British Museum - Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

Grayson Perry: The Tomb Of The Unknown Craftsman

Don't look too hard for meaning here.
i am not a historian, i am am artist. That is all.
When i was  young I had an imaginary civilisation.
I became an artist and my civilisation traded with the world and all its history.
Now i am not sure where my imagination stops and the world starts.
Deep in the mountains of my mind there is a scared place where is a monument to skill.
The tomb of the unknown craftsman is just as real as everything else in this museum,
the ideas and beliefs behind it and just as real.
You are real pilgrims.
That i am an artist and not a historian and this is an art exhibition does not mean it is  any less real.
Reality can be new as well as old, poetic as well as factual and funny as well as grimes.
The tomb of the unknown craftsman could be another name for the British museum.    

Kenilworth Am1

Kenilworth Am1

Kenilworth Am1

Grayson Perry, an English artist, famous on his beautiful ceramic vases and transvestite. i think this is the first time British Museum held a contemporary artist exhibition.

before you come in the show room, you would see an exaggerating and colourful motobike. Garyson and his pope Alan Measles rode this bike to Germany as a trip to gain famous of Alan Measles.

inside, there are many heritages, ancient items and of coure, Grayson Perry's work.  this exhibition is extremely thought provoking and clever. i almost write down every single word that Perry explained for his show.

there is another quotation i like, especially the bold words :

few civilisation spring up spontaneously or develop in isolation. culture borrow and adapt. i enjoy artefacts where this give and take in more obvious and dissonant. new religions try to recruit by using the sites and symbols of the belief system they are trying to replace. craftsmen make artefacts they think will appeal to visitors from abroad. sometimes they get it wrong in a charming way, creativity is often just mistakes. 

   

 everything in British museum is contemporary once.

we trust maps, maps are meant to be trustworthy diagram of reality. contains some very human bias. maps of feelings, beliefs, and the irrational.    

   

Postmodernism: style and subersion 1970-1990

what is postmodernism ? postmodernism is hard to be defined. postmodernism is a concept that is difficult to be given a conclusion precisely in theoretically, because the majority important postmodernism masters and theorists stand against any convention system and forms to defined postmodernism. postmodernism has influenced in various area, including religion, literary criticism, sociology, linguistics, architecture, history, anthropology, visual arts, and music.          

according  to Adrian Holme's note, postmodernism characterised by following features
1) in architecture - the interpenetration of the inside and the outside.
2) social and historical context - question over value of, or validity of the idea of , progress
3) collapse of ideologies- continued growth of mass culture, information networks
4) uncertainty
5) relativism
6) "end of history"(Fukuyama)
7) collapse of grand narrative (Jean- Francois Lyotard)
8) deferral of meaning (Derrida)
9) the decentered self (also found in modernism)
10) awareness of otherness (or "other") - other culture, gender, sexuality
11) concerns with language
12) playfulness
13) irony
14) plurality (of styles)
15) ornament and decoration
16) complexity and contrdiction
17) intertextuality - texts allude to cite or quote other texts- wide application of model of language
    ( structuralism and post-structuralism)
18) a questioning of the real - hyperreality, simulacra (Baudrillard)



in this exhibition, there are lots excited objects and works displayed. the postmodernism, this term is too broad and wide, so how to put the postmodernism statement into the exhibition and how to choose the displaying items to convey the message to the audience are hard work for the curators.  

the works are including : architecture, furniture design, houseware (almost countless teapot sets!!!), jewel design, fine art, fashion, music, published, graphic design, film and lot more.      

next few are what caught my eyes:

the other figure/ L'altura figura (Giulio Paolini) 1984

i thought this work is simple and thoughtful, also it seems narrative and dramatic, and looks better in the V&A .  
the label written " melancholy was one aspect pf the postmodernism regard for the past"

protect me from what i want (jenny Holzer)

 "Jenny Holzer, prompts critical reflection on desire, its causes and effects, and the whirlwind of commerce that surrounds it." these words were showed on the busiest area in the world- new york time square, this work really a thought provoking one, it raises a question about the consuming system. 

trolley, consumer's rest chair (Frank Schreiner)

also question about the consumerism.





butoh, the japanese dance, before i read the article written butoh is a reaction to the western ballet. butoh is dark, aslow and heavy, unlike the ballet always emphasize light and upward movement.

daivd byrne in big suit

joy division closer album sleeve ( Peter Saville)

 
 
and my most interested objects are the music relatives undoubtedly,  from cover sleeve of joy division and giant suit for david byrne, i fully enjoy in these selections, especially the perfect ending: new order's bizarre love triangle, such a beautiful, strong and memorable finish.

