Workshop: Drawing Machines with Jim Bond at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery

Light Night at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery turned out to be fantastic. Thank you for all who came and helped us make our map of Leeds bigger and better! Now, something completely different: Anyone up for kinetic stuff?

István Harasztÿ is the senior representative of kinetic art in Hungary (been around since the end of the 60s, that man). On his website, he talks lovingly about the beauty and meaning of making art literally move. He states that the primary feature of kinetic art is to leave behind superfluous elements, and somehow streamline the enjoyment and understanding of the statement conveyed by the pieces by making the interaction of sound, light, and motion as efficient as possible. This week’s Saturday event in the Gallery is bringing this idea of efficiency to the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, with the added bonus that visitors can engage and even compete with artist Jim Bond’s machines, thus becoming part of the process (and have some fun at the same time).

Jim Bond’s work, especially the wonderfully creepy Blink makes him a significant member of the international tribe of kinetic artists. Blink is an ‘eye-machine’, very much in line with Jim’s fantastically Da Vinciesque celebration of the human form and function. No, not the Dan Brown humbug, not an ounce of that: we’re talking the real Vitruvian Man stuff here. You can see the somewhat unsettling contraption made out of a WWII glass eye and brass, as the main image on his homepage. Some Bond-trivia: Bond’s Blink has travelled to Budapest two years ago and was exhibited with the aforementioned István Harasztÿ’s Situation Indicator and Attila Csörgő’s magnetic Drawing Machine. According to Jim’s page, there are two pieces of this work one in a private collection in the US and one in Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness. One wonders whether they will (whether they should) ever meet in a contraption that moves them towards and away one another. Hah. Well, anyway, this Saturday he’s bringing his quirky art to the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery for the afternoon.

This upcoming workshop brings me back to my starting point, Harasztÿ’s thoughts on the big questions of kinetic art. Not only because of that Kinetica exhibition in Budapest back in 2008, but because he touches on something very important in his web introduction. István (also known as Édeske -'Sweetie' in Hungarian), says ‘when I was a child, I made all kinds of strange contraptions for myself because I could not never find a game that would have interested me more’. Deep down kinetic art, although indubitably one of the more complex and multilayered art forms (or is it a genre?), is about fun, exploration and ingenuity and Jim Bond’s workshop will surely deliver. So come along and be the human factor.

Saturday, 16 October, 2010, 2-4pm
Join artist Jim Bond in the Gallery to test your skills against his 'drawing machines.' Each machine has a different quirk to make the experience of drawing a special challenge! Free, family-friendly, drop-in activity.