Not blogging has not been intentional just inevitable. Farmville exists and so does Yoville and Cafe World. I am an avatar. . there is no reality or surreality it is all virtuality. I have virtually come to a creative stop and its not even full. Graduation is the death toll for the artist.
However accidentally, I have experienced a few interesting works. Shattered by Claudia Clare at Hornsey Library was a provocative collection of vessels depicting a few choice comments and motifs relating to women in various states of oppression and expression. Princess Hymen, Aftermath, Cherry Blossom, Green Lanes Traffick and Dancing. Alongside Shattered was How to Eat a Pomegranate, vessels and video intended for exhibit on in Iran but never came to be. Virgin wives and much male hypocrisy, lots of dripping juice and metaphor, everybody wanted to talk about sex and violence and arranged marriage. I am reassured that making art and displaying it in galleries is actually worthwhile. People REALLY are influenced and effected by art and its references.
Ceramics at Harrow seems more energised now that the decisions have been made and the future is not hanging in the balance. As sad as it has been to imagine the department closing at least those left on the course know what is going on and can take full advantage of the fantastic facility. A strange atmosphere last year was very distracting and unfortunate for all concerned. Steve Buck is running a great and still super vibrant applied art course much to the approval of the students.
Next door in the Mixed Media Fine Art studio, the second years had thier interim show with all kinds of wierd and wonderful stuff. Films of speaking vaginas, Virgin Mary vibrators and some elasticated walls all tested the imagination. Will Bache has an understated and stylised interpretation of the 'portrait' and the 'frame'. An artist's workshop vibe wth just a touch of decay and nostalgia, yet current and street. Work that is serously calculated and contrived yet looked entirely organic and spontaneous. Clever stuff indeed and i doubt he's even aware of it.
