Clare Twomey

I've volunteered to help in the "Acts of Making" festival of performance art that's happening in Plymouth and Mount Edgcumbe from the 12th to the 26th September.

I was "interviewed" for the task, which involved picking one of the 6 artists in the festival, researching them for 30 minutes and then talking about their work for 10 minutes or so.

I picked Clare Twomey, partly because I knew a little about her already (mainly the thousands of ceramic birds that she scattered around the V&A - see later) and partly because she seems very thoughtful, well organised and articulate.

The upshot is that I think I will end up being one of Twomey's helpers in a repeat of one of her previous installations, called "Is it Madness.  Is it Beauty."

I decided I ought to do a little more research on Twomey before the event, so here's a rundown of her more notable projects:

 Is it Madness.  Is it Beauty. 

First performed in November 2010.

"Is It Madness. Is It Beauty" was a work commissioned for the Siobhan Davies Studios that communicated ideas about the futility of human action. Twomey responded to the repetitive actions of dancers in The Score, and conceived a performance piece that involved the periodic filling of a large number of unfired ceramic bowls with water; however, as the bowls were unfired they collapsed, visually emphasising human endeavour and desire to achieve.

Video

Everyman's Dream

April 2013

 Everyman’s Dream was a work commissioned for the exhibition Marking the line: Ceramics and Architecture, inspired by Sir John Soane's house and collections, challenging where and how we view both ancient and modern works of art.  For Sir John Soane's Museum in London Twomey asked one thousand men to tell her about their hopes of personal legacy. This is in reference to the legacy that Sir John Soane left in the form of his architectural contributions as well as his collection of artefacts at the Sir John Soane's Museum in London.

Guardian article on this

Piece by Piece

October 2014 - January 2015

Piece by Piece was staged at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche.  Piece by Piece features an army of more than 2,000 ceramic figurines – all inspired by the Gardiner’s rare Commedia dell’Arte Harlequin collection – and demonstrates the conflicting emotions of everyday life. The exhibit also featured an on-site artist/maker creating additional statuettes to add to Twomey’s ever-growing ghostly white world.

Video

 Exchange

June - September 2013

Clare Twomey's concept for her work, Exchange, was inspired by the acts of exchange and philanthropy that lie at the heart of the Foundling Hospital -- the UK's first children's charity and England's first public art gallery. Each day of the exhibition, ten people were invited to choose a cup from the hundreds laid out on tables. In exchange for agreeing to complete the good deed, they were allowed to keep the cup.

Video

Trophy

September 2006 Trophy was commissioned by the V&A Museum and played with notions of value, permanence and the culture of collecting. The artist worked in collaboration with Wedgwood to produce 4000 small birds made from Jasper Blue –an historical material created by Wedgwood in the 1800s– that were then displayed throughout the Cast Courts; the concept was to create a unique object for the museum’s collections that would be both beautiful and desirable. Within five hours of opening, the public had stolen each one of the 4000 birds that made up the collection; although they were not formally invited to take the birds home, many followed the behaviour of others in the space.

Video

Consciousness/Conscience

2001-2004 Consciousness/Conscience was a ceramic installation that comprises several thousand hollow unfired Bone China tiles laid out on the floor of the gallery space. The work is installed so that visitors to the exhibition need to cross the work to encounter other parts of the exhibition. By walking across the work they effectively destroy the floor to gain access to other works. The floor tiles record their path within the space. Consciousness/Conscience is conceptually linked with ideas of human interaction, social convention and appropriateness.

Video

Stanley Gibbons

This is going to sound like sour grapes but...

Earlier this year I entered a competition for a work of art on the Hoe to commemorate 150 years since Stanley Gibbons set up a business in Plymouth which ended up becoming a world leader in stamp collecting.

I was quite disappointed when I didn't win this commission because I thought I had a good idea - one that made an oblique reference to the fact that Gibbons is suspected of being a serial wife-killer.  Here's a photo of the key aspect of my proposed design:

Gibbons was born in the same year as the Penny Black stamp was issued so I proposed a sheet of Penny Blacks with selected stamps replaced by Gibbons' portrait to create a question mark - one that hangs over his private life.

The image on the Penny Blacks, of Princess Victoria, might also be seen as a reference to Gibbons' four young wives, all of whom died in mysterious circumstances - possibly poisoned by Gibbons who was trained as a pharmacist and had access to chemicals in his father's pharmacy.

My view was that Plymouth City Council should celebrate Gibbons' achievement in the stamp-collecting world but also acknowledge the suspicions about his private life - which were the subject of a BBC documentary a few years ago.  If they ignored it, they risked being made to look foolish.  Also, the public would be much more interested in Gibbons' possible "dark side" than in stamp collecting!

Wrong!

I went and had a look at the winning project today and (a) it makes no reference to the suspicions about Gibbons and (b) it really is quite disappointing.

It's just some flags put on the existing flag poles.



There's going to be different sets of flags designed by the artist, Joanna Brinton, working with local schools and community groups.  I suspect the community involvement was a big positive for the selection committee.  (I tried a similar idea, without success, on the Energy from Waste sculpture - see previous post).

If you didn't read the board explaining the project (below), you'd be hard pressed to figure out from the first set of flags that this had anything to do with Stanley Gibbons or stamp collecting.

There's also a long strip of polished stainless steel further back.  It's supposed to reflect back different aspects of the surrounding environment as viewers walk around the site, but I don't think it works.  The mirror is too far away from the flagpoles for people to realise it's part of the installation.

Also, it's hard to work out what's being reflected in the mirror.  It's angled so you can't see the flags or the Hoe's fantastic waterfront (missed opportunity?).  All you can see is, er, maybe it's the top of some trees?

Essay Topic?

I have to write an essay in the next academic year at college, and I've been toying with what it should be about.

I think we're meant to do some naval gazing stuff, which I would struggle with,  so I've been thinking of doing a journalism piece on the marketing tactics of a few artists.

Example 1: Anselm Kiefer.  I went to the exhibition of his work in the Royal Academy last autumn (see previous post) and just recently I've been looking at documentaries about him.   His work sells for huge amounts of money which gives him the freedom to do whatever he likes - which in his case, includes messing about with construction projects with no commercial result.  It's great!  I wish I could do it!  But I'm puzzled by a couple of things.  First, how did he get into a position of being able to sell his work for such huge sums?  Second, who the heck buys his work?  Most of it is enormous - it wouldn't fit in a normal size room - and it's fragile - moving it would probably damage it.

Example 2: Damien Hirst.   Just been reading this article in the Guardian about Hirst creating his own gallery and in a way, going back to what he was good at - curating.  In the past, this was curating other YBAs.  Now it looks as though part of his motivation is to halt the slide in value of his own work.

Example 3: Banksy.   I really love his stuff and I like his supposed attitude.   However, he's also managed to make his work valuable, which in turn has enabled him to take on projects that wouldn't be financially viable.

Example 4:  Grayson Perry.  In this case, I think I prefer his observations and analysis of social conditions more than his actual art.  I like his tapestries but I'm not so keen on his pots and the jury's still out on his "chapel".

I'm not sure whether this would work as an essay topic.  What do you think?