Monday, 14 November 2011

Strange Sounds and Familiar Voices

What would Andy Warhol have heard, if he'd been in the De La Warr this Saturday - with his trusty tape-recorder? What sounds would have found their way onto the spooling, turning strips of magnetic tape? Since Andy couldn't be there - we invited visitors to make their own transcriptions of the voice of the building - as part of our ongoing participatory text-art project. Adults and kids - joined DLWP artist, Wendy Ann Greenhalgh, in creating a creative, rich, funny and occasionally surreal account of yet another Saturday in the Pavilion. Here's what we heard...

Time: 14:45 Name: Malachi Leon Sterling
Age: 5 years 10 months


The wind
Talking
Waves


Time:
14:55
Name: Marcia

"…here or the coffee shop over the road?"
"..interior design shop..most unusual stuff.."
"It's a different sort of look, isn't it?"
"That's too old to be the 1950s!"
"There's a man in the tree."
"I'm walking around the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill with my sister."
"A waste bin! Four waste bins! God. Dear."
"..tuck his stomach in… it's different.."
"This was all walled up - just packing cases."
"Can I take a picture of you?"
"That's nice."
"Mike and Julie and Julie's sister…chucked it down the stairs"
"Is that anybody's chair?"
"I hate to ask you, but do you mind if we jump in?"
"They're nice cups and saucers! Aren't they nice cups and saucers?"
"For her to offer us that parsley was a bloody insult!" "That's two Americanos, and one's a de-caff."


Time: 15:15 Name: Martin

Most of the sound of the building is the discordant noise echoed from concrete, so low sounds, of distant voices with the detail lost & the crash of a dropped item in the gift shop, saved, and the silence afterwards.
 

Name: Carole Grant
Time: 15:35

'I thought he was still alive. He died'

A group of friends in their 40s come in together. Some are wearing poppies. 'They said it would take an hour to go round it. It'll take us an hour to read this [the introductory text]. It took us half an hour to park'

A man brings his father and his small son into the gallery. 'That is the man, Andy Warhol, who created all this art here', he says. The boy looks at the large photograph of Andy. 'He looks funny'. The man agrees. 'He does, doesn't he?' In the next room, the boy goes up to the painting Butterfly Day, and starts to count them. After a while, his dad moves him on, saying 'it must be at least a hundred'. They look at Campbell's Green Pea Soup. 'That's one of his most famous paintings' says the man. Then, round the corner, 'oh, there it is again'. His father, in his red anorak and beret, corrects him. 'No, that's tomato soup. It's completely different'.

'I don't know how he got away with it. Maybe they were flattered….'

A mother is looking at the pictures, pulling a small bike along while her small son runs round touching everything. 'Stop touching the pictures. I said, stop touching the pictures!'

'this is what he did, repeat images, isn't it?'

Two men stand looking at the Marilyn Triptych. 'This is definitely worth a few bob, it's got a rail round it.' One of them goes to read the caption. 'Yeah, Tate Gallery'. They move onto the Mao sequence. One of them looks at the same image on the back of his exhibition programme. 'Hey, I could get this framed and pass it off'.

A child runs up to his parents in the photograph room. 'Is this legal?'. His mother laughs 'You don't have to look!'

At the photograph Cadaver: 'lumps of meat. Looks like an abattoir. It's a leg, I'd say'

Time: 16:14 Name: Steve

humdrum
vibration
humdrum
"left wheel"
mumble, mumble
whistle w-w-whistle
ma ma
humdrum
"time's up"
vibratio
tick-tock tick-tock tick
flop
tick
cough
grrrr! Ha!
da da
ah! ah! ah!
tick-flop tick-tock
EEEEE - umama - avava
humdrum
clop clop
He he he! Grrr! Ha
har le lar la lar
"he's a monster"ea
mum mum
grumble humble humdrum



But the final word goes to Finn - Aged 8 - who told us "When I look at a picture I think myself in it and so I couldn't hear anything in the gallery except the sounds in the picture."


 

Tuesday, 8 November 2011

Lifting the Lid on Andy Warhol

Young artists and there Mums and Da's join DLWP artist Wendy Ann Greenhalgh for one of our popular Lift The Lid sessions: making Happy Butterflies mobiles and murals and Beautiful Flower prints to beat the autumnal blues. Our next FREE Lift the Lid session in on December 4th 2-5pm.

