How to Beat Procrastination … I need to know!

I know all about the ‘plan your time’ ‘plan your space’ ‘do just a little, break the task into manageable bites’ but what’s the point in having manageable bites if every time I look at the essay question I go off food. It looks interesting, it really is interesting but I’d much prefer to just be doing something else.

That’s not even true, I want to be doing my essay and don’t want to be feeling these guilty feelings which arise when I’m not working properly. So perhaps it’s a problem of getting started … which perhaps can be overcome by turning on my draft essay and sitting there writing a paragraph of rambling free association on the theme of the essay … just stuff … stuff to get me going …. stuff that can deleted or edited and used later …

Perhaps I’ll stop procrastinating now and get back to my essay.

Notes while watching, ‘Imagine, Iraq in Venice’

Iraq art at the Venice Biennale.

Art born out of conflict. The programme follows the work of the five artists who will have their work featured in the first ever pavilion hosted by Iraq at the festival.

1. Artist lives in Finland, Adel from Baghdad to Finland in 2002. When your country is invaded it ceases to be yours. … interesting to hear some of the questions he is asked simply because he is an Iraqi …. omg the videos released by the Gaddafi govt with the lullaby pop slushy easily hooked onto songs full of violent slavish ‘Gaddafi is great’ type lyrics.

Venice Biennale; major countries have large fixed pavilions, newcomers have to make do with out-of-the-way venues.  The venue they are in feels to them like an abandoned Iraqi family house, they’ve kept it simple making few changes. Their theme, Wounded Water – a lot of it in Venice scarce in Iraq.

Wherever the artists now live what feeds their emotion and imagination is Iraq, past and present.  Most art in Iraq is traditional still, but contemporary art does exist but it is risky.  Mountains are very important, especially to the Kurds as they fled to them, sometimes for years.

Saddam’s interrogation centre in Northern Iraq is now a museum and art gallery. Vast mirrored corridor with twinkling shards of mirror to commemorate the 182,000 victims of Saddam.

it’s a thought-provoking programme that doesn’t work well with typing while watching so I have to give up on something – which will be structured notes … I should save to draft … good idea Claire

Gali Ali Bag, a waterfall … the theme of one of the art works.

Venice Biennale, glitziest event in international art year. Cross between art Olympics and art fair.

All the artists who remained in Iraq when Saddam was in power had to use their art to glorify Saddam, so many left. Nowadays there are still difficulties as the present regime tries to repress alternative views and challenging commentary.

Saddam destroyed 100,000′s of palm trees, destroying the date harvest and economy dependent on dates. No water in Iraq destroys agriculture and livelihoods. Artists emotions and imaginations are fired by this history.

One of the artists hid in a 2 metre deep hole in the desert for three years to avoid conscription into Saddam’s army. An old lady visited him every couple of weeks to deliver him water and food.  In his art women are goddesses now.

Comments from a couple of the artists ….

When someone rips part of you out, your country with your family are pulled away from you it makes you like a child with a parent telling you ‘no you cannot do this, you cannot have this’.  …. When foreign countries try to ‘free’ your country, you welcome your liberators but then you find the foreigners have hidden agenda’s and they are washing their political laundry in your lives. We will resist foreigners doing this in blood and in art.

The above shows that art is hugely political and strident.  Well it can be …

Art can fight, can it also restore some of what has been lost.

Notes While Reading, ‘Regarding the Pain if Others’ by Susan Sontag

* If you look at a photo in a newspaper of a horror of war would it have the same impact if you saw the photo itself on your breakfast table?
…. the context of the image, its frame, its material, its placement all impact on our response to the image itself .

Summer Exhibition @ RA

Seemed smaller this year, made less of an impact, I missed amazing monumental works of previous years such as the Hockney trees or Twombley roses.
Also somehow a bit repetitive (I know that it’s obtuse given my earlier point) there was a beautiful photograph of shimmering sea streaming over rippled sand but I saw it there last year.
Some grave art literally, gun out of window boxed house, mixed media coffin, dying soldiers and Bin Laden’s tent.

Notes on BBC 2′s; Impressionists and Revolution, the Great Outdoors

Renoir: wanted to paint the joie de vivre … Renoir’s ‘ Moulin de la Gallete’ was shown at the 3rd impressionist exhibition; it’s not just about fun it’s about social change … the heroes are the modern working attitude filled girls and boys.

Brushes were the key to impressionism, traditionally they’d been made from weasel hair (sabre) which kept the paint well and released it slowly. In  the 19th century changed happened when artists started to use pigs hair, which was messy in the wrong hands as it was splodgy in bad hands, but in the Impressionists hands it sang in strong throaty voices.

Seine flows from Swiss Alps to English channels in painting terms it’s most interesting around Paris, comes from the ancient Celtic means ‘sacred river’ the Impressionists viewed it like this and they painted it multitudinous times.  From the pretty views to the choked new industrial views, but particularly the new leisure activities of boating and fishing, swimming.  The weekends have moved from religious observance to secular fun …. Renoir loved to have fun, he was a great dancer, loved to polka … he painted dancing joie de vivre. Susan Valadon an outrageous Montmartre model appears in many paintings, clothed or not.  Renoir painted her dancing many times.  He paints sensuous happy fun … they might be thought of as superficial, he didn’t get taken seriously.

Monet grew up in Le Havre, he was a beach bum really, he brought his painting gear over beach boulders to get to favourite painting spots, canvasses, parasols, easels … one day he forgot the tide when he was on his favourite hardly accessible beach and nearly got drowned, some of his paintings were.

Cezanne said Monet ‘was just an eye’ … ie he was really good at looking, to get to the places he went to look for views took great balls as well as great eyes!

