Relocation to www.jasperweinsteinsheffield.com

I have now constructed a website for my practice - www.jasperweinsteinsheffield.com

My current and past projects will be displayed in detail as will upcoming, present and past exhibitions.

I have also relocated my blog to the website, you can access it directly at www.jasperweinsteinsheffield.com/blog

Cheers!

I am now looking at what I think I will be submitting for my degree show, currently rather a frightening thought! I know that my work will definitely feature the growing and cultivation of plants, probably grass. I have a vision of a large space covered in turf that the viewer has to navigate across, health and safety can go shove it.
Conceptually I have been looking at the history and ideology behind gardens and in particularly the landscape gardens of the 18th century. The two models I have seen and the French and the English landscape garden. The former concerns the display of beauty using nature as a material. French gardens were grand and carefully orchestrated, relying on pattern and symmetry. They were also the property of the rich aristocracy. The English model was much more interesting, with the concerns surrounding the sublime and the emergence of the enlightenment came a new respect for the beauty and power found organically in nature. The gardens of England looked to show this natural beauty and opened up the land for leisure yet also considered functionality. Open spaces could breed livestock to raise money and offer employment. Rather than the private gardens of the upper classes, these spaces were often public, providing egalitarian environments were the populace could mingle.
I find these ideas really interesting for a 21st century context. Providing public space that is egalitarian reminds me of the WochenKlauser boat trips I discussed in my dissertation. I have a desire to connect all the areas of my practice that are currently floating around all over the place. A work which connects the social, political but has an underlying environmental context would be a perfect piece to propose for the degree show.

Again and again and again and again, do it again.

Exhibition Concepts.

·       An exhibition in university, hopefully as soon as possible.

·       Looking to exhibit new work and see artworks in a non-studio context.

·       Annexe Project space? Need to work out the logistics.

·       If using project space how do we fill it?

·       Do we want extra participants or to keep it just a two man show.

·       Look to consider the political context of work and how these ideas can be circumnavigated.

·       Dark room. Could we have a film piece?

From the success of CONTROVERTER, Oliver Perry and myself are looking to construct another pop-up exhibition. The previous exhibition allowed new avenues of thought and I believe that new considerations started to appear, considerations that came about through the practical and conceptual developments of exhibiting and curating.

Because of these positive developments that came out of exhibiting in a group show, we have decided to exhibit again as soon as we felt we could successfully show new work. This time, mainly due to the bureaucratic and financial pressures of exhibiting outside of university, we have decided to use the Annexe Project Space for a two-man show of our work. The space is currently being used for the second year shows but we have almost managed to procure an evening show on Tuesday 5^th March. We are just looking to finalise with the administration and security.

We believe that our work compliments the other’s practice and will come together in the small confines of the project space. As CONTROVERTER was located in the large open space of Bridge+Tunnel, it was able to function in a particularly way. The work was never segregated, even Susie Stott’s video work, which was located in a dark room attached to the main hall felt truly connected to the other artworks. This time if we definitely use the project space the exhibition will be completely different. The nature of the space is that it is separated into different spaces, ideal for the second year group shows but potentially a challenge for linking together the work of two artists. There is also a dark room that could be interesting to use, as we both are interested in the construction of moving image artworks. However neither has explored it in great depth and it could be a afterthought rather than a considered piece.

The work

Currently I would like to exhibit a few pieces, I am growing another turf piece, this time from scratch and believe that even if it is still in the process of growing it would provide an interesting dialogue to my practice. Since my tutorials with Tim, Michael and Fiona I think I have a few areas to explore and really consider which direction I want my practice to move into. Whilst embracing ideas of landscape and the natural environment it seems that there will always be an ecological context so perhaps I should move away from bluntly shouting my opinions. This troubles me however as I do like the idea of making some work that does bluntly put my considerations on the table. This needs to act without taking anything away from the visual power of my work. Again this is obviously something I need to give a lot of thought before the exhibition.

I feel I have three works that I would feel comfortable developing and eventually exhibiting. One is the turf piece that I spoke about above and another is a piece that utilises the Perspex cubes that I failed to construct. The half cubes that I made were not watertight and therefore drip their contents out onto the floor. I have been thinking about using colour in my work again, something that I have only been using for my personal aesthetic pleasure rather than to compliment my concepts. I have been looking at creating naturally dyed liquids, for example using beetroot and spinach. I would like to explore an idea that directly engages with my political interests and I believe it would be a powerful work if I can manage to successfully navigate certain problems. I have a canvas, which I would place underneath the five half-cubes that would be then suspended above at about head height. During the exhibition I would pour five coloured liquids into each of the half-cubes and allow their contents to fall onto the canvas. The liquids would be filled to different levels and would be coloured to represent the main three political parties, Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat and also two parties which are commonly represented in the media, Greens and UKIP. The levels would be representative of the each party’s environmental commitment. The canvas will soak up the liquid and hopefully the colours will soak together, showing that all these opinions eventually cancel each other out and form sickly mulch, showing that the constant environmental bickering is standing in the way of action.