 
PS: i can't help to dance while i listening this song at the end of exhibition!

La Jetée

Year: 1962
Director: Chris Marker
Length: 28mins

Chris Marker is a french writer, photographer, artist, film essayist and- of course- film director. he was born in 1921. still alive.

Little is known on marker's early life. Most people known is that Alain Resnais brought Marker to film marking with three years collaboration, Before making film he was a journalist.

Majority film work of Christ Marker are documentary. And this film, La Jetee is one of his a few fiction film and also the famous one. La jetee is important key film of Left bank film movement.

So, what is Left Bank Film?

Left bank is a subgroup of the french new wave film movement, as a kind of intellectual, political, feminist, literary, aesthetic and avant- garde wing of new wave. the two groups aren't opposite, instead they are friends, cooperators and allies.

Left bank main members are: Alain Resnais, Chris Maker, Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy. 

And how about this film, and what is the story ?

La jetee is about time travelling, a science fiction film. It was constructed entirely by thousands  black and white still picture. the background set on the postwar and destroyed city -Paris, the main character is a prison who has a strong children time memory about a man be killed in the airport (la jetee), and he is sent to past, in the old times he meets a girl  and falls in love with her... he tries to escape from the present world, and is chased and shoot by the agent from present. Finally, he realise he is the man who be killed in his memory.

social and political issue:
you can say La Jetee is an anti-war film, because it shows the ruins of Paris. in this film.

contrast:
present- the post apocalyptic city, people only live in the dark underground, where is full of the white noise: like generator and radio wave sound.

past- before destroying, the upper ground world is sunshine and bright. the background sound is people, animal natural sound.       
     
museum/ gallery : survivors dwell in underground of Palais de Chaillot galleries. when the main role comes back to the past, he go to date a girl in the museum.

aesthetic:
Chris Marker is also known as photographer, that's easy to understand why he can take stunning pictures to compose this classic film, you can see almost all the still images are well-designed, like a poem.

Ways of Seeing / John Berger - Ch.1 reading notes

In the beginning of the article, the writer states that the ways of how we see is an act of choice, is affected by our belief and knowledge. We are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves, and what was relative to your position in time and space.

When an image is seen as a work of art, beholders may consider about its myth, authenticity, market value and also the assumptions of art, i.e. beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status, taste. However, these assumptions change their meanings time by time. That may cause the primal and first relation losing between the image and experience of beholders and lead to culture mystification of the past.

In the early Renaissance, the convention of perspective was established. This convention puts the eyes of the spectator in the centre of the visible world. In addition, it seems that the whole visible world is arranged for the spectator.

After the camera was invented, this concept was challenged, this invention proves and demonstrates the centre of the visible world is not exist. The meaning of seeing is changed, and that conversion was reflected in painting. Different views were depicted in the one piece of artwork.

The invention of camera also destroyed the uniqueness of work of art, and the paintings can be reproduced. Moreover, these reproductions are been given new meanings through the their different and new purposes and sequence of viewing.

Reproduction also be seen as kind of information, it travels and its meaning is also diversified.

The meaning of original work is no longer depended on what it says, but on what it is. Therefore, the original artwork maintains its own authority.

My own project- Last Twenties

theme: what people did in their 30.

i am in my late twenties, feel kinda confused and anxious about being nothing, try to know and collect what other people did in their 30, also practice my portait drawing skill.

William Burroughs, in his 30 (1944), began shared apartmant with Jack Kerouac, and started collaborated novel called "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" .

 J. D. Salinger, in his 30 (1949), one of his early work "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" adapted into a film called "My Foolish Heart".

Jarvis Cocker, during his 30 (1993), he and other members of Pulp recorded their forth album" His 'n' Hers "

My Primary Needs - Part2

                                               

dotted notes

 

eighth note /quaver

 

My Primary Needs -Part1

             

 

This project started from our own primary needs, including mental and phsical ones. And my own basic needs are freedom, family and friends, music ( indie rock), creative (drawing) and self esteen. my costume is came from music. i made a music-note clothing with big head.