Impressionists loved snow as well, because of its beauty, the drama and crispness, but also with snow more than any other time,  you get coloured shadows … when light fragments around a solid object the spectrum releases coloured shadows.

Pissarro took an interest in Van Gough … and Cezanne (a stubborn, weird man) his art is challenging today but back in 1884 must have been very weird … dark and crude art, tough, ahead of their time, ballsy according to his own report. Pissarro persuaded him to leave the black behind, to get out-of-doors … then he became a landscape painter and cheered up.  He showed in 3 impressionist exhibitions then fell out with Pissarro and the art world (he fell out with lots of people) he went home, his father was a rich banker and the house was big, Cezanne painted the people who lived in the area.  He created new art, 19th century was the great era of optical discovery, the science of vision, the Impressionists were full of science … 2 eyes mean we can judge distances. Single point perspective was not the way we really see, with dual point perspective you see things from two different angles then the brain combines them to give a rounder fuller image.  Cezanne was fascinated with perspective and experimenting with different perspectives.

Manet, grandfather of Impressionists, Baron Haussmann had just made Paris brand new by building it’s boulevards and squares.  Manet showed the glory of views of the steam from train stations.

Monet in 1877 painted stations, that was very modern … he wanted to paint smokey engines and tricked the director of the station to stop the trains and fill the area with lots of smoke.  He had to paint quickly as all that smoke made it dangerous from all that carbon monoxide, but Monet had balls.

They trekked over mountains, went out to sea to deserted beaches, filled stations with smoke, in the rain, the sun, in bogs, beaches, gardens and garages.

Why I’m Choosing to do a BA in Arts & Humanities

I started trying to make this decision a few months ago now, though before I researched what courses are available that suit my lifestyle I assumed I would study a straight BA in Art History. However Birkbeck, which is a fantastic university – thankfully, was the only place that met my needs and they offered two BA programmes; Art History and Art History& Humanities.

The Art History programme concentrates on the western cannon of art which I found disappointing as I’m a great fan of world music and have found that my taste in art is correspondingly international. I love the Australian aboriginal art I have on my lounge walls,  and I love cool glacial Scandinavian art,  hot Mexican art, vibrant dramatic African art and more.  However their Art & Humanities programme seemed to bring me back into already well  travelled are of study and I was very keen to do something different.ppy

So I went to the open evenings and the taster sessions of both programmes, I scoured their web pages and printed information, I quizzed my friends and I even sought advice from a curator at Tate Britain (tip: to get free expert information or opinion join a free tour at a top gallery, be genuinely interested in what the guide says because then she’ll be likely be happy to chat to you for a few minutes after the tour.)

What made my mind up was the flexibility of the Arts & Humanities BA, I can choose modules that reflect my ‘world’ interest and the variety of modules is exciting – and I can just ignore those that are too far away from my core interest of Art History.  Also a very important consideration is that I want to do brilliant work and get a fantastic degree, so it makes sense to build on my current knowledge, skills and experience and that leads directly to the humanities content of the degree.  One more big nudge was the chat I had with the careers advisor who came to the taster evenings,  as I’m fifty years young I wish to use my studies and degree for personal development and to create extra income, but I am not looking for a new career.  The advisor helped me see that my ‘extra income not new career’ requirement will more likely be fulfilled by the BA Arts & Humanities which being broader in scope offers broader post qualification possibilities.

Gilbert and George; notes on interview with Mark Lawson.

Gilbert is Italian, George is Brit … personally and professionally coupled, they have Civil Partnership …. they think of the global situation and use that .. Expressing their feelings on walls. Simplicity in their lives to allow complexity to fall away and time given over to art …. their clothes are their Sunday Best, the versions of the same suit. Same meal, same restaurant every evening – unless entertaining – till they decide on a change then they go there every to another one …

Art titles plays with expectations, ie their current show The Urethra Show – why not they say, have you ever been to a Urethra Show?   It’s not about urethra’s, not as you’d expect them anyway.

Gilbert’s father was a shoemaker, uncle was a painter. George was brought up in Plymouth, not allowed to play with local kids, didn’t know his father, met him once at 21yrs there was no art in his family. Impressed by Van Gough. Both prefer not to think of sexuality being divided into labels, they just are sexual. They want to be almost ‘post-gay’ ie beyond the label, just be.

Met in St Martin School of Art, while other students were trying to become artists they thought they were artists themselves already just being themselves. Many in their school did not like that attitude.  They created figures, moulded, dressed, positioned the figures in various attitudes, they did many of these sculptures, living sculptures, themselves, they were the Living Sculptures, most remembered of this series is the Singing Sculptures.

Three Dozen Streets: another exhibition; streets from East London, they live in East End, have done for a long time.

The World of Gilbert and George: moving sculpture – themselves – moving in large jerky movements to Bend It Shake It, music

They want their work to be modern, ‘art’ appears often to mean old painting and they want to get away from that meaning having anything to do with their work.

They use colour in very specific ways as they have specific meanings.

Dirty Words: made in 1977 a series that was thought of as shocking, they recognised that these words contained power, visceral, real it was this dynamic they wanted to portray, to bring that energy into their art.

They are interested in words, meanings, reclaiming the awareness that words are just words … humans attach meanings to words … their art is about stripping the human meaning to uncover the bare, nude word.  They uncover themselves to strip away meanings and recover the visceral. They get embarrassed by their own exposure of themselves at the same time it’s a thrill. They want to be loved by their fans old and new, keep trying to get this love ..

Margaret Thatcher said about modern art ‘you have to look and look and look again’.

Although the gallery owns their art there is are no G&G artworks on permanent display in Tate Modern which upsets them, they say they don’t fit in. They know modern art is for the rich however reproductions are always available in catalogues, post cards etc for everyone for very little. .