23/11/2011

Panorama, Gerhard Richter-Curation review


The point of this project is to write a review for an exhibition. This review is not the one that we see every week on the magazines and newspapers but we have to focus on a specific element, the curation. The exhibition ‘Panorama’ takes place in Tate Modern, curated by Nicholas Serota and Mark Godfrey.  Panorama presents an admirably overview of five decades of Gerhard Richter’s work. The title of exhibition is Panorama because it is a retrospective exhibition that groups together all the different significant moment of Richter’s career. I chose this 
exhibition for my essay for several reasons. Firstly, I found really interesting the fact that the exhibition was very clear to me, meaning that the curators did a very good job. The sequence that the pieces presented along with the information on each room separately really helped me to understand in depth the different ideas and concepts of his work. I learned much important information for the artist but in a visual and more relaxing way. Finally, this exhibition has many interesting elements of curation like the number of rooms, the different tags and captions etc.  
The curators chose to represent his works in chronological order and the rooms are also grouped together by period or theme. This is very helpful for someone who doesn’t know much about the artist to see the progression of his work. There are 13 rooms and around 150 pieces out of an estimated total of 1000 – that reflects the diversity of his output. All the rooms have a big label with information about the specific chronological time and the concept of the works. This was at the beginning of the wall in order to make both the sequence of the pieces and the pieces separately more clear for the audience. This label is very helpful for the audience in order to understand the sequence and the development of the artist. Each piece has also a label with the title of the piece and information about the materials used, the museum that the pieces are, the date and sometimes information about the concept.  These labels were either on the right or the left side and are aligned with main axis the top. The labels and captions are very important for the audience as they have the opportunity to understand the concept and the development of his works in depth. The sequence was mostly from the right to left but in some cases the opposite, for example in room 9. All the pieces are aligned with main axis the center. The lighting is also a very important element of the curation. All the lights are on the top of the room and exactly on the center. There are no lights over the pieces of work. The way that the pieces are on the wall with a certain sequence combining with the big and the small caption is very helpful for the audience, even if the audience does not know anything about the artist. Looking the works and reading the captions is very easy for someone to learn the whole career and life of the artist.  information at the beginning of each room is very important and could stand even without the tags that are next to each piece. One more very interesting element is that the curator chose to place two totally different pieces of work on adjoining walls. This happened several times. One representative example is on the sixth room, where the one wall hangs a portrait measuring 30cm by 40cm and on the other wall is a huge abstract painting with high more that 2.5 meters and four meter wide. The portrait is photorealistic and the other is a Abstract-Expressionist but they are equally persuasive.

08/11/2011

Power Of Making - V&A Museum







   
                                              



Gerhard Richter / Panorama - Tate Modern

It was one of the most interesting and enjoyable exhibition I have seen the last months. The most interesting room for me was the ROOM 9 18 October 1977 - Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader Meinhof group. The paintings were based on an official portrait of Meinhof during her years as a radical journalist. The exhibition opened up memories that may wanted to forget. Each work is a grey painting based on photographs. Some are softer and some more harsh.
The photos above are from the exhibition.








26/10/2011

Text & Image Workshop

During this workshop we were asked to do several tasks. On the first task each table had to answer on a paper the above questions as readers:
What is text/image?
Where do you encounter text/image?
When do you read text/image?
Why do you read text/image?
How do you read text/image?
On the second task we had to answer one more question 'Who is the author?' The possible answers were the CLIENT, the DESIGNER or the AUDIENCE. Each student selected one of these answers and using on groups we had to discuss it and give reasons for the answer. The correct answer was the AUDIENCE. 
On the third task we were asked to work in groups again and combine two different words on the same idea-in our case sketch-. The two words were CHAIR and PARK. So each student designed his/her own ideas and then we selected the most interesting and presented it. One of my ideas was the sketch on the first photo above. I kept only the 3D element of the letters and I transformed the letter H to a tree. 



During the second half of the day we did three more group tasks.
On the fourth task the tutor, Paul Bailey, gave a picture to each group and we had to describe in words the most important elements. After that we took randomly a brief of another picture and we had to create a sketch based on the brief. As a group we completed that successfully as the sketch was similar to the original photo (picture 2-above). 
On the next task (5th) we took a picture again and we had to put a title somewhere in the picture. Each student designed his/her own ideas and the we selected one. 
The aim of the final and quickest task was to construct a word using objects from our pockets and cases. We selected the word LONDON and the picture of the piece is above (picture 3). 
I really enjoyed this Workshop and it helped me very much to understand the similarities, differences and  the combination of TEXT-IMAGE.



