Steve Rood

Hey Tessa, sorry I missed Steve's lecture, but here's an attempt at the blog anyway.

I thought I'd start this blog as a bit of a continuation from last week. One because I don't have too much to write about on Steve, and two because when I gave a little further thought to collaboration I was a little embarrassed at my laziness last week.

These two pieces are from the Cow Parade collection which has been touring around the world since 1999. The cows get auctioned off after each event and Cow Parade has made over 20 million dollars doing so. This money gets given to charitable organizations. These two cows are both done by New Zealand artists, and were displayed on Auckland streets. Buzzy Beef was done by Jill Jessup and Pohuticowa was done by Kathy Reid.

These are two pieces from the Vader Project. Like Cow Parade, this is a project that travels, contains multiple artists working on the same canvas, and the individual pieces get auctioned off at the end. The collection started in May 2007 at the Star Wars Celebration IV event in Los Angeles and has been to Europe, Japan and Pennsylvania.

I wonder if these two examples are really collaborations or not. In a sense they are because of the multiple artists working on the same canvas. However the artists are not working together, and are making individual pieces. Still not a hundred percent sure on collaboration vs collective.

As for Steve Rood, the Photographer. I read a few blogs of Steve's and I found them all quite cool. He seems to be really down to earth, and has quite a fresh approach to society and societal happenings. I'm not a very big fan of photography, and I find it quit hard to think of any photographer I like. Reading a friend's notes I saw a quote I quite liked (you'll probably read it several times) "Photography is just a blip in the landscape of visual technology". I liked it because I think its completely true, and I think sometimes photography is a little bit over rated sometimes. Here are the pieces of Rood's work that I do like, I found them on his blog.

One photographer I like is Gabriel Orozco. This is probly because he doesn't only do photography..and probably also because I like all of the other stuff he does (the link is the massive one at the end). I'm not sure you can make too many comparisons with Orozco to Steve, however there is a certain seriousness that comes through in both artists photos. This is quite nice in photography, as it is easy I think to be really humorous.

http://www.cowparade.com/

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/10995/the-vader-project.html

http://thetofsteve.blogspot.com/2009/08/armageddon.html

http://www.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/longvalley/RSnXHO6sAsJVHaD6fz8lLGNmkASO8DnghIdS248wjQwHovuHGZpB24YJTupK/gabriel_orozco.jpg&imgrefurl=http://longvalley.posterous.com/%3Ftag%3Dgabrielorozco&usg=__220rKdayLkUIpT5LAB0D2wpc2Qc=&h=593&w=436&sz=51&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=ChlMh-WmTInusM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3DGabriel%2BOrozco%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1540%26bih%3D871%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=122&vpy=44&dur=4694&hovh=262&hovw=192&tx=111&ty=126&ei=u0ilTN3GBNq5jAePhIWrDA&oei=u0ilTN3GBNq5jAePhIWrDA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=40&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

Fran Alisson

Fran's lecture was quite fresh compared to past lectures I thought. She didn't seem so wrapped up in herself which was nice, maybe this is a result of being part of Weeds.

I liked how she compared collaboration to a flat or a club, pooling resources. It must be easier all round for the individual, and take a lot of pressure and stress out of making works. I imagine only specific types of people would be suited to being involved in a collaboration, Fran said you have to be very democratic, this doesn't surprise me but made me wonder how you choose people to collaborate with. Like interviewing flatmates, maybe you interview artmates? Being part of a collaboration must have a very interesting effect on your practice. Fran said it becomes quite a safe space to pursue ideas because responsibility and consequences get divvied up. I think a collective differs from this, in that everyone is working towards the goal and has separate tasks to complete. Whereas a collaboration rolls all ideas and skills together.

I really could not help but make comparisons of Fran with Frances Hansen, and Mary Curtis. The way Fran collects cake tins (baskets in Frances's case), uses domesticity as a theme, and explores materiality is uncannily alike what Frances is into. The result of all of this however, is more fitting to compare with Mary Curtis's pieces, and in fact both Mary and Fran cited Helen Britton as an inspiration. Helen Britton's pieces are trinkity and often floral, this is a theme that also flows through Fran's work. When I viewed Mary Curtis's work in Object Space I talked about how a really wanted to touch then, I get the same sensation when looking at Britton's and Allison's pieces.

The one solid similarity you can make about these four artists is that they all generate work from giving life to old and used objects. Fran quotes Julian Schnabel in saying "I work with things left over from other things", which I suppose is a less attractive way of saying it. I compared Schnabel's work to Hansen's earlier on, and I fell he lends his ideas and techniques quite easily to Fran's practice as well.

Deborah Crowe

The picture of the bridge at the start of Deborah's slideshow shows us her infatuation with weaving, architecture, space and

structure. This is what her main idea is heavily influenced by, and made from. It is not surprising when you find out that she is trained in weaving, and she said she uses it to create 3d shapes and environments.

My favorite works of Deborah's are Kibble Palace Small World (20

09), Sidestep (2005), Shift (2000), and Collared (1999). I also quite like her Warp series.

In her work Shift (2000), I immediately made comparisons to Dion Hitchens work Te Wao Nui a Tane (1999). These works by Dion are smaller then Deborah's Shift, however they are similar in how they command space in the room and are constructed with a sort of transparency. Deborah talks about creating a contradiction in the space, and she succeeds in doing so. These lightly made figures are flimsy and transparent but seem to fill the space up. They cast big moving shadows and makes

the space seem quit airy. Although I haven't seen this piece in the flesh I imagine the viewer would feel a little dwarfed, as the three dimensional shapes take on quite a human form. Dion's works do the same in that manor. This work of Deborah's definitely employs her usual tactics of intervening with space, and using weaving.

I really enjoy looking at Sidestep (2005), it's a digital print on pvc mesh. Again Deborah uses a weave (or mesh in this case), and the image itself seems to be woven together as

well. Deborah talks about photography as a way to construct inventional drawings, and this furthers her practice. I think you can see that his is quite an experimental work when you place it along side her other works. Invention is also quite apparent in Kibble Palace Small World (2009). I really like this work, and there is something quite enjoyable to look at about it. As well as invention in these two works, there is a huge sense of intervention. Kibble Palace Small World puts you in a very imaginary spatial place, this really intervenes with the original image. You also get Deborah's weaving again as the window pains collide and intersect.

I liked how Deborah talked about how architecture is just a different scale of bodily containment, and I completely agree with her. You can easily see how the two effect each other in trends and inspiration. The images at the end of Deborah's slideshow really interested me, although I don't think they were works of art. The scaled down and repeated close ups of architecture reminded me of some of Steve Lovette's later works Up - n - dwn (2006), and Tresspass # 17 (2005). These works by Steve also intervene with space and also have a weaving sensation about them.