phillips De Pury, New York, 2008; Multi-Focal, MA Show, Royal College of Art Sculpture School, London, 2008; M25 Around London (curated by Barry Schwabsky), CCA Andres, Mallorca, 2008; Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, World Class Boxing, Miami, 2008; Took My Hands Off Your Eyes Too Soon (curated by Ryan Gander), Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, 2007; Explorers From Overseas, Galleri Specta, Copenhagen, 2006.

In 2009 her first solo show at The Approach, London, Wornwork, was reviewed in Artforum by Barry Schwabsky, and she was awarded the Outset/Tate Frieze Acquisition prize.

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For Teachers

For GI 2010 Alice Channer was invited to make work for the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Gallery at The Glasgow School of Art. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, architect, designer, artist and alumnus, heralded the birth of a new style in 20th century European architecture with his designs in 1896 for the new art school building which was completed in 1909.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed the gallery to exist as a point of connection and flow within the art school – a sort of juncture for the arteries of the building. For Channer the architecture utilises static points to create movement.

The title of the exhibition is ‘Inhale, Exhale’, which refers to how we breathe.

It also refers to a development in Channer’s work where the work expands and contracts, and as forms repeat themselves, they change and move.

In considering the gallery space as a body, Channer says ‘The body becomes the beams, banisters, floor, ceiling, walls and volume of Mackintosh’s gallery.’ Marble

The Project

sculptures become bangles when they encircle the banisters of the staircase that comes up through the middle of the gallery.

When we think of eyes or lungs, there is movement through dilation and contraction.

In particular the ‘smoke rings’ which are the aluminum sculptures hung in columns by elastic, change shapes to open up and close. These particular sculptures refer directly back to clothing, as the aluminum ‘smoke rings’ are casts taken directly from the elasticated waistbands of trousers and from the elasticated necklines of sweatshirts. The purple, orange and black elastic that hold these ‘smoke rings’ is also another reference to the detailing found within clothing.

The sheets of paper that hang from the beams are called ‘Seersucker’. Seersucker is a type of material lined with rows of heavy threads which pull and ruche the fabric in a certain way, creating an unusual texture.

For this piece of work Alice used very simple means to make it. On the back of the paper she drew with a pencil, regular lines spaced

at close intervals. She then took a paintbrush wet with water down the length of each line.

As the paper dried it buckled slightly to make this texture. The scale of this work is interesting too, it is so large these sheets become like new walls within the gallery.

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Inhale, Exhale Installation at Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

Inhale, Exhale Installation at Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Inhale, Exhale Installation at Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Le Smoking Images courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

Le Smoking

Silk Cut

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Inhale, The Approach 2010 Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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DISCUSSION

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Discussion Questions 01/02/03

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• Discuss the ways in which the artist • Is the scale of some of the work • Can you see any similarities has used the architecture of the important in relation to the space? between the artist’s work and that building to direct her work. of a designer or architect? If so, what are they?

What are your thoughts on how the works have been placed within the space?

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Heavy New Look Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

In Form, The Approach 2010 Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Discussion Questions 04/05/06

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• Do you think different environments • Describe how you could can impact and influence the experience the work differently presentation of artworks, e.g. a by walking around it and by derelict space compared with a observing it from different angles clean white cube like space of a within the gallery space. contemporary art gallery?

Could you imagine placing this work in one of those locations and what might be some of the advantages of doing so?

• The artist clearly draws a parallel between buildings and this comparison is evident in the way she uses her art works to dress the architecture, e.g. attaching marble cuffs to encircle the banisters like bracelets on a wrist. Within their work, artists often include objects or images that represent something else. Discuss the term metaphor.

Can you give examples of metaphors?

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Discussion Questions 07/08/09

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• Discuss the term minimalism.

• Discuss how different materials • Contemporary artists continually Artists of minimalism believed that can have different effects and experiment with a range of materials were devoid of meaning. qualities. Think of the qualities that mediums and materials. Some we associate with plastic, card, artists choose to paint or draw, Alice Channer is an artist who and other materials such as fabric, some work with photography, believes that materials are full wood and metal. sculpture and film, some with of meaning and associations, performance, light, sound and that cant but help, inform artistic Discuss the ways in which you installation. choices, do you agree with her? could manipulate a material such as paper, could you do the same with marble?

