Nude at BAS7
I wasn't going to bother with a post on British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, because I'm fed up with inartistic Brit. tosh that claims to be art. Then today I found a link in my postbag and saw the above photo: Wow! Figurative sculpture, I thought. Who is this trend-setting artist I've missed in the last five years of contemporary Brit. tripe? To find the truth I was forced to sit through the most boring video I've ever seen, in which joint curator Lisa Le Feuvre spouts every superlative she can summon to describe the junk on offer, while her fellow curator Tom Morton stands beside her trying not to look like a wooden Indian. And the truth? The park bench sometimes has a real live naked young man sit on it and contemplate that artificial flame which sometimes flickers into life at the other end of the bench! This is the pits. The show continues at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, until 17 April. Don't bother. Click the title link for the BAS7 video.
posted by Unknown @ 2.3.11
4 comments
4 Comments:
Had assumed it was a life-like sculpture. The BBC Four programme on British sculpture last week reminded me that much of the 20th/21st century figurative British sculpture is multiple productions, by "industrial" technicians, of vague abstracts - or body casts.
A current offering on eBay is the Loutoff shop mannequins. Some of the range have carefully observed musclature. Even the intricacy of the ears is "right" - and the eyes are uncanny. With a wig they are very life-like.
Wouldn't be surprised at some "sculptor" buying them to put in an exhibition - and saying "the art is all in the context - £50,000 Arts funding please".
Flickr has examples of a whole genre of life-like mannequin customisation with airbrush painting and remodelling.
Antony Gormley's bodycast of himself pops up everywhere: on a beach. on roofs in London and New York, even in the Swiss Alps. As you say, it's an industrial process.
And one woman artist does already use mannequins in her displays. I can't remember her name, but she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize a year or two ago. Groan!
I'll see if I can find those Loutoff shop mannequins.
This one has a slightly Manga look to it. It makes visitors do a double-take now it is dressed up in my old shorts, socks, and plimsoles.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310286927463
If anyone buys one - check out the price for the same item in the seller's listing with the description "garçon" - the Euro price is significantly cheaper at about £70 rather than £84.
Those Loutoff shop mannequins are impressive. I found pages of them.
So when are you going to exhibit yours in an art show?
Post a Comment
<< Home