Tutors with badges

Photo credit : D. Orwell

I just love this photo of two of the 3rd year fine art tutors with their own TurnHurst badges. We've made wooden, and black/white acrylic necklaces which a lucky few of you will soon be receiving!

SCARY ANIMALS

Finished this mix cd a few weeks ago and didn't have the time to upload it! The hard-copies are available for 10p, but if you don't want to pay that you can download it here for free!

SCARY ANIMALS

This Work is Good XXX

Perhaps still far too involved with the concepts from our degree show, I can't stop looking at these backwards mirrors by Haegue Yang.

“BACK” from the "Mirror Series", 2007 by Haegue Yang. Oval mirror, hung its back to the front/ its front side to the wall.

This work is good XXIX

Work by Alicjak Wade is utterly incredible!

Watch 6, 2008

Großes C, 2004-2006
(Object-Sound-Installation)

CANDIDATE KANE CAUGHT IN LOVE NEST WITH“SINGER“, 2006

Born in Poland in 1979 (and winner of the 2008 Piepenbrock Förderpreis für Skulptur) Kwade specializes in turning ordinary materials and objects into beautiful, precious images. Some of her work features several precious stones made of non-precious materials, such as "Berliner Bordsteinjuwelen (Berlin Curbside Jewels)" which is an assortment of 100 stones found on the streets of Berlin that have been polished and cut to resemble real precious gemstones. The work has a mysterious, clever clement to it, and visually, is paired down and simply stunning.

p.s. Am so happy to have finished all Uni work and be back blogging!!!

Cow & Panda LTD

It was for the real Student of Da Year (Hannah Bailey) by the super talented Lisa Owens, and me!

Press!

Got a suprise yesterday, TurnHurst have been feature on the cover of the AN magazine degree show supplement! There's also a quote from our blog on pg.4! (below is cover, pg.1 and pg.2)

New ceramics

I know, ceramics within the artworld is on trend at the momen (tapestry is next, just you wait-more on that later), but I couldn't not mention Barnaby Barford. He's been making some really fantastic ceramic sculptures, referencing modern day society. The contrast of this rich, classic material with modern, harsher realities creates an interesting juxtaposition. He's just had a show at Spring Projects with Alice Hawkins which I unfortunately missed, their work looked brilliant together.
They are really similiar to the ones Russian Collective AES+F have made. Entitled Europe-Europe they deal with more global issues than Barford, but essentially are the same, sinister, sardonic creations.
Also see Sam Plagersons Toby Jugs which were recently shown at Cell Project Space. And my review of hip new Whitecuber Rachel Kneebone here.

COLOR in New York

Some pictures taken with my DSLR (which I never use...) from NYC.
Can't wait to go back, 4 days wasn't enough.

Doubles

Beware of imposters!

Films 12-04-09

The Boat that Rocked (15)
Written by the same people who brought us Love Actually, I can't say I actually expected to think this film was incredible. It's had some mixed reviews, so perhaps it's not just me who thinks this too though.
The film has an all star cast including Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans and Nick Frost, who all work well as an ensemble and make you actually believe they had a lot of fun making this film-I'm sure they did. They form the crew of a rock and roll pirate radio station that transmits from a massive ship in the ocean, much to the British Goverments anger. Through in some swearing, drinking, debauchery, mini skirts and classic tunes and you have The Boat that Rocked. The plot is pretty thin on the ground, and has a rather strange ending where after the dramatic, knock-off titanic disaster at the end, the main characters are all saved, and a short montage about how brilliant radio is (complete with a presentation with top albums of the last few years), kind of made me think if it was sponsored by a well known radio station...

If you're a fan of the music, go and see it. If you're not, I'd give it a miss.