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Discussion Questions 10/11

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• Discuss the ways in which certain materials and mediums could influence an artist’s idea.

How can ideas influence certain media and material choices?

Describe some of the materials and mediums that provide stimulation for your own artworks and explain why.

• List the colours that have been used within this work, do you think the use of colour is effective and does it compliment with the colour in space?

Do these colours create any effect or emotion?

If the artist had used different colours would this matter?

Would it create a new meaning?

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Now, In, Untitled-1 Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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ACTIVITIES

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Activity 01

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In a group create a series of cards, on each piece of card print clearly the name of a specific material e.g. velvet, silk, stone, fur, wood, plastic.

Discuss the basic worth of each material, discussing the emotive and subjective qualities contained within each, e.g. luxurious, smooth, rough, tough, precious, warm. Expand this discussion by presenting ways in which you could best work with some of these materials. Talk about some of ways in which you could incorporate particular materials into your daily environment. Could you, e.g. line the underside of every desk with red velvet? Could you encircle the legs of every chair with a stone cuff?

Discuss the ways in which these simple interventions would make a change to your daily environment.

Record your thoughts in a notebook.

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Activity 02

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Alice Channer transforms simple materials by applying a slight action, e.g. for the hanging paper pieces which were part of her GI 2010 show, she drew a series of pencil lines on the back of the paper, down the entire length of the paper and then she carefully ran a brush dipped in water down the full length of the pencil lines, causing the paper to expand and become 3 dimensional.

Find ways to transform an everyday material such as paper using the simplest of actions. In groups discuss the ways in which you could transform that particular material with the slightest effort. Make notes in your sketchbook.

Using paper, create a series of small samples where you apply some of these simple actions in order to manipulate and transform the paper surface. You could use a variety of traditional and non-traditional art tools to alter the surface of your paper, e.g. a fork, a craft knife, a spoon, scissors, hole-punch, a pencil, a hard brush, sandpaper or a rubber.

Whilst in the process of making these samples, consider both subjective and emotive words to help inform your actions, e.g. scoring, cutting, pleating, rubbing, twisting, regular, irregular, measured, unmeasured, soft, gentle, energetic, aggressive and rhythmic.

Another way of generating more samples could be through the application of water onto the papers surface, e.g. on one sample you could apply controlled quantities of water to the paper’s surface perhaps using a brush, placing water marks in a repetitive way. On another paper sample, you could do the opposite, by applying water marks in a less controlled and irregular way.

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Activity 03

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Lay all your paper samples from the previous activity onto a clear floor or desk space. As a group discuss ways in which you could edit down your collection of samples. If you were to pick a selection of samples, what types of things would inform your choices? Would you pick paper the paper samples that were completely unique from one another or would you choose a group of samples that had a strong connection with one another? Using your paper samples, create a series of edited groupings, containing 6 or more of your samples that have been based on some of your editing suggestions. Ensure that you use a different method of selection for each grouping, so you can compare and contrast. As a group discuss the reasons behind

your selections as well as discussing what groups of samples have been successful and why you think other groups have been less so.

work? Could your paper pieces be twisted around and supported by the branches of a tree? Could your paper samples be suspended from lampposts, from washing lines or Imagine creating large scale versions tucked into gaps in brickwork?

Document your paper samples of some of these groupings.

As a class discuss ways in which in some way, either via photography, you could install these paper pieces the photocopier or through drawing, all if you wish! Place this within your immediate environment, documentation in your sketchbook indoors or outdoors. How would you work in harmony with the architecture so you will be able to compare and analyse the outcomes of all your of your space, e.g. would a certain experiments at a later date. sample benefit from being placed indoors near a light source, such as a window or sky light? Could you allow the volume of an indoor space to dictate the length and width of your paper piece? Could you use architectural features, such as door frames and windows to support your

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Now, In, Untitled-1 Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Now, In, Untitled-1 Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Activity 04

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Expanding on ‘Activity 3’, consider some of the ways in which you could develop your paper samples by applying a variety of simple joining methods, e.g. slotting, stapling, taping, stringing. Using your samples, make a series of small works incorporating some of the suggested joining methods. You may need to generate more samples to allow more room for experimentation. The important thing is to ensure that all your individual experiments with these joining methods are unique from one another.

On completion of this activity, as a group place all your paper works within a clear space, on the floor or on a large area of desk. Take time to see how your classmates have approached the activity and discuss what paper pieces have been most successful and why.

