Charles Waterton - satirical (daft) taxidermy at Wakefield Museum

Hi All,
the bar on the 'daft taxidermy' thread has been raised significantly.......the new exhibition at Wakefield Museum on the 19th Century naturalist and explorer, Charles Waterton, (it is an excellent exhibition by the way..I'd really recommend it) includes some really wierd specimens. The exhibition is more about the evolving discourse of the natural sciences (that is a deliberate pun!), and Waterton's activities as a naturalist...but dotted around the exhibition, and also in further exhibition spaces upstairs in the museum, are examples of Waterton's extraordinary (satirical) taxidermy...including this one, called 'The Nondescript', representing some kind of 'new species' (you can read more about it here on this taxidermy blog...which also has some more contenders for the 'daft taxidermy' thread...maybe we should leave that theme alone now, it's being done to death (pun x2)......anyway, another 'specimen' of taxidermy by Waterton, and also on display at Wakefield Museum, is this one representing, 'John Bull and the National Debt'.....very apt given the current financial climate...............Waterton's imagination is obviously locked into his own visual culture (I'm thinking of Punch here).....but even so, they are certainly worth a look.......as is the exhibition at Wakefield Museum.......
Mark
(all pictures are by kind Courtesy of Wakefield Council)

I tried not writing about Banksy at Bristol Museum, but failed.

I might as well qualify this right at the start by admitting that I've got a soft spot for Banksy. There, I've said it. It's interesting that an insidious inverse snobbery starts to operate alongside increasing success and mainstream visibility. Waldemar Januszczak's piece in the Sunday Times typifies the lazy sentiment that he was clever and subversive on the streets, but boring, dumb and repetitive now that his work is shown in a 'legitimate', 'establishment' context. For one thing, this fudges the artist's trajectory; following this logic, Banksy 'sold-out' at least seven years ago when books of his graffiti became available to bourgeois art school posers like me. Perhaps I just have juvenile taste, but I think it is possible to be both funny and clever. What is perhaps less clever is the way in which Bristol Museum has sought to market this exhibition, this viral advert could only have been made by a provincial museum, it's the same impulse that led Gordon Brown to pretend he likes the Arctic Monkeys. And the bit of mythologising about the director of the museum not having been informed about this exhibition was just not believable. However, what I think this exhibition will do is draw a huge and varied audience who will to some extent re-negotiate the museum's collection in order to discern the embedded (and sometimes subtle, yes, subtle!) interventions made by the artist. I can't wait to go and see it.

Art in its Place -Langwith Arts Debate

Hi All,
Rebecca Wade (one of our MA Art Gallery & Museum Studies students), Layla Bloom (from Leeds University Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery), and me, have all been invited to a discussion panel at the Langwith Arts Committee at the University of York on Tuesday 16th June (it starts at 5pm). The debate is part of their exhibition 'Art in Its Place' at the Norma Rea Gallery at Langwith College. As well as Rebecca, Layla and me, the panel consists of some distinguished scholars and art gallery practitioners, including Gavin Delahunty, Curator of Fine Art at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art MIMA Dr Jo Applin, Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art at University of York, and Steve Humble, artist.

Karita Kuusisto, at the University of York has organized the debate;
'The topic of the debate is museology, focusing primarily on the following
questions: -How dramatically has the National Gallery affected the general
perception of art, as opposed to for example the Tate Modern? -Is it
possible to predict a type of spectator? How vital do you believe
information to be in the creation of the spectator by the exhibition space?
-Can the information provided by museums be perceived in the light of
advertisements, both for the artwork, the artist and the museum itself?
-Does the provision of information by the museum remove the capacity for
curiosity in the spectator?'
If you want to pop along to see the exhibition and the debate, email Karita (kak502@york.ac.uk)
We'll let you know how it all went next week....
Mark

The artist workshops with Joe Mawson and Hondartza Fraga have gone really well - thanks to those who came! Our final event related to the current 'Object of Photography' exhibition is a family-friendly afternoon of sun prints and making photo frames - open to all of course!

FREE ART DAY

Family Photography Fun Afternoon


Saturday, 6th June
1 - 3pm


Young people and their carers are invited to learn how to make sunprints and decorate their own photo frames, with a special take-home pinhole camera activity.


Drop-in, no booking required.


Please call 0113 343 2778 for further information.


Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England


Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery
Parkinson Building, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
Telephone: 0113 343 2778
www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery

Manchester Museum's Hermit-in-Residence

The artist Ansuman Biswas is going to be spending 40 days and nights in the tower of Manchester Museum, communicating to the public via the internet and screens in the museum. According to the Guardian (read the article here) Biswas is going to be selecting objects from the collection and... doing things with them. If it goes wrong they can always use it as a way to test another human remains display strategy. It reminds me of Vito Acconci's Seedbed performance of 1971, the less said about which the better. Look it up if you're not easily distressed, don't tell me I didn't warn you. 

bodyspacemotionthings

I was really interested to read about Tate Modern's recent recreation of the Robert Morris installation bodyspacemotionthings of 1971. It's been widely reported that the first incarnation was closed early after damage to the piece by a public without the socio-behavioral framework for participatory encounters with art, as if the idea of damage was not a legitimate form of engagement. Post-Relational Aesthetics it seems as though we, as a trained public, might have a clearer idea of what is required of us in this context, but does this interactive familiarity serve as a limiting device for our actions? Well, Micheal Fried would say it was all just theatricality anyway.

For a link to a video of this work, click here.

Sticking with Tate Modern, Waldemar Januszczak had some interesting things to say about their relationship with UBS, although his argument that corporate sponsorship was particularly inappropriate in light of a re-hang focussing on Arte Povera seemed a bit clunky; is it perhaps more incongruous than dangerous? It's certainly not a new development. Particularly interesting in relation to Dominique's excellent paper at the MA symposium. Have a look at the article here.

Learn transfer-printing with Artist Hondartza Fraga...plus, hear the artists speak!

This Saturday 23 May 2009, the on campus Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery welcomes Hondartza Fraga, artist in our current show, 'The Object of Photography.' She'll be showing visitors how to transfer-print from photocopied images, turned these images into badges and cards. There will be two sessions, one from 11-1 and then another from 2-4pm.

The workshop is FREE, but booking is essential - only 10 places in each session! Call 0113 343 2778 to book.

Image: Deciduous, by Hondartza Fraga, 2009, hand-printed glass slides © The Artist

In other news, interviews with all the artists in the show are now available on our website. Listen to Joe Mawson, Andrew Warstat, Hondartza Fraga and Ignaz Cassar discuss their views on photography, their art practice and their influences, at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery/exhibitions.htm.