Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama's transendant expression of work captured my imagination through her use of psychedelic colours and repetative forms. Her work was aesthetically mesmerizing and conveyed intense psychological 'hallucinations' she has experienced during her life. I particularly liked her instillation of the boat covered in soft stiched forms, coating every area; including the entirity of the room in repetative images of the boat. Due to the black and white contrasts and lighting in the room it created an atmospheric motion, which swayed the room as if it were moving. This instigated thoughts within my own practise of how I can use repetitive images to create the illusion of movement.

I found most of her work was drawn to this element of illusion and was very successful. Her trademark polka-dots immersed the whole exhibition and showed an in depth progression in the ways in which she used them. The infinity room best defines this as it creates the illusion of infinate circular lights, reflected by mirrors and water. This also made me condiser how mirrors can be used to create masses and how this relevance can be used with in my own work.

Alot of Kusama's work derives from her past childhood hallucinations, which is said to have sought her 'self obliteration'. By surrounding herself and the enviroment in vast polka-dots; encouraged the idea that she found solace within the intrinsic madness. Through all the various mediums Kusama uses, you can identify her obsession and compulsion to create Art in a therapeutic manner; which can be percieved as very personal and a reflection of her psyche.

I would defiantely want to see more of Kusama's work as it intreuges my mind into what possesses her impulsesses to create such Art. I also I think with the knowledge that she has been self submitted in a psychiatric care home for the past 35 years, makes me feel like the Art work is more natural and organic, giving it a sense of presence without faulse cause or predetermined explanation.

Alighiero Boetti- Game Plan- Tate Modern

The Boetti exhibition currently showing at the Tate Modern is a must see. Boetti's skill and prowess are shown through a diverse range of works- from sculpture, to drawing, to painting, to tapestry. Not only are the works interesting aesthetically and from a material point of view, they are also backed by intriguing thoughts of the artist.

Boetti uses a huge range of materials, I enjoyed the range of building materials used in some of the earlier sculptures. In "Lo che prendo il sole a Torino il 19 gennaio 1969" [Me Sunbathing in Turin on 19 January 1969] there was something very captivating and personal about the manner in which the small cement pieces were moulded- reminiscent of Anthony Gormley's army of clay figures. Such organic shapes were juxtaposed with man-made building materials. This room led on fluidly to "Order and disorder" which I particularly enjoyed and found I could draw parallels with my own work. Boetti's work struck a cord, the simplicity yet effectiveness of works such as a checkerboard pattern of square stones placed over a ruffled tracing paper was inspiring.

As I continued into the exhibition the quantity of work Boetti produced in his lifetime struck me. The larger Biro works showed admirable labour and tedium, and although he did not in fact draw every line to the page the ideas and the interspersion of white letters and commas gave the viewer something to 'decode' so to speak.

An excellent drawer and painter their were several rooms with further paintings, and humour came across throughout, but somehow worked alongside his more serious map tapestries. These tapestries engage with the continual alteration of borders and boundaries that were seen throughout the cold war, and again the amount of work and skill is impressive and breathtaking. Such beautiful traditional works seem quite rare in the contemporary art world so the textiles were very refreshing.

Game Plan is an exhibition with something to please everyone, from traditional to the conceptual, but never without thought and meaning.

The Hayward Study Trip David Shrigley

I was looking forward to viewing the David Shrigley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, I'd experienced some of his sketches and poems online and was eager to see the exhibition. The humour he portrays in his works is often observational and sometimes quite morbid. He brings humour to everyday life occurrences through reflecting emotions, habits, actions, violence and death. His humour is vast and at times inconceivable, however, he aims to surprise just as much as humour his audience and a lot of his work proves very thought provoking.

The exhibition featured a lot of new works by Shrigley and for some reason I found his sketches in particular not as funny, some were, but I felt some pieces lacked charisma in a sense and looked more like text book doodles than interesting artworks. The majority were thought provoking to a degree, but I just think that overtook the humour more than usual. Also, I felt some of the sketches were possibly trying too hard to be funny, they were a bit too random or a bit too plain. Everyone has their own sense of humour so its simply my own opinion, but I have to say I prefer his mass produced greeting cards than his sketches for this exhibition.