Making Happy, Grumpy and Naughty Butterflies

How many butterflies can we fit on our mural?

Butterfly Mobiles hanging in the stairwell

Brightly coloured block prints inspired by Andy Warhol

Lines and colours - beautiful flowers


The end of our 4 metre mural

Sunday, 6 November 2011

Saturday Superstars








Another Superstars Portraits session and I approached the Saturday Interaction trolley with fear in my heart. Maybe the first session was a fluke and this time no-one would come.
Wrong. It was a grand afternoon, and 80 people made a self portrait for the gallery ( and eventually the animation) with lots of laughter, good humoured ribbing, surprises and pleasure.
I was once again amazed and delighted that so many visitors want to participate, including men, teenage boys and seniors.
I wobbled at one point when a woman asked me if she could bring a group of 17 older children to draw portraits - but they turned out to be charming, helpful, patient and genuinely enthusiastic. They left a fantastically varied set of pictures, plus one young man took most of the photographs for me - result!
I'm loving this Saturday Interaction, and it's something I will take on to another level in my own practice. Roll on Session 3.

Thursday, 3 November 2011

Bobby America comes to Bexhill


Bobby America is a creation of Artist & Composer Joseph Young.

On October 29th, Bobby appeared at Warhol is Here for the first time to interview and interact with visitors to the exhibition. The video shows extracts from these conversations as he makes a fictitious programme for Radio Free Warhol.

Thanks to Gabrielle for the filming.

Saturday, 22 October 2011

Becoming a human tape recorder

What does the DLWP sound like?
Andy Warhol used to take his tape-recorder everywhere with him and called it his 'wife'. Just imagine him in bars and restaurants or at The Factory - making recordings of the conversations and events that happened around him.

At the De La Warr today we invited visitors to become a human tape-recorder, making a unique portrait of the life and voice of the Pavilion. We'll be doing this every month of the Warhol Is Here exhibition - to create a new text art-work – with many authors/artists – in the true Factory spirit.

Here are some of our transcripts in words and pictures...
2:58

1) My Dad talking

2) plates being moved

3) People talking

4) Footsteps

5) A person saying " We usually have a seat"

6) Rewinding of a tape

7) A tape playing

8) Coffee maker noise

9) Warhol talking in a tape recorder

10) Mobile phone ringing

11) My brother talking 
Dyllan Watkins
Aged 10
3.22
I can hear cups rattling
can hear people
can hear banging
can hear drawers going in and out
can hear chairs moving
can hear knives and forks
can hear people getting angry
can hear music
can hear people coughing
Katie Grimwood
Aged 7
3.35
People
Clicking
people talking
cups dinging
people walking
wheels turning
buggy
Barney Oliver Mackew and Stagecoach Bear
Aged 5 
4:15 In the restaurant I can hear people chatting and cups and saucers clashing also in the restaurant I can hear chairs being moved! On the balcony I can hear the sea smashing on the rocks and pebbles. I can also hear the seagulls chirping to each other. On the stair case i can hear footsteps. I hear children and adults muttering and talking!   Emily Balaban  Aged 10
4:54
People Talking
Foot Steps
Wind
Glasses/Cup in cafe
People walking
Door banging
Paper being looked at
Tapping on the table
Rappers (Sweets)
People being served in the cafe
Pen
Granny talking
Waves crashiin
Seaguls
Lucy 
Age: 11        

Saturday, 15 October 2011

Look at Me:Who Am I ?

A lovely sunny afternoon and the DLWP was heaving with people taking in the exhibition and before we'd even got our photo booth up we had string of people itching to dress up and have their photo taken. Wigs, sunglasses, tiaras, gloves and hairy moustaches - all really popular for those seeking their inner 'star' and it wasn't just the children !
The overall look was a Studio 54 circa 1975 with feather boas, bowler hats in combination with cat masks and a pipe - the latter beign something of an alien object to many children who initially didn't know where to put it !
The photobooth could just about hold 4 people and their superstar qualities shone through the curly wigs and Elton John glasses - many apsired to mere disguise and others were keen try everything on simultaneously.