Turner prize – The art berries

If you’re in London this Christmas and would like to see an art exhibition, the Turner Prize is worth to pay a visit. What is one of the best-known prizes for visual arts in the world is formed entirely by film, video and moving image this year. So, if you want to see the four art pieces presented in full you’d have to count on over 4,5 hours. But, I’d say we didn’t spend that long at this exhibition. The medium allows you to be flexible with how you experience it, and it doesn’t have to be as lineal as when we go to the cinema.

I was not surprised about finding the same type of work on the four pieces shown this year. It does capture the mood of the present moment by using moving image for a political purpose.

As it is presented, there are four rooms connected by a central space filled in with sofas and printed material that reminds you a bit of a dentist waiting room. Nevertheless, I liked this set up; considering that you have to enter the darkness to watch each of the art pieces, I appreciate you can go back to a well lit space in between them.

On one hand we have the multidisciplinary collective Forensic Architecture based at Goldsmith University that includes architects, filmmakers, lawyers and scientists. All combine their skills to investigate allegations of state violence. They don’t consider themselves an art group as such, and like looking at real events. In the work presented they use different patient techniques to uncover what happened on a night of 2017, when Israeli police attempted to clear a Bedouin village, an action that resulted in two deaths. It was an stressful film for the watcher and for the film makers, who even put their life at risk to make it.

Then, Naeem Mohaiemen separates from real events to present a fictional piece in which a solitary man wanders through the ruins of an abandoned airport, like a character from JG Ballard. He bases this piece on his dad’s experience years ago when he had to spend 9 days at a Greek airport. Using films, installations and essays, his practice make sense of political events in the 70s, while he investigate the legacies of decolonisation among others. A rather surreal film.

Thirdly, we saw Luke Willis Thompson’s piece, who works across film, performance, installations and sculpture to explore cases of institutional violence, race, class and social inequality among others. He presented a controversial film in 35mm of Diamond Reynolds, a lady who used her mobile phone in 2016 to live-stream on Facebook the killing of her partner by police in the US state of Minnesota. We liked this silent piece, and The art blackberry interacted with it as you can see below adding another layer to the piece. The use of a 35mm projector contributed to making this piece more organic and real, and as a consequence, very effective emotionally speaking.

Finally, we saw the work of this year’s winner, Charlotte Prodder, who was not announced as a winner when we saw the art show, but last week. She works with moving image, sculpture and printed image to explore queer identity, landscape, language technology and time, and has recently been chosen to represent Scotland at the Venice Biennale. Her work filmed on an iPhone is poetic and captivating, and I also enjoyed watching it.

The last two works were my favourites. Luke Willis Thompson because of the controversial message he presents with the use of 35mm, a great medium. And Charlotte Prodder because her film made with an iPhone is very personal and poetic and many people will identify with it.

Capturando el estado de ánimo del momento

Turner Prize
26 de septiembre de 2018 – 6 de enero de 2019
Tate Britain, Londres, Reino Unido

Si estás en Londres estas Navidades y te apetece ver una exposición de arte, vale la pena visitar el Turner Prize. Este año, el que es uno de los premios de artes visuales más conocidos del mundo está formado en su totalidad por películas, videos e imágenes en movimiento. Por lo tanto, si deseas ver las cuatro obras de arte presentadas en su totalidad, tendrás que contar con más de 4 horas y media. Pero, nosotras no pasamos tanto tiempo viendo esta exposición. El medio en que se presenta te permite ser flexible con la forma en que lo experimentas, y no tiene que ser tan lineal como cuando vamos al cine.

No me sorprendió encontrar el mismo tipo de trabajo en las cuatro piezas presentadas este año. Captura el estado de ánimo que vivimos actualmente gracias al uso de imágenes en movimiento para un propósito político.

Tal como está expuesto, hay cuatro habitaciones conectadas por un espacio central con sofás y material impreso que recuerda un poco a la sala de espera de un dentista. Sin embargo, me gusta esta presentación; teniendo en cuenta que debes estar en la oscuridad para ver cada una de las piezas de arte, se agradece volver a un espacio bien iluminado entre ellas.

Por un lado, tenemos el colectivo multidisciplinario de Arquitectura Forense con sede en la Universidad de Goldsmith, que incluye arquitectos, cineastas, abogados y científicos. Todos combinan sus conocimiento para investigar denuncias de violencia estatal. No se consideran un grupo de arte como tal, y les gusta explorar eventos reales. En el trabajo presentado, utilizan diferentes técnicas pacientes para descubrir lo que sucedió una noche de 2017, cuando la policía israelí intentó despejar una aldea beduina, una acción que resultó en dos muertes. Es una película estresante tanto para el espectador, como para los cineastas, que incluso ponen su vida en riesgo para hacerla.