As a group imagine scaling up some of these paper pieces with a view to having them installed within your classroom. Keep referring to all the samples that you have laid out within the clear space of the floor or desk.

Discuss some of the ways in which you could play around with the positioning of these paper pieces within your classroom, e.g. could you connect floor to ceiling with your paper sculpture? Could your sculptural pieces fill the entire space of a cupboard? Could your sculptures spill over the classroom door or cascade from an open desk drawer? Write your thoughts in your sketchbook.

If possible photocopy, photograph and sketch your joined paper samples in different positions.

Place this documentation directly into your sketchbook with the actual paper samples and next to your written thoughts.

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See-Thru, The Approach 2010 Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Activity 05

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As a group identify readily available and inexpensive materials that you could build easily into larger-than-life temporary sculptures or installations, e.g. office paper, re-cycled cardboard boxes.

Based in ‘Activity 4’ consider the best ways in which to construct a large scale sculpture or installation. As a class discuss how your sculpture or installation could effectively inhabit an area within the school, e.g. would it be tall or short? Would it be narrow or wide? Would it be attached to the wall or suspended from the ceiling in some way? Would it be fastened or attached to a doorway in some way?

In groups, individually make a series of quick, rough sketches, 5 or more, looking at the different ways in which you could you could build these sculptures or installations. As a group select 3 or more sketches that you’d like to play around with.

As a group, using your selected sketches from above, consider the positioning of this sculpture or installation within your classroom.

Consider how the placing of your installation or sculpture could enhance or change your experience of walking through that particular space, e.g. would it force you to turn sideways through the door? Would you have to crawl underneath it?

Would it form a barrier, like a wall?

How would you want viewers to experience the work?

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Activity 05 cont.

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As you consider the above, select someone within your group to make a series of rough sketches based on your thoughts.

Once you have completed the above, as a group, select your favourite sculpture or installation, along with your preferred positioning.

Select a team leader, who will delegate tasks to the group. Keep your drawings visible so you can all refer to them as you make your sculpture or installation. Document your progress with photography if possible.

When you have built your sculpture or installation, as a group, get to work positioning it in the spaces that you selected earlier. Do these positions compliment your sculpture or installation? Would they be better in another space? Document your positioning as you go through photography or delegate a person within your group to make sketches and record your thoughts as you experiment!

Place all your own documentation within your sketchbook and photocopy versions of all the sketches taken by your delegated group sketcher and note taker for every group member. Be sure to include any photography and even stick in some sections of your installation or sculpture when you break it down.

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Stretch Nude Body, The Approach 2010 Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Activity 06 FOR STUDENTS

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When Alice Channer looked at introducing colour into her GI show, she referred to the existing monochromatic palette of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Gallery space to inform her choices.

In groups, list the predominant colours found within your classroom.

If you were to introduce a new colour palette into this setting how would you go about it? Would you go for the colours that are in direct contrast to the predominant colours, or would you opt for secondary or tertiary colours or a mix of all?

Referring to your list of predominant colours, consult the colour wheel as a way of identifying the colours which compliment that list. Using the colour wheel, list the primary, secondary and tertiary

colours within your sketchbooks.

Using your colour lists, find the appropriate colour samples from within your classroom .e.g. bits of coloured paper, magazine colour cuttings, objects, bits of fabric, coloured wool or thread. As a group set about placing them next to the existing colours within your classroom and ask yourself whether or not you’d be confident about introducing these colours into your classroom.

Create a range of small colour palettes for your sketchbook referring to the lists that you generated in your groups earlier. Collect a small pile of colour swatches to work with from using some of the following e.g. bits of coloured paper, magazine colour cuttings, objects, bits of fabric, coloured wool or thread.

Cut strips of card, no more than 1” wide and no longer than 5”, for each of your suggested colour palettes you will paste, entwine or wrap your colour swatches around this length of card. When doing this imagine the small paint swatch cards that are available from DIY shops to help inform your paint choices.

You are hoping to create 3 or more colour samples for your sketchbook, e.g. one could include primary colours only, another, secondary and another tertiary. You could also include a sample with a mix of all.

