Gabriel Kuri

Classical Symmetry, Historical Data, Subjective Judgement

01 March – 26 May 2012
4 New Burlington Place, W1

Whats happening in my studio about a week out from hand in...

With the addition of taking photos as a form of documentation rather than as works. Then having them printed out, and through a decision made by the printing guy - I have a new work. A photo printed twice. It has a sequential movement - more of an action than a still frame. With photos I feel there is so much that can be read into them and so much baggage surrounding them which I get nervous about. I talked to Monique about how a photo can start as documentation and then turn into a work that has the ability to sit by itself. 

The picture on the right is provisionally propped against the wall, the painted back to it creates the glow. I am not all that interested in the glow created off the back, but I think with the photograph propped up against the propped up wood - it turns into a set of instructions almost. The pictures are of me engaging with the wood. It shows the viewer what it's been used for and how they could engage with it. Which is an idea that I really like.

These objects I see as physical representations of a gesture. They hold a softness even though they are solid. The middle one was the first and I painted it to look like a giant blob of blue-tack. These started out because I had blobs of clay that had semi dried - so I let them dry and painted them up.

This hanging wood is the result of a failed test. I was trying to get the wood to sit balanced horizontally out from the wall using the tension on the string. It didn't work, but this work had a nice twisting movement when it was trying to find its point of balance - I like that a point of balance was found by the object itself, instead of me balancing it.

After talking to Ian, he noticed that the nail that I have used in this work is semi curved. Something that came about because of my bad hammering skills. But Ian saw the curve and saw the curve of the propped up wood sheet and saw a connection. We started talking about how a small subtle gesture preformed just once can go un-noticed or thought of as a mistake. But a small gesture preformed over and over a few times will attract attention. 

Joan Jonas

I have been reading an interview between Joan Jonas and Karin Schneider that is an interesting conversation about Jonas's work - talking about her drawing/video relationships that she creates and the function of the mirror to her.

To Jonas using video creates a kind of double space, creating two different time experiences for the viewer.

The word Gestalt was used throughout the interview and not knowing what it meant, I googled it: refers to a 'wholeness'; a perceptual pattern or structure possessing qualities as a wholethat cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts. These pictures make that last statement make sense visually. 

Happening (event, performance, action)

The happening is an evolving action carried out within a defined environment. Notwithstanding a general direction established in advance, there remains a large margin for improvisation while it is in progress, and the reactions of the spectators may in turn influence the action under way. 

In the course of the twentieth century, painting and sculpture gradually went beyond their respective two- and three-dimensional limits to gradually take the form of assemblages. These in turn were to evolve into environments and then, with the introduction of live participants, into happenings. Indeed, these events grew out of the search for more direct relations between artist and public, or between art and life, and the rejection of the power of the market over art.

(Taken from http://www.newmedia-art.info/cgi-bin/show-oeu.asp?ID=ML000002&lg=GBR) 

Play Project #2

After showing Andy my last photos we discussed ways to present them. The idea that I jelled with was a projection of stills of either a chronological sequence from a movement or stills from a recording that I pick out. Only problem is a lack of projectors at the moment... We also talked about painting the wood that I was engaging with. To bring it back into painting. So I chose to paint it a fluro yellow that is the same as the builders string that I used in my work in the year 2 show. Then today I used the wood and re shot some of the pictures from the first shoot plus some new ones.
Below are a few of my favorites from today:

Play Project #28, 2/10/12, Ply wood, paint. Level 5 foyer            

 

 Play Project #40, 2/10/12, Ply wood, paint. Level 5 foyer         Play Project #34, 2/10/12, Ply wood, paint. Level 5 foyer

 

Play Project #35, 2/10/12, Ply wood, paint. Level 5 foyer             Play Project #39, 2/10/12, Ply wood, paint. Level 5 foyer

 

Play Project #37, 2/10/12, Ply wood, paint. Level 5 foyer             Play Project #38, 2/10/12, Ply wood, paint. Level 5 foyer

 

Little video work

I had been playing around with rubber bands at my desk when reading. Pulling them around through my fingers, then I thought I might try to video it. 
It took a few attempts to take this video - first time around I couldn't upload it to the computer. In this first video I started filming it with no thought taken into how I was going to finish it/decide when to finish it. But after about four minutes the rubber band flung off my fingers and out of the video screen. And so that was the end. This time around when I got sick of lying on the ground I just left it. 

*Play with low or no sound - has talking in background*

Rubber Band, 2/10/12, 3mins 14sec

Play Project: Thinking about Alicia Frankovich, Laresa Kosloff and Joan Jonas

After a chat with Andy a few days ago and talking through some other artists that I could be looking at, which included Joan Jonas and Bruce Nauman. After watching a few of their video works on Youtube, it kind of gave me the courage to pick up a camera and start to play. The simplicity of some of the works allowed me to purely play because I had seen that it need not be complicated. I also realise that I need to talk to other lectures who have different practices so that I can gather other perspectives on directions I could explore.

I started out shooting a video of my hands playing with a rubber band. Then I moved out to the foyer space with a camera and three pieces of ply wood. After showing the photos to Tarryn, she came and took photos for me so that my body could be in the shots and have a relationship to the materials I was playing with. This I had a lot more fun with and liked having someone to bounce ideas off. Having Tarryn taking the photos also meant that I didn't have a control over the photos which would end up as the works themselves as documentation of my actions and experiments. This type of freedom is similar to Alicia Frankovich's way of using audience members of untrained performers in many of her performance works - so that they never holds an exact and predetermined outcome.

Below are couple of images that Tarryn and I took yesterday. Click on the tab at the top called "Work" for more of the photos.

Push Back, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In foyer of level 4

Play Project #2, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In foyer of level 4

Play Project #1, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In stairwell between level 5 and 4

Play Project #3, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In foyer of level 4

Play Project #4, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In foyer of level 4

Play Project #5, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In foyer of level 4

Play Project #6, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In foyer of level 4

Play Project #7, 2/10/12, Ply wood. In doorway, foyer of level 4