Sunshine Cleaning (12)
Struggling single mom Rose (Amy Adams) begins a new business in crime scene clean-up with her slacker of a sister Norah (a superb Emily Blunt).
Don't get me wrong, I did mainly want to see this film because Amy Adams (of JuneBug, Enchanted, Doubt) was in it. And she is mainly the saving grace of this film. It's engaging enough, it's sweet enough (and has a weepy moment) but lacks just that extra substance. Differing to a lot of these bigger-budget quirky films (Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Squid & the Whale, etc.) Sunshine Cleaning doesn't have the simiar comedic edge, great soundtrack and instead deals with some dark subjects exploring grief and loss. The various subplots did seem a little unfinished and un-thought out but that might've added to the intruige and lasting memory of this film.
It's yet to come out in the UK so it'll be interesting to see how they market it, and even more interesting to see how well it does.

3D Art

Thanks to Susie Bubble, I was introduced to Marios Schwab, a designer who is using anaglyphic print dresses that had been designed so as the wearer moves, the pattern seems to be in motion too (I imagine the pattern seems to move without being on a body either). I would love to see them in the flesh!

It got me thinking about artists that use 3d imagery within their work. A quick internet search found Xia Xiowan's work. He paints these strange, dreamlike, lucid pictures on a number of pieces of glass and creates dramatic, engaging effects.

Other interesting links - Swell 3d (comics, information, art and experiments in 3d art), Anaglyph Garden photographic experiements and I think Justin Lieberman has done some work using the same methods but I can't find any online.

P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Centre

P.S. 1 is MOMA's younger, contemporary, cooler sister. Based at an old school in Queens, the gallery shows some of the best, innovative, engaging artwork I've seen in a while. It's cheap too, $5 suggested donation for adults, $2 for students. Here are some of the artists and pieces that I really enjoyed when I was there a few weeks ago.

Leandro Erlich : Swimming Pool
The first piece many people know about, and the first piece most people see at PS1 is Swimming Pool by Leandro Erlich, and as you would expect from the title-it's a swimming pool. But it has a twist. Set on lovely dark wood flooring, much resembling a luxurious health spa or sauna, the pool looks good enough to dive into. It's so welcoming and inviting, the movement the water creates in a gallery, a normally fixed, sterile environment makes a real change. Walking down a set of stairs at the back of the decking you soon realise what is so special about this swimming pool. You can walk inside it. By inside i mean underneath, and in, and about. It is a surreal, unforgettable experience, one that changes perceived conceptions and than tests all the senses.

Jonathan Horowitz : And/Or

I had never heard of Horowitz before seeing his work at PS1 and I'm so annoyed as he is utterly incredible! So much of his work resonated with work that I have done, or am planning to do! One stand out piece was the first you encounter in the space, a video projection; Maxell (1990) is of the image of the well-known videocassette brand logo from a tape copied many times over, the word deteriorates into a blur of static as the information on the tape erodes. By noting the value systems in media, this piece highlights the disposability of technology, and now, as VHS tape is officially dead this work becomes all the more resonant.

Much of his other work, focused on politics and it's connection with pop iconography. A lot of the imagery could be seen as crass, or obvious but the way Horowitz handles these subjects is visually intruiging. By focusing on the audiences experience, he makes a clear argument between clean pop culture and the rotting flesh of war.

His work seems to exploit the Warholian question; does art imitate life or exploit death. Specifically the two-channel (found footage) video piece; The Soul of Tammi Terrell. One monitor plays a 1967 tape of this pop singer, who died of a brain tumour, performing her hit Ain't No Mountain High Enough and the other monitor shows Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts singing the same song in the chick flick Stepmom in which Sarandon played a character dying of cancer.

Florian Slotawa

Rather than creating new work from scratch, Florian Slotawa uses materials that already exist, that he owns, and which he then rearranges. In his work he uses furniture to assemble complex structures that respond to the surroundings, experiences and spaces in which they are in.

In his exhibition at PS1, Slotawa has made the 12th in a series of works he began in 1996 called Besitzarbeiten (or property works). His own washing machine, dining table, wardrobe, sink, and chairs have been transported from his Berlin apartment to the gallery and reformed into a towering structure of modern living. The objects are familiar, and look like they have been used and have a history to, whilst exhibited they are not damaged or changed in any way and once the exhibition ends they will continue to be used by Slotawa. By placing these well known objects in a gallery, he questions the relationship between the artist and the institution of the museum.