At the end of a long week of work I stumbled into the ‘Glamourie‘ exhibition with a colleague and was confronted with an array of crazy, intriguing and wonderful art pieces. A few quick snaps shown above… But if you do get to go to the show be sure to check out the dark mask hanging ominously on the wall.
“In Celtic magic a ‘glamourie‘ temporarily warps the normal aspect of an object or area. Through this magical agency a primitive shack may be transformed so as to appear as a lordly; rags might be temporarily glorified as resplendent robes, whilst leaves take the the semblance of silver and gold. In the art exhibition Glamourie, common themes will surface, as will applications of ritual, ceremony, reciprocity and appropriation; but none of these will have proscribed its content. We will be prevy to celebrations of the strange and pathetic, and to objects obsessive, mordant and morbid. One artwork may bleed into the next, whilst aesthetic and conceptual motifs are plucked from individual artists and fed back into the show. Glamourie seeks to appropriate and employ its constituent parts to fashion a entity wholly of its own atmosphere.” – Lewis Spence (paraphrased)
Just paid the Oriel Mostyn a visit in Llandudno. Amongst the few artists that are exhibiting there at the moment there is one particular piece which I absolutely loved. ‘Shelter’ by Gareth Griffiths began with a body of paintings focusing on Gareths childhood memories of camping in a particular blue tent in Jamaica. Gareth then began to construct small maquettes of tents and shelters which then grew into a larger project. He asked his sons (also artists) to construct their own versions of shelters and then began to collaborate with other artists on their ideas of shelters. At the Oriel Mostyn all the small shelter constructions have been laid out on a table top with an index on the wall. Just by looking at the variations of shelter designs and ideas was great, it gave me a lot to think about in terms of how we humans have built the spaces around us, what they mean to us and even what the ‘outside’ means to us. This exhibition is a simple and lovely way of conveying how we have come to perceive the idea of shelter and how we box our selves in and away from the ‘outside’ world almost deliberately differentiating ourselves from the natural world.
Whilst home in North Wales a while ago (around Christmas time) I visited the Oriel Mostyn gallery in Llandudno. The gallery had recently had a makeover and the new look and extension is brilliant.
The current exhibitions were also very interesting, one in particular. ‘The Silent Village’ is a touring exhibition curated by Russell Roberts centering around a film made in the 1940′s of the same title. The film was made with the support of the Ministry of Information London but filmed in South Wales and the reasons for it’s creation takes a bit of explaining:
In 1942 the Nazi’s had occupied the small Czechoslovakian mining village of Lidice. A village in many ways similar to the small mining communities of Wales. During it’s occupation a small number of the village members resisted and carried out an assassination of the Nazi general Heydrich. As punishment for this the German army obliterated the village, shooting all of the male inhabitants and taking the women and children away in murderous gas vans disguised as concentration camp vans.
This shocking news prompted the making of ‘The Silent Village’ to tell the story of Lidice as a way of demonstrating the cruelty of the Nazi enemy and really hammering home what the results of a German occupation in Britain could be. The director Humphrey Jennings chose the South Wales village of Cwmgiedd for its similarities in the small mining communities way of life. The first half of the film beautifully portrays life in the small Welsh village. No professional actors were used as the film had a lot of support with the local community who sympathized with the horrifying news from the continent. For me this adds a lot of value to the movie as it appears to be quite an honest portrayal of life in a small village in the 1940′s told by the actual villagers.
As the film progresses the Nazi invaders presence becomes more and more menacing. This is where the film gets quite strange for viewers in the 21st century post devolution. The Welsh villagers act out the Nazi’s attempt to dismantle any resistance by banning the teaching of Welsh in schools and other restrictions. Quite strange as the villagers ancestors are likely to have actually experienced a very similar situation first hand from the English government under a 100 years earlier. However I really wouldn’t want to dwell on this aspect too much as clearly the comparison ends there as the movie then demonstrates the full horror and evil of the Nazi’s reprisal.
Without going too deep into the historical and cultural complexities of this film it really is a brilliant memorial to the village of Lidice and a very interesting insight into the life of a small mining village in Britain in the 1940′s.
Woody van Amen, Taxat 2010, LED lighting, 2m wide. Image coutesy of C-Space Beijing.
About 2 months ago myself Paul Barton and Karolin Schnoor completed a website project for the Hidde Van Seggelen Gallery. The website is ticking over nicely and there are some brilliant pieces of work by the artists represented by Hidde Van Seggelen in Chelsea London. Some of these are featured above but you can view more by clicking here.
Spending an hour a day in the Leeds Art Gallery and Henry Moore Institute reading Sven Berlin… good times. The Elm wood sculptures by Henry Moore are absolutely gorgeous.
I recently watched the Janet Street-Porter episode of ‘The Genius of British Art‘ on 4OD and absolutely loved it! The episode begins and ends in St Ives Cornwall, one of my favorite places in the world not just for art but for surfing and it’s beautiful setting. Janet begins her exploration of modern British art by introducing St Ives as the place that she first fell in love with British art, I could quite easily say the same for myself. The episode also ends with Janet talking about ‘The Dark Monarch‘ exhibition in the Tate St Ives at the end of 2009. The image above is of Janet stood in the entrance hall in-front of Patrick Heron’s large stained glass permanent feature and Damien Hirst’s unicorn piece which in my opinion was the perfect magical way to start the ‘The Dark Monarch‘ exhibition. The Dark Monarch is also the title of a book by Sven Berlin, since reading it I have become almost obsessed with his other works which give a great insight into the transformation of British Art in the mid 20th Century and of the artist himself.
Early this year after a visit to St Ives Cornwall I read ‘The Darch Monarch’ by Sven Berlin and I absolutely loved it. The reason I came across the book was because of an exhibition of the same title in tate St Ives which was on at the same time as my visit. As explained in the video above the exhibition was about showing relationships between British modernism and the supernatural, the magical and the paranormal. The exhibition begins with a beautiful unicorn piece by Damien Hirst which leads you onto a bevy of mystical related pieces of modernism including a few pieces by Sven Berlin himself, I absolutely loved it, so I bought the book! The book itself is a kind of autobiography of Sven and life in St Ives at the end of the 2nd World War. The subject matter of the book was very controversial as many of the characters were depicted as comic but unsavory and were clearly based upon people Sven new whilst living in St Ives. Despite changing all the names of the central characters in a loose attempt to cover up their true identities Sven was sued and the following court battles bankrupted him and forced him to leave St Ives. The book is very well written with brilliant descriptions of St Ives as a place and the almost magical or supernatural feeling it has. The book is great in its own right however having visited St Ives on a regular basis for the past 15 years and having experienced what an impact it has on a person or an artist made the book all the more fantastic.
This is a 'Design blog', well kind of! I use the term loosely as not all the posts are design related, apart from being posted by me, a designer! Some posts are my work but most will be work by others discovered by endless searching of the web. Anyway hopefully you will find a feast of visualy exciting links and posts here. My email is: info@jeffreyshield.co.uk
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