The sculpture however I did enjoy, I found his quirky take on scale and the randomness of the objects comical, also its an aspect of his work that I hadn't previously seen. My favourite piece was probably the grave stone, it brings a humorous side to death and after all death is inevitable so why not lighten the mood and see its humorous side. Overall, I did enjoy the exhibitions, I found his art work quirky and a bit different it can be both childish and explicit, intellectual and ridiculous, or funny and vulgar. All round, very entertaining and if I could spend a day inside David Shrigley's brain it would definitely be one to remember.

Gabby: Jacob Kassay at the ICA

A space within the ICA, separated from the rest of the building by being about half a meter lower – accessible by one set of steps (and a small lift for wheelchairs) but not completely escaping its feel as a through room as the public who bypass walk along the raised side only separated by a railing. It’s a gallery space so it’s white. So is the ceiling, which is made of large white muted lights and separated by large metal beams forming a grid like pattern. It’s easy to forget that you are in fact in a classical building. There are windows though Jacob Kassay has covered them in a very large blank canvas that takes up the entire space of the outside wall. Four more of these ‘canvases’ create a space with in this space and cradle a few more canvases accept these ones are cleverly covered in an enchanting film of silver. Enchanting because they capture light and reflections so beautifully…so gracefully. Enchanting because of their value.

While in discussion in this space we observe the entire room from afar and then the perfect imperfections in these silver canvases. However, the giant blank canvases on which these silver ones are hung, though intriguing at first, don’t seem all that necessary and just draw our attention away from being lost in a sea of silver to analyse the space…. I’d rather be in the sea of silver. All this chat only to conclude with an amazing interest into their worth – both intrinsically and that through popularity. When selling at figures like $86,500 a piece, for an artist who’s only in his twenties, it’s hard to see past it.

The artist wants us to not just see his work but see the space, the world in which it’s lives, the world in which we live. I saw the world and I would rather be looking at painting/sculpture/instillation. So Jacob, drop the blank canvases, stick to the silver ones. Let us escape. 

Amy Potts Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist’s exhibition ‘eyeball massage’ featured in the Hayward Gallery was the most striking to me that day. The large installation transforms mundane objects into powerful visual art that visitors can experience by walking through the exhibition surrounded by projectors of films. Pipilotti Rist’s work represents a new type of art which speaks only through visual art, where literature is less important and the artistic images are important. It transgresses the old concept of art as now she uses film to display visual art not in the traditional sense. I think the show is successful for creating the illusion of dreaming. One piece which was the most striking to me was ‘Atmosphere and Instinct’ this piece featured in one the cubicles in the ladies toilets displaying a woman in a red dress seeming to cry out for help to the viewer, this breaks down the boundaries in art and yet again creates a personal connection between the art itself and the visitors of the gallery. To me this piece was the most influential as it sets of other emotions like the idea of forgiveness and punishment. Rist wanted to display these emotions and how far people will go to punish themselves or others for mistakes made. Rist’s work seems like a drastic study of visual art where the entire exhibition is based on film and moving images, it displays how powerful film can be as the exhibition is curated in a way that invites the public to not be passive viewers but to actively walk through the art.

Katy O'Sullivan George Condo

I really enjoyed George Condo’s exhibition ‘Mental States’. Impressed by both the sculptural pieces and the paintings, I felt that his works were successful in being simultaneously humorous and disturbing. The first thing I noticed about his pieces was the heavy influence of comics and cartoons. This I felt made the experience of seeing these tortured, mentally disturbed characters all the more uncomfortable, due to the connotations they had with childhood. Whilst also bringing to light the bond between our aesthetic appreciation and more juvenile pleasures. Condo states that he ‘manufactures the characters in the same way a playwright comes up with the lives of characters’. I personally found this element of storytelling to be quite prominent and engaging – it felt as if we as viewers were being invited into a morphed fantasy world, in which we are disgusted by what we see, but equally as intrigued due to our own state of mind and how easily we are able to relate. This, perhaps, is what made him stand out the most to me - the manner in which he portrayed this ‘mental state’, as Condo’s subjects and representations come very close to daily life. We are not presented with clinically insane characters, but rather ones we come unpleasantly close to identifying with. Walking through the exhibition it seemed difficult to ignore the conflicting feelings and emotions I felt towards his work as his paintings allow and encourage us to explore aspects of both our compassion and sadism, horror and laughter, and also our fascination. After having seen his paintings, I feel it was my ‘mental state’ being called to question and examined rather than that of his subjects.



Pipilotti Rist, eyeball massage