TATE St IVES SUMMER 2011

(Please note- the images of the works shown are from Bridgeman and are representative of ones I saw, with the exception of the balloons and the writing on the wall where I was able to take my own photographs)

Ever since I saw this advertised on the Tate homepage, I wanted to see it, especially as we had visited the Simon Starling one early on in its allocated time, and it seemed like an eternity to wait for the re-hanging. (More on Simon Starling at a later time- I have copious notes and impressions of his work, and visited twice to familiarise myself with the completely new animal, to me, of installation art). However, for this latest exhibition, work, study and Geevor project commitments forced me to wait until now.

Although living 8 miles from St Ives, I have been an infrequent visitor to the gallery, preferring to spend my time in the town looking at current artists and their work. (Another topic for another post.) The first major exhibition I visited was the “Dark Monarch” one, which re-introduced me to my (cursory) knowledge of the “St Ives” artists, even though as a child I had met Heron, Hepworth and Leach -possibly others- in the course of my parents’ social and domestic round: in those days St Ives was a small community particularly in winter.

Anyway, enough reminiscing. I was intrigued at the thought of being able to see one artist per room- the gallery is so small compared to the other Tates that usually a cross-section on a theme is offered. I was distracted on the way up the stairs, however, by an abstract acrylic hanging on the landing which at first I took to be possibly a Heron, but proved to be by Breon O’Casey, an Irish artist who had worked as an assistant to Barbara Hepworth, among other jobs. It was a recent work from the last decade- he died in May this year- and I noted his use of relatively recently available red pigments and the fact he had raised the picture plane by glueing cardboard shapes prior to painting, reminding me of an artist in town (Colin Birchall) who has recently moved into abstraction with similar raised surfaces, although he uses thin pine plywood. A later search on Google found that Breon was a late developer in terms of finding his “voice” as he enjoyed playing with and developing ideas he saw in other work- a quick image search can easily identify echoes of Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon and Roger Hilton in the work he produced.

In getting carried away by O’Casey I forgot to mention the neon installation in the foyer by Martin Creed “The whole world + the work = the whole world”. I really don’t get neon signs (especially words) as visual art as to me they belong in the realms of creative writing or poetry. Also here were 3 TVs showing a total of 3000 images of travel-brochure prettiness- I tried and failed to become engaged and my husband was already through the next door. Unfortunately anything shown in this space tends to be overshadowed by the spectacular stained glass of Patrick Heron’s window.

Room 1- Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo was a Russian émigré who arrived in St Ives in the 1940s with Nicholson and Hepworth (fleeing the effects of war in London). While I have seen some of his pieces before, what made the room special was the amount of sketches and work-in-progress pieces in the display cabinets which enabled me to understand how he played with whatever material was to hand, and experimented with new ones, in order to pursue his personal vision of space. Some of the prototypes for Spheric Form appear to have been constructed from cut-up tin cans.

 There were a number of technical diagrams relating to his stringing method, one of which amused both myself and my husband as we immediately recalled the preponderance of string and nail pictures which littered suburban homes in the 1970s and 80s- Gabo probably didn’t know what he had unleashed! I actually remember a whole shop on the harbour in the late 70s selling various boats, windmills and abstract patterns entirely made of wound thread around panel pins.

The most striking exhibits were Spheric Form, an elegant double curve of bronzed steel which proved frustratingly difficult to draw, and the Perspex and nylon string construction Linear Construction #2 (1970-1), hung pleasingly against a charcoal grey wall to show off its transparency, which shimmered across the room, in fact I wasn’t aware of the Perspex core until I was close to it.

Room 2 (Upper amphitheatre)- Lucio Fontana

Entry to this area always first leads you to what is below in the lower amphitheatre as the impulse is to look out to the sea and beach and then down. In this case it was (another) sea of balloons but I will come back to this later as we opted to see the “serious” art first. When I did finally turn around I was literally blown away by the brightly coloured, punctured and slashed surfaces. I have never encountered Fontana’s work before and it was a very exciting moment. There were a number of canvasses, some punctured with what he called “buchi”, others slashed with long linear gapes, others with a combination of puncture wounds with added sgraffito in the thick paint, and a cabinet with a pair of ceramic gold-glazed ovoids, one slashed, one punctured. I was fascinated, and leant as far forward as I could to scrutinise the surfaces and the interruptions to the picture plane. On the accompanying text was a quote; “people were talking about “planes”- making the hole was a radical gesture, which broke the space of the canvas as if to say “after this we can do what we like” .”

I was so intrigued that later I bought a book on his work. Although initially a sculptor, he integrated painting and sculpture in his pierced plane, and actually took his 20 of his early  pieces to the Venice Biennale in 1950 after being invited to participate for sculpture, which caused a suitably bemused response (“Fontana”, Barbara Hess, Taschen 2006 p8.)

