Oh Christmas Spirit, Where Art Thou?

Christmas is a strange time. Every adult feels the pressure to feel joyous and generous with one’s friends and family, to the point where you’ve written the fiftieth Christmas card and want to tear your own face off. Not that I’m proactive enough to actually bother giving Christmas cards, but I imagine that’s what it feels like. It’s as if, as a nation, we depend on Christmas to make everything OK. From having various discussions with friends and acquaintances, most people instead seem to feel an inordinate amount of seasonal guilt whilst being manically stressed. It’s like New Year, but masked underneath a mess of tinsel and questionable good-will.

And nothing is quite like the guilt I feel after years of not buying my friends Christmas gifts. Year by year they always surprise me with beautiful and thoughtful presents that they have slaved over or bought months before because they saw it and knew I’d adore it. So why, after such a prolonged time, am I still crap at even thinking about presents for them? After all, I know what they would appreciate, what they would love and, most importantly, what they would despise (or find hilarious – it’s a fine line). But don’t ask me to make something; I don’t do craft, for other people’s sake.

I think I can get away with it this year. Not because of my sad puppy face, but because (let’s face it) no one actually has any money these days. At least not the people I know (and by people I mean ‘students’ and ‘recently graduated’). As a group of friends we can avert ourselves away from the festive season. I think a mediocre Italian meal and a drink will do the trick. After all, the Christmas season is all about the people you spend it with, right?

And finally, to my friends who have already given me presents: I am extremely grateful. And I sincerely apologise.

The British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet.

It looks like I’m not the only one who’s had thoughts of time on the brain recently. The British Art Show 7 (BAS7) also seemed to be concerned with the ticking clock. In this instance, however, the artists and curators were not just observing the linear passage of time but were considering it from all angles. Hence why they borrowed H. G. Wells’ title In the Days of the Comet for the show’s subtitle, as one of the two curators, Lisa Le Feuvre, explains in her essay Present Tense:

“BAS7 uses the motif of the comet to locate artists’ responses to our own uncertain and inconclusive times. Due to their looping, recurrent nature, comets are simultaneously of the past, present and future.”*

So in the BAS7 we are faced with art that addresses the future and the past whilst simultaneously confronting and existing in the present. Yikes.

Mick Peter, 'Moldenke Fiddles On' 2008-2009 © Mick Peter, Courtesy the Artist and Galerie Crèvecoeur

BAS7 is the most enjoyable and thought-provoking exhibition that I’ve seen in a good while. I caught it on its final day in Plymouth, where it was pleasantly spread between five venues: The Slaughterhouse, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Plymouth Arts Centre, the Peninsula Arts Gallery and Plymouth College of Art. Consisting of 39 artists and artist groups, it has been held every five years since the first BAS in 1979, with each exhibition touring to various cities throughout the UK. The artists were all British or based in Britain, and the variety of work on display was vast; it consisted of sculpture, painting, film and video, sound, installation, performance and drawing, plus all the bits in-between.

Sarah Lucas, 'NUDS' © Sarah Lucas, Courtesy the artist and Sadie Coles

There was a smattering of familiar names in BAS7. Charles Avery, Roger Hiorns, Sarah Lucas, Nathaniel Mellors and Wolfgang Tillmans to name but a few. I was unfamiliar with many of the artists (guilty as charged) but was particularly impressed by many of them. Elizabeth Price’s comically philosophical video overlaid with Ah-Ha’s Take On Me, Varda Caivano’s abstract paintings, David Nooman’s astonishing tapestry, Alasdair Gray’s bold drawings and Maaike Schoorel’s ghostly portaits; I could go on, and this isn’t even naming the artworks that really drew me in. I’m still contemplating those.

Alasdair Gray, 'Andrew Gray aged 7 and Inge's Patchwork Quilt' 2009 © Alasdair Gray, Courtesy the artist and Sorcha Dallas

BAS7 was certainly a lot to take in. I suppose that’s where the success of an exhibition such as this lies: in its variety. A show of this magnitude is going to contain art that causes you to recoil in horror, disgust or even worse, boredom and indifference. But there’ll also be work that entices and excites you, that hooks and reels you in. If you got the chance to experience the British Art Show 7, I hope it did both of these things. It’s way more fun if you see both sides of the coin.

Visit the British Art Show 7 website for more information and artist links.

*Page 21, British Art Show 7 Exhibition Catalogue, Hayward Publishing 2011

Welcome to the Google Art Project.

Last time I wrote a blog it was on a paper napkin. This time it’s on a phone. So why do I keep forgetting to pack my pen and notebook, when previously they were as necessary a part of my daily luggage as my wallet and keys?

In all honesty, forgetting my notebook isn’t the travesty that it used to be. Typing, computers and portable digital devices are here to stay, providing solar flares don’t catch us out any time soon. I could go on about examples of the transformation of analogue to digital but my intention isn’t to patronise; everyone is aware of technology’s increasing omnipresence throughout the world. Our lives are hectic but more efficient, more communicative and yet isolated, and we can be introduced to experiences we may never have had the opportunity to see 10 years ago.

But can digital experiences really be as insightful and exciting as the genuine article? This is a question I continuously asked myself throughout my endeavours as a digital art student, and I have never reached a solid conclusion. Or rather, after considering both sides I was won over by the validity of each argument.

Above is Amit Sood’s TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) video for the Google Art Project: ‘building a museum of museums on the web.’ If you’ve got time, give it a watch – it’s pretty exciting. What with this and the TV/cinematic broadcasting of Leonardo da Vinci’s current exhibition at the National Gallery, it looks like the people upstairs are trying to make art more accessible to a wider audience.

The quandary we are left with is this: what can the digital presentation of an artwork offer us that the original cannot? And, of course, what are we missing when we look at, say, Chris Ofili’s No Woman, No Cry on a computer screen instead of in the flesh?

Chris Ofili 'No Woman, No Cry' (1998) © Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Photo: Tate Photography