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Untitled (bangles) Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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Activity 07 FOR STUDENTS

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In Alice Channer’s GI 2010 show she has used de-constructed sections of clothing as a direct reference for her sculptural and printed works, e.g. elasticated necklines, cuffs and waistbands, along with sections of under garments.

For this activity carefully de-construct an old piece of clothing into small sections using scissors and or a stitch un-picker. Avoid anything too bulky and select a material that will hold printing ink on its surface, e.g. a cotton t-shirt, a piece of underwear, fine jersey or a thin cotton shirt.

Before you begin make sure your have everything you need to start this activity, e.g. old newspapers, iron, a small pile or A4 newsprint or thin paper, a printing roller, printing ink, palette knife, gloves, apron, Perspex or acrylic sheet to roller printing ink onto. Make sure you cover your desk with old newspapers.

Flatten, or iron out the material, roller out your ink onto your acrylic or Perspex surface, the back of a glossy magazine would do too.

It’s important to roller out the ink smoothly as you don’t want any blobs of ink attaching themselves to the surface of your material, which will result in an unsightly print!

Quickly apply a smooth, uniform and generous covering of ink with the printing roller to one side of your fabric. Quickly place a sheet of A4 newsprint or thin paper on your desk on top of the old newspaper.

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Activity 07 cont.

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Quickly and firmly, without movement, press the entire printed surface of your material onto your sheet of thin A4 newsprint or paper, releasing all of the printing ink onto the paper. Whilst holding the material firmly in place, run a clean printing roller over the back of the material to release more of the printing ink.

Whilst the two surface s are adhered together quickly flip them over, so the paper side is facing up. Place back down on a flat surface, smooth the palms of your hands and the dry printing roller over the paper surface to help release the remaining quantity of ink. Remember to be as quick as you can at every stage to avoid the paper sticking to the garment and tearing! To avoid the paper sticking to the garment,

ensure that you do this quickly.

This method of printmaking can be a bit ‘hit and miss’, the more you do the better you’ll become! So be playful, experiment and create a series of prints. If possible tape them in rows to a wall surface to dry and so you can chart your progression. Don’t bundle them in piles as they will stick together!

When you’re done with printing and your prints are dry, play around with the presentation and positioning of groups or 2 or more prints, e.g. position them in symmetry, back-tofront, in grids, in a long line. Could try rotating prints, turning them upside down, placing them back to front?

Document your findings in sketches or through photography if possible and present this documentation along with your prints within your sketchbook.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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Art Term Glossary

Matter/Materials –

Monochrome: Monochrome means one colour. For centuries artists used different shades of brown or black Installation: ink to create monochrome pictures on paper.

Term used to describe mixed-media art works The ink would simply be more or less diluted to which occupy an entire room or gallery space and into which usually the spectator can enter. achieve the required shades. Shades of grey Some installations, however, are designed simply oil paint were used to create monochrome to be walked around and contemplated, or are paintings, a technique known as grisaille, from the French word gris meaning grey. In such so fragile that they can only be viewed from work the play of light and dark enabled the a doorway, or one end of a room. artist to define formand create a picture. In the twentieth century, with the rise of abstract Mackintosh: art many artists experimented with making Charles Rennie Mackintosh (June 7, 1868 – monochrome painting.

December 10, 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and sculptor. He was Minimalism: a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement Minimalism or Minimal art is an extreme form and also the main exponent of Art Nouveau of abstract art that developed in the USA in in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable the second half of the 1960s. It can be seen influence on European design. as extending the abstract idea that art should have its own reality and not be an imitation of some other thing. Minimal artists typically made works in very simple geometric shapes based on the square and the rectangle. Many Minimal works explore the properties of their materials.

There are strong links between Minimal and Conceptual art. Aesthetically, Minimal art offers a highly purified form of beauty. It can also be seen as representing such qualities as truth (because it does not pretend to be anything other than what it is), order, simplicity, harmony.

Media/Medium – White cube: Refers to a certain gallery aesthetic that was introduced in the early twentieth century in response to the increasing abstraction of modern art. With an emphasis on colour and light, artists from groups like De Stijl and the Bauhaus preferred to exhibit their works against white walls in order to minimise distraction.

The white walls were also thought to act as a frame, rather like the borders of a photograph.

A parallel evolution in architecture and design provided the right environment for the art. The white cube was characterised by its square or oblong shape, white walls and a light source usually from the ceiling.