I was also amused to read later in the same book that Fontana’s use of colour- many canvasses use bright, almost lurid pinks and yellows- was what he saw as pandering to the customer/viewer to give them something to look at. A way of softening the radical blow of his piercings perhaps? I must add that I have only skimmed the text so far and am looking forward to reading further, as I am getting the impression that Fontana had a wonderful and mischievous sense of humour in his interaction with the public (his reaction to the Biennale consternation was “I pulled the wool over their eyes”).

The Apse- Anri Sala

The small vestibule that is the Apse was darkened by curtains and today screened a short film “Ghost Games”. By torchlight, possibly two people chased ghost crabs on the sand, occasionally teasing them with toes, occasionally getting nipped in the process, and pronouncing “goal!” each time a crab scuttled between their legs. Periodically a wave would sweep in and re-arrange the theoretical playing field (usually by re-arranging where the crab was and requiring some searching by torch-beam for the next protagonist). Part of this was amusing, partly one wondered vaguely if the RSPCA had been informed, and partly one wondered who dreams up “hey, let’s go chase some crabs round the sand (at night with torches) and make a movie!” Not what I would call a deep and meaningful piece but unsettling and funny in equal parts.

Room 3- Margaret Mellis

I’ve seen some of Mellis’ work before as I was aware of her connection to the St Ives school through previous reading, and I was also curious to view her assemblage work when she moved to Southwold, a place I have strong and fond memories of from visits in my teenage years, when I lived on the Herts/Essex border and weekend camping trips to the East coast towns were common.

I really enjoyed the pieces on view, and sketched most of them. I loved her attitude to her finds that it was “too decorative to burn”. Although the simple rustic nature of driftwood assembly looks thrown together, I also appreciated the amount of decision-making which had gone into each and every placement- I especially liked “In the Night” (1993) which I hadn’t seen previously, which comprises variously weathered black-painted sections with one splash each of red and green- presumably for port and starboard – as I can see enough knowledgeable reference in her work to the ways of boats to guess at this. Another work was playful, titled “Jungle” (1996) it made use of a carved piece from a stern post and various broom handles and long thin pieces of lumber to conjure up totems, spears and palisades with ease. A piece such as “Red and Yellow”, while loving the colours used, had more abstract shapes and the title gave little indication to the route inwards to understand the piece, although having a recognisable section of ship’s rudder included.

On one wall were a number of collages which Margaret had produced in her St Ives days. Like Naum Gabo, I had the impression she had used whatever happened along, as some of them appeared to use writing paper and greaseproof paper in the layers, although to be fair the years, and possibly the adhesive used, have yellowed them so much it is difficult to be accurate. One piece she had made for Naum at his request- he later returned it to her. They are interesting but personally I much prefer her driftwood work as she has stronger shapes and colour in these.

Room 4- Agnes Martin

I was already aware that this was an American artist and therefore possibly somewhat disconnected in the overall theme, however I always try to approach a new work with an open mind. I was somewhat mollified to discover that an established artist also had apparent difficulty with laying on a smooth wash of acrylic when dilute- only one work displayed definite and intentional brushwork, but while the wall text enthused about the quality of lightness in the work I confess I was unmoved. Pale pinks and blues are definitely “twee” in my book. Or else emulate faded deckchairs- equally passé.

The lone contrast was a two-tone grey which seemed to have no relevance to the other works on show- it stood out like a sore and rather depressed thumb.

 My husband was extremely less charitable and muttered darkly about “5 minute bits of rubbish” at which point I found myself defending the probable journey the artist had gone through to distill her work to this point -entirely off the cuff as I know nothing about her life or work- (I occasionally face the same reaction to some of my abstract work particularly when he hasn’t seen, or understood, the process whereby it evolved into its final form). 

I have since done a little research into her life and work, and now begin to understand the largely Taoist philosophy which informed her.

There is a lovely interview with her on You-tube which a fellow student posted the link to- it is well worth watching here , where she talks about where her inspiration comes from.

Room 5- Roman Ondák

Mapping the Universe 2007 seen from the upper window by the cafe

This gallery space began life as a blank wall and over the course of the exhibition has undergone an amazing transformation as each visitor is asked to choose where to step against the wall, be measured, and have their name and the date written. Over time the wall has filled up and now has a definite “average” band over which new names are daily inscribed.

The experience of being invited to take part I found strangely overwhelming; the ego kicks in and the human asks: where do I go to stand out? I’m slightly taller than average but I could see that my head would be firmly in the darkest band whichever wall I chose, so eventually I chose a spot facing the door (consciously the fight-or-flight position). Even though the gallery assistant who wrote my name gave me a reference point from a taller name, I spent several minutes trying to find it again before taking a photo (cameras allowed in this room- a liberating experience for the Tate- although my name is lost in the massed hieroglyphs) My husband, interestingly, chose a spot beside the exit door, I haven’t yet asked him why.

