The charming Polaroids of Philip-Lorca Dicorcia. . .

Last weeks’ opening to Philip-Lorca Dicorcia's show Roid at Sprüth Magers caught my attention, mainly because of the works size and the exhibitions hanging style. As this was a collection of Polaroids, the images had an intimacy and intrigue which is too often lost in today's art galleries, with countless shows displaying large-scale photographs. It was a refreshing change to this trend, which now seems a bit grotesque and out of touch with these 'austerity measured' times.

The interest in this work was also heightened by the shows hanging method. This 'Motorway' style exhibit placed the work on a small rail that ran along the walls of the gallery. This encouraged the viewer to really immerse themselves in the work; drawing them in very close in order to properly inspect the nature of the polaroid, it's form, content and place within the whole series. I felt that this gave the images an emphasized sense of constructed narrative - if somewhat ambiguous - and in an unconventional fashion, communicated a vision of the photographer's own creative journey through his work.  

the show runs May the 13th-June 18^th 2011

The Architect’s brother

The series The Architect’s Brother by the Artist duo ParkeHarrison takes us on a journey to a melancholy, old fashioned and surreal looking world. At the centre of the images’ stands the lone anti-hero “Everyman”, who is trying his hardest to heal the wounded earth.

Robert ParkeHarrison said in the foreword to his monograph, "I want to make images that have open narrative qualities, enough to suggest ideas about human limits.  I want there to be a combination of the past juxtaposed with the modern. I use nature to symbolize the search, saving a tree, watering the earth. In this fabricated world, strange clouds of smog float by; there are holes in the sky. These mythic images mirror our world, where nature is domesticated, controlled, and destroyed."

For me “Everyman” represents the human consciousness and its devotion to the earth. The images reflect a suffering world; the soil is ruined, the skies are grey and gloomy, and the plants have stopped growing. In the midst of all of this stands Everyman, a healer and an old fashioned inventor. On view are fantastic tools, many of them inspired by old inventions. They have been built in order for him to make rain, clean the clouds, collect the plants and listen to the trees.

A few of my favourite images are “Mending the earth”, where he sows together a crack in the ground with a gigantic needle, and "Reclamation" in which he drags a 'sheet' of grass over the soil, as if trying to create a new layer to protect the earth. These two pieces both reflect the meaninglessness of Everyman’s efforts, as well as highlighting a lone man's loosing battle. The emphasis in these images should however be on the action not on the aftermath.

Mending the earthReclamation   Da Vinci's Wings Tree exchange Arbor day  

For me the atmosphere and subject matter  which pervades these images fits well with T.S Eliot’s Wasteland:

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,                                 
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.  “

Outtake from

The burial of the dead, the Wasteland by T.S Eliot

  

This series was made between 1993-2005. I think in this current digital age the process in which they were constructed is worth mentioning:

“[T]he ParkeHarrisons printed their photographs from large paper negatives made by cutting and pasting a variety of images together. The underlying mechanics of this technique--including the seams between individual images--are carefully painted out in the negative. A photographic print is then made, which is often painted with a layer of varnish or beeswax. This genuinely original technique, combined with their elaborate process of set construction, crosses many creative boundaries. The result is a fascinating hybrid of sculpture, performance, painting and photography.”

 

All  images copywrite belongs to the artists www.parkeharrison.com/

“Watch out Picasso, here comes Tony Hancock”

  The artist himself in true Paris mood. . . the existentialists beatnik-types. . .and the fantastic Hancock sculptures

Tony Hancock's film The Rebel (1961) is the story of a ‘bored-to-death’ London office worker who decides to leave his nine-to-five monotony to try his luck as an artist in the bohemian quarters of Paris. The Rebel is very much a ‘tongue in cheek’ dig at the art world and the artistic underground movements of its time. The film is 50 years old this year, but its comment on the fickle nature of the art world; its dodgy dealers, ‘fads and trends’, makes it feel as comically accurate today as it was when it was made.

The film is not only a dig at modern city life and the fast moving trends of the art world it is also a great source of inspiration. The art featured in the film does have its charms. Yes, we do love Hancock’s art here at Pipe. Aphrodite at the Water Hole and Self Portrait are among our favorites’. We are not the only ones though; Reconstructions of these two artworks among others featured in the exhibition Anthony Hancock; a retrospective at the Foundry in London in 2002.

Ps. the Rebel can be found on YouTube…  enjoy:)