25/10/2011

Colour Workshop

During this workshop we completed two different tasks using two different techniques. On the first one we had to create a 'book' using a stencil and only two different colours. The two colours I selected were Red and Blue but I used different tones in order to create depth or in some cases to show shadows. The stencil that I designed has to do with typography and it says FOCUS. I like the fact that the letters and the shapes create movement. The stencil and the different shapes seem like waves. I think that this workshop was very important and helpful for us to understand the use of colours and how to combine them together. During the second task (pictures 3&4) we had to design our own sketches using the technique of mono-print. I enjoyed this task also but I think that in my case it didn't work as well as the first task. It is the second time for me that I use this technique as I have previously done similar exercises during the IB Art course last year.






20/10/2011

Cropping Workshop

During this workshop we learned about photo cropping and we did some exercises. On the first two tasks we had to design the following images:

1. Close up of a detail
2. Wide angle horizontal
3. Narrow angle vertical
4. Depersonalise a photo with people in it
5. Crop to abstract
6. Crop to define
7. Make look distant
8. Crop to enhance the emotional impact
9. Narrow vertical
10. Bold exciting
11. Discreet

He had to use the the creative thinking strategy tool 'Plus/Minus/Interesting'. PMI is a lateral and creative thinking strategy used in de Bono's CoRT thinking program.

TASK I

On this task we had to use images from magazines and newspapers and we created our own cropping pictures.


PLUS: It is very successful for the theme - enhance the emotional impact
MINUS: 
INTERESTING: Both faces have the same emotional impact

PLUS: The balance of black & white on the picture
MINUS:
INTERESTING: The main theme of the picture changes and I am trying to focus on another element



PLUS: The only color of the picture is on the lips
MINUS:
INTERESTING: It looks like a lip gloss advertisement



PLUS: There are no faces here but there is a depersonalization
MINUS: 
INTERESTING: The fact that the man placed on the left of the picture and takes exactly the half horizontal angle



PLUS: Everyone can understand the theme of this photo, it is obvious
MINUS:
INTERESTING: This picture is very strong

PLUS: The movement of the cropping image
MINUS:
INTERESTING: We can understand what he is doing without looking the first picture




PLUS: On this picture we can look the distant
MINUS: The image is not very clear
INTERESTING: The depth is very interesting



PLUS: The emotion of this face is very strong
MINUS:
INTERESTING: The main theme changes at all



PLUS: My thought for this picture was to discreet it. I think it is very successful
MINUS: - 
INTERESTING: The depth - Each face is behind the other



PLUS: -
MINUS: I chose this crop for the emotional impact of his face but the focus is not there. I had to crop a bit more
INTERESTING: The movement of his hand and the emotion of his face

PLUS: The balance between black & white
MINUS: The main theme of this picture changes
INTERESTING: The hard contrasts




TASK II

On this task we had to use the images from blackboard and we created our own cropping pictures.


PLUS: The main theme changes
MINUS: 
INTERESTING: It seems like the people want to jump 



PLUS: The detail of her emotional face
MINUS: The other faces lost
INTERESTING:



PLUS:
MINUS:
INTERESTING: The only I kept on this photo are the children



PLUS: The emotion of his face become stronger
MINUS:
INTERESTING: 



PLUS:
MINUS:
INTERESTING: It is like a portrait



PLUS: There are no faces here but there is a depersonalization
MINUS:
INTERESTING: The balances of this photo work very well



PLUS: The man looks doing something else
MINUS: The cropping is not very well as I crop a part of his head and it doesn't seem very realistic
INTERESTING: 



PLUS:
MINUS:
INTERESTING:



PLUS:
MINUS:
INTERESTING:



TASK III

16/10/2011

Visualising Workshop

At the beginning of the day we were asked to draw an object. I chose to draw my keys. We had 10 minutes  for the sketch. After that we had to produce several BLIND CONTOUR drawing exercises where we DIDN'T LOOK AT THE PAPER. The first exercise was to draw the object without looking the paper. The second was again a blind drawing but also with the opposite hand-the left for me-. The last exercise was to draw the object again but this time using both hands in the same time. All the exercises had a time limit of 3 minutes and we had to draw as many as possible. When we finished we saw all the other student's sketches and then we discussed the positive and the negative elements. All the sketches without looking the paper were more interesting than the first ones. Above are some of my sketches.



After the lunch time we made several collages on A6 postcards using images from magazines and newspapers but before that Darren show us a powerpoint presentation about collage and we discussed works of many different artists like Hannah Hoch, Alan Fletcher, Sara Fanelli and Martin O'Neil. For me the most artist was Alex Williamson. We produced total 9 different collages each student but he had to select between the themes above:
Composition
Editing
Contrast
Rhythm
Texture
Repurposing
Juxtaposition
Surrealism
Narrative
Humour
For the first we had 10 mins, then three collages in 10 mins and finally five in 15 mins. I selected for the blog my 4 most interesting collages.






Alex Williamson



13/10/2011

Layout - Blog task

For this task, we were asked to collect examples of grids, systems and organizational patterns found around the E&C area.