(Editor's note- I finally (31-7-2011) got around to asking him and after considerable thought he decided that he always looked back in life to see where he had got to relative to the starting point, so looking back while adjacent to the exit was the equivalent)

What I found most interesting was on close-up examination of the photos that the remaining white space on the walls gives an interesting reversed negative space, something I’m going to examine more closely, plus playing with and inverting the few pictures I have.

Back to the balloons (Lower Amphitheatre)- Martin Creed

The premise of “Half a given space” is to fill each selected space exactly halfway with the contained air within balloons. This is not the first time Martin Creed has done this-  it’s been done in many locations world-wide, but it does give adults (and kids) a chance to play and interact in the biggest ball-pool you’re ever likely to get into.

On our first arrival at the top level, I took the opportunity to ask the curator what specific problems the installation had generated in terms of practical maintenance. She replied that it was currently down to about a third to a quarter of the space as they were waiting on new supplies of balloons from the American manufacturer-who was currently out of stock. (Later enquiries revealed that burst and deflated balloons required total replacement at the rate of once per week). In addition I learnt that the static created by the latex balloons grabbed hair and dust, so was a nightmare for the cleaners, and that special infra-red equipment had been brought in so that staff could check whether any living bodies remained under the balloons at closing time. (They didn’t mention dead ones!)

I also found it amusing to read possibly the longest Health and Safety warning I’d ever seen attached to an artwork before- involving the risks of latex (allergies), talcum (asthma), claustrophobia and general discombobulation. Not to mention a special fire rescue plan involving staff entering with ropes if the alarm went off- didn’t specify if they were going to use their infra-red equipment to check for hidden bodies. (All this of course in an area immediately above a trapped pool of radon gas in the undercroft- a fact made public thanks to a photographic work by Simon Starling in the previous exhibition.)

Anyway we took the plunge and entered- once again this was an area where we could use cameras so we both took a lot of joke shots of each other, played a little balloon basketball, and (by then the kid thing was upon us) fought our way to and fro in the morass of white, in between trying for arty shots between balloons of the outside world. What I found particularly funny was the reaction of the children in the area at the time, here was I having trouble stepping (er-shuffling) out without tripping up on a partly deflated balloon, and these kids were fearlessly charging up and down and only put out when they collided unexpectedly with an adult (they were mostly underneath the surface level so running blind)- the facial expressions were saying “why are you in our play-space?”. Didn’t become aware of a face-plant from any of ‘em.

Presently we became embroiled in an impromptu adult meet-and-greet; one of the visitors had dropped her mobile while filming. My husband volunteered to ring the number- to no avail, so the next few minutes entailed about six adults all swimming around on the floor fishing for a phone- amazingly it was eventually found intact despite several low fly-pasts by children during the search. (I’m supposed to check You-tube on Wednesday to see the results- as the phone was recording the whole time- and we all got a credit at the end!) P.S. the best search terms to use are “Tate St Ives Balloons”- plenty of people have uploaded their footage if you haven’t been lucky enough to get there yourself. I’m planning to go back and shoot some myself- hopefully when more balloons have arrived!

The whole experience proved to be social- I’m not naturally a person who makes contact with strangers, but I found it really easy to talk to people in the area.

As an addendum, we finished off our visit by having lunch in the café, which I can thoroughly recommend, while overlooking the historic rooftops of Porthmeor Studios, Alfred Wallis’ cottage, and old St Ives, and watching the fog drift in and back over the Island.

All in all I found this to be one of my best gallery visits so far. The strange thing was that the most impressionable piece was the Breon O’Casey, in that it is possible to rework other ideas until you find a definite direction calling. I also enjoyed discovering Fontana’s work, and I think the two are linked in relevance as I had got to a point in my painting practice where I wanted to move out of the flat picture plane without moving into full-on sculpture, but wasn’t sure how to approach it. I now have some ideas and a direction to research what might be possible, and also definite questions with which to engage other artists that I know, for their feedback and insight.

I still struggle with installation and interactive work, although I’m finding I do have an open-minded approach (which actually surprised me in the discovery). I do think that these types of work demand a specific and immediate emotional response which of the viewer’s necessity is limited to their experience to date. My advice to others finding new approaches for the first time would be- “question everything. Why do I feel this way? Do I like/dislike it? Why? Do I know where the artist is coming from? (If not, make a point of finding out- documentaries, interviews etc- all usually findable online).

I'm planning a second visit soon, as I also want to return to Barbara Hepworth's garden which I haven't visited for a couple of years, so I'll add any new insights in a later post.