TEA, CHAT AND EXCHANGE OF IDEAS

What a stimulating afternoon spent in the company of a group of people who were keen to talk about the work and issues around it. We covered a lot of ground and tried to unpick some ideas which came up as the result of our chat about the exhibition - so many that it's going to take a while for me to absorb and make sense of them.

I came to the gallery with the feeling that to talk about the relevance or merits of individual belief systems would, in a way, be to miss the point of Grayson’s work, which sets out, I think, to explore how and why people try to make sense of the world rather than to take a stance about religion as a whole. We talked about how perhaps the spiral format of the first works in the show, “Ways the World Ends”, makes them deliberately difficult to read, suggesting that, in this context, their content is less relevant than the fact that, as Grayson says, they each “constitute a truth for a number of people”.

 

"Seven Seals" from the series "Ways the World Ends", Richard Grayson

http://ensemble.va.com.au/Grayson/art/Ways-prints.html

This idea came up again during Thinking Aloud, when discussion about the importance given to The Magpie Index by the huge screen installation within a small space brought up the question of why such emphasis should be placed upon the ideas of one individual, regardless of how considered and reasoned those ideas and opinions might be. A comment amused me from a lady who said that listening to The Magpie Index was like "being trapped at a dinner party with someone who didn't know when to stop".

 

The Magpie Index, Richard Grayson

http://www.locusplus.org.uk/grayson.html

More questions about The Magpie Index came up: why is it so long? Are people really expected to spend 80 minutes listening to one man’s opinions? Is a gallery space really the right place to show it? Would we be happier to watch it on tv as a documentary? Slowly our thinking began to come round to the idea that actually, maybe we’re not supposed to watch it all. Perhaps the fact it is so long can be compared to the spiral format of “Ways the World Ends”, transferring attention from the content of the monologue to the portrayal of the struggles of a man who, like the scientists of Hadron Colliders, is grappling with difficult questions; trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable.

In more discussions about the presentation and content of the video pieces, we touched upon ideas about what might contribute to making people believe the unbelievable: the authority given to words by various means both in print and presentation; the physical and emotional momentum built by the power of music and singing or chanting; the security offered by being part of a community sharing a common belief.

The last few of us to remain at the end of the afternoon finished with a discussion about the benefits and value of this sort of informal exchange of thoughts and ideas, through which we were able to pick at some of the knotty problems and questions which we found in this thought provoking work.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON TOURS, TEA AND CHAT!

Hi. I'm going to be doing a walk round the exhibition this afternoon,  chatting about some of the work in the exhibition. I'll be starting round about 2pm so do come and join me if you'd like to, or meet me for tea and chat on the top floor from around 3 - 3.15pm.

Judith

COMMENTS BOX

The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard argued that the world is "without meaning" and that to accept this meaninglessness can be liberating. A comment on the blog today made me smile and put Baudrillard's complex ideas into a much simpler format: "TOO MUCH THINKING LEADS TO MEDICATION - ENJOY YOUR LIFE AND STOP THINKING ABOUT THE END OF IT!".

On the subject of thinking, however, I've noticed that some people very thoughtfully spend a long time considering what to write on the walls of the Comments Box space in the gallery, carefully choosing their words. Comments are prompted by the statement on the board "The world will end when..." and the proposal for "Principles of a new belief system..." It's great to see the freedom and creativity that a blackboard and chalk inspires. For visitors to the blog who haven't seen the Comments Box walls, here are a few pictures of how they looked today.

Comments Box

I've had to clear some of the comments off the walls of the Comments Box to make room for new ones.  Here is some of what visitors had contributed:

The world will end when...

The bees die!

Everything has no purpose.

We least expect it.

When a new beginning starts.

Principles of a new belief system...

We must love people and use things, not love things and use people.

Every day is full of possibilites.

Believe in yourself first.

Thoughts at the Preview

We all have a need to believe in something; that much was evident when talking to people at the exhibition yesterday. Is this simply how our brains are programmed? Human beings (generally) tend to prefer social order over chaos or conflict, so it makes sense to have a collective belief system, but what to believe in? And how far should we compromise logic to stay in a group?


I wasn't the only one at the show to admit that I missed some of the security and comforting rituals of the organised religion of childhood. Then it was soothing to know that there was someone in charge; learn the rules, stick to them and everything would be alright. Hey, even death could be neatly taken care of if you behaved yourself. But where do you go as an adult when logic prevails and that desire for answers remains? I believe one can make good ethical and moral choices without being part of an organised religion or group, but I am intrigued to know if it's possible to find a system where intellect and spirituality can co-exist? Anyone?



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Richard Grayson

Our new exhibition is a collection of work by the artist Richard Grayson.

Richard Grayson’s work is energised by the kind of cultural collisions that make contemporary life exciting. Inspired by the correlation of apparently unconnected cultural artifacts and phenomena, Grayson investigates the importance of language and narrative in how we comprehend the world. Through the use of playful or decorative forms, Grayson is able to engage his audience with complex and difficult ideas. We are encouraged to participate in a critical and perhaps subversive view of humanity that encompasses astrology, religion, politics, the global economy and extra-terrestrial life. As a retrospective of his work fromthe past five years, the exhibition brings together prints, drawings and films by Grayson for the first time.

Throughout the season you can contribute to this blog online or live in the gallery.

The exhibition continues until 14 March 2010.

A hard bright day in Bexhill on the first Saturday of the New Year brought out plenty of visitors and I was joined by 8 students studying for an MA in building conservation plus a few others for the Walk and Talk. It was great to have a lively group of people who had lots of ideas and opinions about Mind into Matter.

We started with Tony Fretton’s British Embassy in Warsaw and the group felt that the use of materials and the articulation of planes and mass were clearly not designed to invite people in. We decided it looked like a glass fortress. The group gazed in wonder at the child like drawings and tried to work out how the fleeting and flimsy lines equated with walls and floors and acres of explosion calming layered glass (up to 30-40cm thick). The engineers amongst the group raised their eyebrows at a familiar problem and one that they had much experience of.

We then looked at the difference between the CAD drawing generated from the initial sketches and compared them with the highly detailed hand drawn plans, elevations and views of The Reform Club built approx. 165 years earlier. The architect in the group explained how abstract the delicate watercolour floor plans looked from a distance and there was a general consensus that the hand drawn lines and the time x skill element made these drawing more appealing. Someone did point out that some CAD drawings are very beautiful too.

As we walked around we explored the tussle between a harking back to medieval forms and structures and the desire of engineers and architects to explore new materials and technologies – not always with happy results. Feelings were mixed about The Oxford Museum and St. Mary in Wellingborough. The debate about the latter, in relation to conservation issues, was enlightening – one of the group worked as a conservationist in churches and felt that the upkeep and the preservation of some aspects of the Comper church would be very difficult – often because the original materials were not always appropriate or good quality.

The pervading sense of space and light in the De La Warr Pavilion, the things that I love about the building, proved to be quite contentious aspects of the host of this exhibition. Some of the group felt that the entrance was unwelcoming because there was so much space and that it was unclear what went on in the building.

The Sons of Pioneers exhibition upstairs brought up questions about functionality, materials and how it would be impossible to build most of these structures – even though that is not the intention of the artist.

The same group came along to the Thinking Aloud session and we continued to talk about buildings, particularly the Jerwood due to be built in Hastings and how a contemporary building might fit into a sensitive heritage type location. We ended the session by discussing the course they were on, their backgrounds (town planning, engineering, building conservation, architecture) and what they studied and exploring the relationship between art and architecture.