Hi Jess
Hope your Petcha Kutcha went well.
Seems there was plenty of good advice in Wellington but it's up to you to sift it.
They are all right in their own way but you have to decide what's going to be your way....always the sifting. Advice is all good but you have to sort the 'good for you' from the 'bad for you' advice and you'll choose wrong sometimes - don't worry.
Karl's push all boundaries, make whatever happens: - that's always got to be good advice but you have to decide how you will work with those results - how and when is the edit going to happen. Maybe not at all, just see what happens - the crap can always go in the bin. But regardless of their output, everyone edits, even someone as prolific as Karl.
Marcel's shift the presentation intent, reposition the work: - is the plinth serving you well is a good question - are your options still the gallery? Maybe collaborations with fashion spaces are a better option? Many fashion people have been open to having their shops used as project spaces. Consider what happens to your work though when it is removed from that presentation context - ask the question - how does it work without it?
Presentation is a big deal nowadays (I know I'm spending more time thinking about it) but it's only a part of how jewellery is viewed. Although it's always nice to see it presented with thought - try not to insult the jewelleryness of your work.
Frabritzio's work out who are you talking to: - yes who are you talking to? I always think this is one of the differences between fine art and applied art. My jewellery is very deliberately talking to someone - a wearer - they are a real entity to me. I agree with Dorothea Prühl who has spoken on this relationship (see first para in quote below) The person the work speaks too 'has rights' - When I make I am also making a contract with the future 'wearer' - the work is not an autonomous art work.
Manon's - seek perfection - such good advice - slackness has no part in the work. But don't see perfection in any narrow way (meaning technique or finish etc). Perfection could be the 'edit' - could be the presentation.
And the advice that you should get it out there in as many places and in as affordable chunks as you can: .......well not sure that is appropriate to your ambitions and before you decide to do that, you would have to see it clearly as a strategy that might make some money but one that won't raise your profile as an artist. Besides price is not very often a determiner for the galleries - they don't have to pay up front for it. But if you decided to hit on the fashion stores then that's probably how you did it. No reason you can't have 2 strategies going if you have the energy.
Did all that sound sage enough - wise words of advice from your old mentor.... fact is - who knows sometimes.
I remember reading in a book by Frank Zappa once about his experience in the 1960s with record company executives and did they really know what was going on when they signed Zappa and other experimental artists.
No he said :
“Old cigar chomper guys listened to the tapes and said, 'I dunno. Who knows what the fuck it is? G'head, put it out! Who knows?'
And sometimes they got it right.
My experience counts for something but I think my T-shirt says: 'What the fuck do I know G'head'.
Our collaboration for Objectspace?
You suggest some workable ideas.
I've had this thought for a while - it's a kind of reactionary thought - relating to trends in contemporary jewellery - and it goes:
'I've never made a soft piece of jewellery'
It's true - I can't recall ever making a soft piece of jewellery and yet it has become such a prevalent trend and I can be trendy.
I guess the 'softness' apparent these days is because of the increase in the number of women practitioners.
And that goes back to our first blog exchange and your comment: ‘Warwick makes masculine forms and I make feminine forms’ and my 'Womenup' piece in response.
Maybe we should go back to that beginning exchange and (this sounds obvious) I'll make a soft piece and you will have to make a hard piece. You could carve one of your pieces in stone or wood and I could do a soft remake of one of my pieces in leather (that idea makes me think of Claus Odenburg sculpture from the 1960s Pop Art era that I was attracted too back then - his soft objects).
A pretty basic idea but it has a nice circular, self-referencing aspect identifying our differences - a collaboration of opposites but not in opposition.
One piece each - that would hit my 'less is best' sweet spot too.
What is the timing for the OS exhibition?
I'm off to Melbourne next weekend for my Gallery Funaki exhibition (probably at the same time you are running up a mountain side I'll be having a beer somewhere considerably higher over the Tasman Sea).
I'm also in a show at the National Gallery of Victoria - an International survey put together by the Design Museum in London (see notice below) that I will get the chance to see while in Melbourne.
Re that other question - I'm pretty well stocked for single malt at present but good Central Otago pinot noir always goes down well
All the best
xW
Comments
Post a Comment