Left back in the changing room
Inspired by the recent World Cup (football) in South Africa, Dr. Matt asked a number of people for a written contribution to his TISAR website. As with most of these requests, I handed in my assignment several days late. As such, the football tournament in question, and its associated ‘buzz’, had long since finished.
My starting point was a memory of listening to the World Cup final in 1994, with my brother, on a white Sony radio/tape recorder, which I still have. This sparked off a montage of football-related childhood memories leading to and resulting from that moment. In no way does it relate to spectralogical audio research, as far as I’m aware.
The piece was published this morning, and can be read on the Institute Of Spectralogical Audio Research blog, entitled ‘Left back in the changing room’ in reference to my explosive football career (it ‘bombed’).
July in pictures
A Taschen brochure arrived at work. This page, promoting ‘Type. A Visual History of Typefaces & Graphic Styles, 1901-1938’ caught my eye. “Musical Chord Festive Hem” is an odd collection of words which summons thoughts of a 1930s social gathering in a wooden-floored village hall, with a piano and strange patterned curtains.
Something intrigues me about typography before the age of the all-pervasive sans-serifs. It’s as if the development of technology to automate printing processes is associated with the ‘modern’ sans-serifs and, therefore, the more decorative fonts (as pictured, left) are embodiments of the handmade.
A few typographical articles and references have sprung up recently. Notably, these seem to be satirically insulting Comic Sans users. I wonder whether this will backfire and actually increase the popularity of Comic Sans. Almost every school I deal with uses this font somewhere on their website.
The ambiguity (or is that ambivalence) between ‘Bear’ and ‘Bare’ floats my boat. It’s a visually attractive snack packet reminiscent of the forthcoming (September) UCA website relaunch.
I often find it difficult to articulate what prompts me to take photographs. Is it revealing enough to say that outdoor signage to advertise outdoor signage is amusing, or do I have to write about irony? The chair’s design is something I’d like to appropriate and construct, but then I later found the photograph to be amusing because it’s actually a picture of an arm and a chair.
Carl Gent proudly shows a photograph of his ‘Welcome to the Holocene’ work in the UCA prospectus, alongside a mystery photograph I took from the train on the way into London. On looking over the London skyline, approaching Waterloo, I realised that it had been so long since I had visited the city that a new skyscraper had been built. Presumably the Heron Building. Attempts to photograph it clearly failed.
There appears to be a similarity in the visual compositions of these two images. Carl’s expression is reflected in the large windows of the ‘DER’ building, which directs the gaze towards the background houses in place of the prospectus. The desk’s gubbins are replicated by a foreground tree. The striped shirt akin to the dirty pattern of the ‘DER’ building.
On a final note, the ‘Milo Is Lost’ poster reminded me of the David Thorne missing cat poster design debacle. I have chosen not to comment on Charlie’s substandard quality of grammar on this occasion.
This post was quite a bumper issue in light of a recent lack of blogging. Very shortly (later in the week) there will be an additional post on the topic of painting and studio work. By that time, there will also likely be a short football based article that I wrote in response to a request from Dr Matt - appearing on The Institute Of Spectralogical Audio Research (TISAR) blog.
Train departs 15 minutes late, but arrives on time. Still 15 minutes early for a meeting. Now with Limp Bizkit in my head @crstokes83
Exhibition attendance figures 2009
Back in March, the April 2010 Art Newspaper’s informative section on worldwide exhibition attendance statistics caught my eye. I thought it might be useful to compare some exhibitions - one from Tate Modern and a couple from the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, where I am Galleries Administrator - to hopefully find out whether visitor numbers are reasonable compared with respective local populations.
The Data
Tate Modern
Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, 25 Feb - 25 May 2009:
47,328 (526 per day)
London population: 7.55 million (2007 estimate)
James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
Claire Morgan: Periphery, 10 Nov 2008 - 10 Jan 2009 (screen capture from a film by Sarah Wakely pictured above):
3,262 (67 per day)
VJ Moreton: The Theatre of the Naked Eye, 7 Oct - 12 Dec 2009:
4,088 (70 per day)
Farnham population: 38,000 (2009 estimate)
The Analysis
I have used the Coefficient for Respective Areas of Population (CRAP) to analyse these figures.
Since London’s population is 199 times greater than that of Farnham, Tate Modern should receive 199 times more visitors than the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries. Or approximately 13,900 per day. Roni Horn aka Roni Horn was some 13,300 off this target.
Or, perhaps the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries should receive 1/199th of the visitors that Tate Modern receives. This equates to about 3 people per day. Both Farnham exhibitions mentioned above received more than 22 times this number. Therefore, the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries are 2200% better than Tate Modern.
In Summary
Most of the above can be ignored. I merely wished to point out that the Roni Horn exhibition seemed to have a low number of visitors for such a major institution, especially when compared with something of similar stature like Isa Genzken at the Whitechapel (129,000 in total, 1,600 daily). I didn’t see either.
Current paintings, June 2010
Recent weeks have been spent on the reorganisation of studio debris. A variety of leftover items have accrued in the last three years, primarily as a result of constructing paintings - sawdust, pieces of wood, metal, and plastic, old electrical equipment, fabrics, and cookware. Now sorted into about 17 categories based on type and size, I can now return to focussing on painting.
Pictured above are the very initial stages for two of the six paintings I’m concurrently working on. On the left, 199 Fat and Grease, and on the right, 177 Bank. More images to follow throughout the construction process. I’m also planning to create a video attempting to outline the painting process in more detail.
Last night’s attendance at the Barnfield College end of year art and design exhibitions (surprisingly good, since you ask) was punctuated with a ‘metal’ band that generated such nostalgia that I almost felt like I was back at Sixth Form.
The video snippet above focusses on the drummer, an intriguing cross between Rowan Atkinson and Freddie Mercury.
Meanwhile and elsewhere the work of George W. was on display (pictured below). A paradoxically cohesive piece on the topic of confusion - based on the destruction of copies of ‘Lord of the Rings’, “… a book I have attempted to read but repeatedly failed to enjoy.” Effectively, the destruction of the books acts as a kind of analysis, separating selected elements and reinterpreting the resulting artefacts through a variety of processes. The books are redacted to a handful of words, the words crafted into ceramic print-blocks which are printed onto the wall, and the individual ceramic letters isolated in compartments of a Type Drawer to be examined in great detail.
Goodbye car
Some men from the Fire Department (I had temporarily forgotten the word ‘brigade’) came to take away my lifeless car, which will be cut into pieces and set on fire for ‘training’. A ghostly after-image remains in the car park, in which no one has dared park for several days.