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Art Term Glossary

Deconstruction: A form of criticism, which involves discovering, recognising and understanding the underlying and unspoken and implicit - assumptions, ideas and frameworks of cultural forms such as works of art. First used by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1970s, deconstruction asserts that there is not one single intrinsic meaning to be found in a work, but rather many, and often they can be conflicting. Since Derrida’s assertions in the 1970s, the notion of deconstruction has been a dominating influence on many writers and conceptual artists.

Techniques – Conceptual Art: This term came into use in the late 1960s to describe a wide range of types of art that no longer took the form of a conventional art object. In 1973 a pioneering record of the early years of the movement appeared in the form of a book, Six Years, by the American critic Lucy Lippard. The six years were 1966-72.

The long subtitle of the book referred to socalled conceptual or information or idea art.

Conceptual artists do not set out to make a painting or a sculpture and then fit their ideas to that existing form. Instead they think beyond the limits of those traditional media, and then work out their concept or idea in whatever

materials and whatever form is appropriate.

They were thus giving the concept priority over the traditional media. Hence Conceptual art.

From this it follows that conceptual art can be almost anything, but from the late 1960s certain prominent trends appeared such as Performance (or Action) art, Land art, and the Italian movement Arte Povera (poor art). Poor here meant using low-value materials such as twigs, cloth, fat, and all kinds of found objects and scrap. Some Conceptual art consisted simply of written statements or instructions.

Many artists began to use photography, film and video. Conceptual art was initially a movement of the 1960s and 1970s but has been hugely influential since. Artists include Art & Language, Beuys, Broodthaers, Burgin, Craig-Martin, Gilbert and George, Klein, Kosuth, Latham, Long, Manzoni, Smithson.

Site Specific: Refers to a work of art designed specifically for a particular location and that has an interrelationship with the location. If removed from the location it would lose all or a substantial part of its meaning. Site-specific is often used of installation works, as in sitespecific installation, and Land art is site-specific almost by definition.

Materialism: Contemporary Visual Art – Term loosely used to denote art of the present day and of the relatively recent past, of an innovatory or avant-garde nature. In relation to contemporary art museums, the date of origin for the term contemporary art varies.

The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, founded in 1947, champions art from that year onwards. Whereas The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York chooses the later date of 1977. In the 1980s, Tate planned a Museum of Contemporary Art in which contemporary art was defined as art of the past ten years on a rolling basis.

Visual Language – Found Objects: A natural or man-made object (or fragment of an object) found (or sometimes bought) by an artist and kept because of some intrinsic interest the artist sees in it. Found objects may be put on a shelf and treated as works of art in themselves, as well as providing inspiration for the artist. The sculptor Henry Moore for example collected bones and flints which he seems to have treated as natural sculptures as well as sources for his own work. Found objects may also be modified by the artist and presented as art, either more or less intact as in the Dada and Surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp’s

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Art Term Glossary

readymades, or as part of an assemblage. As so often, Picasso was an originator, from 1912, when he began to incorporate newspapers and such things as matchboxes into his Cubist collages, and to make his Cubist constructions from various scavenged materials. Extensive use of found objects was made by Dada, Surrealist and Pop artists, and by later artists such as Carl Andre, Tony Cragg, Bill Woodrow, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Michael Landy among many others.

Ready Made: ‘Ready mades’ is the term used by the French artist Marcel Duchamp to describe works of art he made from manufactured objects. His earliest readymades included Bicycle Wheel of 1913, a wheel mounted on a wooden stool, and In Advance of the Broken Arm of 1915, a snow shovel inscribed with that title. In 1917 in New York, Duchamp made his most notorious readymade, Fountain, a men’s urinal signed by the artist with a false name and exhibited placed on its back. Later readymades could be more elaborate and were referred to by Duchamp as assisted readymades. The theory behind the readymade was explained in an article, anonymous but almost certainly by Duchamp himself, in the May 1917 issue of the avant-garde magazine The Blind Man run by Duchamp and two friends: ‘Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not

has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, and placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view created a new thought for that object.’ There are three important points here: first, that the choice of object is itself a creative act. Secondly, that by cancelling the ‘useful’ function of an object it becomes art.