En segundo lugar, Naeem Mohaiemen se separa de los eventos reales para presentar una pieza ficticia en la que un hombre solitario recorre las ruinas de un aeropuerto abandonado, como un personaje de JG Ballard. El artista basa esta pieza en la experiencia de su padre hace años cuando tuvo que pasar 9 días en un aeropuerto griego. Utilizando películas, instalaciones y ensayos, su práctica da sentido a los acontecimientos políticos de los años 70, mientras investiga los legados de la descolonización entre otros. Una película bastante surrealista.

En tercer lugar, vimos la pieza de Luke Willis Thompson, que trabaja con cine, performance, instalaciones y esculturas para explorar casos de violencia institucional, raza, clase y desigualdad social, entre otros. Presentó una controvertida película en 35mm de Diamond Reynolds, una mujer que usó su teléfono móvil en 2016 para transmitir en directo en Facebook el asesinato de su compañero por parte de la policía en el estado de Minnesota, EE. UU. Nos gustó esta pieza silenciosa, y The art blackberry interactúa con ella, como se puede ver a continuación, añadiendo otra capa a la pieza. El uso de un proyector de 35 mm contribuye a hacer que esta pieza sea más orgánica y real y, en consecuencia, muy efectiva emocionalmente hablando.

Finalmente, vimos el trabajo de la ganadora de este año, Charlotte Prodder, quien no fue anunciada como ganadora cuando vimos la exhibición de arte, sino la semana pasada. Trabaja con imágenes en movimiento, esculturas e imágenes impresas para explorar la identidad de colectivos homosexuales, el paisaje, la tecnología del lenguaje y el tiempo, y ha sido elegida recientemente para representar a Escocia en la Bienal de Venecia. El trabajo que presenta filmado con un iPhone es bastante poético y cautivador, y también disfrutamos viéndolo.

Los dos últimos trabajos fueron mis favoritos. Luke Willis Thompson por el mensaje de gran controversia que presenta con el uso de película en 35mm, un gran medio. Y Charlotte Prodder porque su película hecha con un iPhone es muy personal y poética y muchas personas se identificarán con ella.

Rachel Whiteread is one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists and my favourite from the YBA group. The latest art exhibition she had at Tate Britain, London, a few months ago revealed the trajectory of her career over three decades from 1988 to date. Time in which she’s been casting the so-called “negative spaces” using a variety of materials such as plaster, resin, rubber, concrete, metal and paper. But what are Whiteread’s “negative spaces”? The air that surrounds our daily experience or the inner world of objects. We find them in our house, in toilet paper rolls, beneath chairs or inside the mattress we sleep on every night. She makes these “negative spaces” solid with her sculptures.

The original idea comes from the US artist Bruce Nauman work titled “A Cast of the Space Under My Chair” (1965-8) that Whiteread referenced in this art exhibition with her “Untitled (One Hundred Spaces)” (1995) showed across the south part of the Duveen galleries at Tate Britain; 100 casts of the underside of chairs in changing shades of coloured resin and with their own flaws. Whiteread, however, has gone further.

Her work ranges in scale from the modest to the monumental and plays with paradoxes such as capturing human wear and experience with geometric white shapes and minimalism.

Tate Britain showed Whiteread’s most important large scale sculptures such as “Untitled (Book Corridors) 1997-8” and “Untitled (Stairs) 2001”, both of which I captured on two photos here, alongside her more intimate works with domestic objects such as tables, boxes or hot water bottles. And then, in the middle of the art show stood “Untitled (Room 101)”: the plaster cast of the BBC office, demolished in 2003, which inspired George Orwell’s torture chamber in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I first discovered Whiteread as an artist in 2005 and became intrigued with her work. She then populated the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern with a huge labyrinth-like structure entitled “Embankment” made from 14,000 casts of the inside of different boxes. She chose the form of a cardboard box because of its associations with the storage of intimate personal items and to invoke the sense of mystery surrounding ideas of what a sealed box might contain.

Born in London in 1963, Whiteread studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic and sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. She was the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993 and went on to represent Britain at the 1997 Venice Biennale. She first came to public attention with the unveiling of her first public commission “House” in London’s East End in 1993. A concrete cast of the interior of an entire Victorian terraced house with imprints or doors, windows and fireplaces in great detail. The house only stood for a few months before its demolition, but heralded Whiteread’s life-long project as an artist: fusing domestic narratives with brutalist architecture and minimalism.

Rachel Whiteread exhibition at Tate Britain was curated by Ann Gallagher and Linsey Young. The exhibition was co-organised with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, curated by Molly Donovan, where it will be shown in autumn 2018, and will also tour to the 21er Haus Vienna and the Saint Louis Art Museum.