Thirdly, that the presentation and addition of a title to the object have given it ‘a new thought’, a new meaning. Duchamp’s readymades also asserted the principle that what is art is defined by the artist. Duchamp was an influential figure in Dada and Surrealism, an important influence on Pop art, environments, assemblage, installation art, Conceptual art and much art of the 1990s such as YBA. (See also Postmodernism.)

Narrative: A narrative is simply a story. Narrative art is art that tells a story. Much of Western art has been narrative, depicting stories from religion, myth and legend, history and literature (see History painting). Audiences were assumed to be familiar with the stories in question. From about the seventeenth century genre painting showed scenes and narratives of everyday life. In the Victorian age, narrative painting of everyday life subjects became hugely popular and is often considered as a category in itself (i.e. Victorian narrative painting). In modern art,

formalist ideas have resulted in narrative being frowned upon. However, coded references to political or social issues, or to events in the artist’s life are commonplace. Such works are effectively modern allegories, and generally require information from the artist to be fully understood. The most famous example of this is Picasso’s Guernica.

Op Art: A major development in the 1960s of painting that created optical effects for the spectator.

These effects ranged from the subtle, to the disturbing and disorienting. Op painting used a framework of purely geometric forms as the basis for its effects and also drew on colour theory and the physiology and psychology of perception. Leading figures were Bridget Riley, Jesus Raphael Soto, and Victor Vasarely.

Vasarely was one of the originators of Op art.

Soto’s work often involves mobile elements and points up the close connection between Kinetic and Op art.

Multiples: Casting sculpture in bronze, and the various techniques of printmaking, have for many centuries made it possible to make multiple examples of a work of art. Each example of an edition of a print or a bronze is an authentic work of the artist, although there may be technical variations which might affect the

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Art Term Glossary

value. The number produced is usually strictly limited, mainly for commercial reasons but, in the case of etchings in particular, also for technical reasons etching plates wear very rapidly, so later impressions are inferior. About 1955, the artists Jean Tinguely and Agam, wanting to make their work more widely available, put forward the idea of very large, effectively unlimited, editions of works which could be sold very cheaply. It is they who seem to have invented the term multiple for such works, which would be made by industrial processes. The first multiples were eventually produced by the Denise René Gallery in Paris in 1962, and since then large numbers of artists have created multiples.

Interdisciplinary –

musical score of four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence (four minutes thirty three seconds is 273 seconds. The temperature minus 273 celsius is absolute zero). By the 1950s and 1960s visual artists and composers like were using kinetic sculptures and electronic media, overlapping live and pre-recorded sound, in order to explore the space around them. Since the introduction of digital technology sound art has undergone a radical transformation. Artists can now create visual images in response to sounds, allow the audience to control the art through pressure pads, sensors and voice activation, and in examples like Jem Finer’s ‘Longplayer’, extend a sound so that it resonates for a thousand years.

Public Art: Artwork that is in the public realm, regardless of whether it is situated on public or private property or whether it has been purchased with public or private money. Usually, but not always, the art has been commissioned specifically for the site in which it is situated. Monuments, memorials and civic statues and sculptures are the most established forms of public art, but public art can also be transitory, in the form of performances, dance, theatre, poetry, graffiti, posters and installations. Public art can often be used as a political tool, like the propaganda posters and statues of the Soviet Union or the murals painted by the Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland. Public art can also be a form of civic protest, as in the graffiti sprayed on the side of the New York subway in the 1980s.

Sound Scape: Art about sound, using sound both as its medium and as its subject. It dates back to the early inventions of Futurist Luigi Russolo who, between 1913 and 1930, built noise machines that replicated the clatter of the industrial age and the boom of warfare, and subsequent experiments in the Dada and Surrealist movements. Marcel Duchamp’s composition Erratum Musical featured three voices singing notes pulled from a hat, a seemingly arbitrary act that had an impact on the compositions of John Cage, who in 1952 composed 4’ 33” a

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Worn-Work Image courtesy of the artist and The Approach Gallery, London.

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CONTACTS & LINKS

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Contacts & Links

Get involved!

The next edition of the festival is in 2012.

Stay in touch, we’d love to hear from you! www.glasgowinternational.org www.glasgowinternational.org/index.php/events/learn www.glasgowinternational.org/index.php/about/view/Goodbye_to_the_2010_Festival/

Contact Lesley Hepburn - Creative Learning and Education Officer lesley@glasgowinternational.org GI Office +44 (0)141 276 8382

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