Finally I would like to consider my interest in the architectural development of space, especially when using sustainable natural materials. Many Japanese architects have triggered off interest that I can use to direct new movements in my practice. Sou Fujimoto has just been announced to construct the 2013 Serpentine Pavillion and I have been looking at both his designs and the paper based constructions of Shigeru Ban and would like to explore this medium to construct sculptures that consider architectural space.

Post tutorial thoughts and new works.

I have had a series of diverse and informative tutorials with Tim and Michael and another with Fiona Crisp.
The first tutorial was with Tim and Michael and was nicely informal. Though the grad fellow's studio is based just behind mine it was useful to have a conversation in a tutorial context. The main outline of the tutorial was a discussion on how I felt my work wasn't successfully conveying the messages I wanted. Whilst my work has always considered the environment and raising awareness of ecology, I recently wanted my message to be a lot stronger. The perspex work that I had been creating just felt a bit stale in this conceptual context.
It was suggested that my work was relying too much on its aesthetic qualities, something that is instantly attributed to the perspex pieces with its references to minimalists such as Judd and the constructivist Naum Gabo. This aesthetic prominence was sacrificing my conceptual qualities and it was put across that maybe I should work in a sphere outside of my comfort zone.
After writing my dissertation on socially engaged art practice I thought about the idea of having an event, Tim spoke of a way of directly transferring information through to the audience, perhaps video or performance. I decided to book out the dark space and create a quick experimental solution to my problems.

This arose in the form of a handout that the audience would be invited to take with them. It would be loaded with information gathered from various internet sources and would provide statements about environmental policies, statistics and other ecologically relevant material.

The second tutorial was with Fiona Crisp and was much more critical. Again I spoke of my lack of satisfaction with how my practice had progressed this semester. Fiona went down a different avenue that the previous tutorial and pointed out how she thought my most successful work had been the turf pieces that were exhibited in CONTROVERTER. The invitation of the landscape into the studio brought forward successful conversation and had driven my practice forward. The perspex pieces were not moving forward as they were just works that had been created through the pleasure I received from creating them, using materials that pleased me in both a tactile and aesthetic fashion.
I have now decided to attempt to create another turf piece but grow it from seed this time rather than buying turf. The idea of growth in a studio and eventually death has an interesting environmental context, almost the idea of bringing in the landscape as an attempt to save it and preserve it.

We shall see how this progresses...

Progress...

While fantasising about making water and airtight perspex cubes, the harsh realisation is that to fabricate them myself would require probably more skill and time that I possess! I managed to make five half-cubes to assemble together but even with the correct solvents I cannot make them watertight. I think this would be possible if I painstakingly sanded down the edges and took some classes in holding my hands steady...
So I looked at getting the fabrication done outside of university. Unfortunately my love of expensive materials is starting to get in the way. I received a quote of £170 (!) for four 200mm cubes which is definitely out of my price range for an experimental work. Ah well.

Here's how the cubes are sitting at the moment, I have an idea that will utilise my failure and transform these pieces into a new installation work. This will be focused around the visual display of the main UK political parties commitment to environmental issues.

My next piece... (I think at least)

You know that annoying feeling when you find an artist who has literally done everything you have been trying to do but better and about fifty years ago?

Yeah thank you Hans Haacke and your Condensation Cube..

Now though I'm going to take this as inspiration. The next piece I wish to construct (and I WILL be documenting it on here) four of these cubes, taking direct influence from Haacke. I want to experiment with the ideas of condensation and constructing an environment, perhaps placing plants or leaf pulp in these airtight cubes. Additionally I want to embrace sound in my work and potentially have these cubes on plinths with speakers inside. I wish to source political speeches on the environment and climate change and stretch and distort them so much that I can layer them into tones. In my opinion the more that climate change gets mentioned the more distorted the facts become and politicians all start sounding the same, yet not acting on anything at all in their policies.

We shall see anyways.

Auction Pieces!

Our auction is a week tomorrow!
www.nufineartauction.weebly.com
Fancy them?

'The Green Deal'

'Y'know, I just thought it would be around forever...'

Woon Prize Submission

I have just submitted my application for the Woon Art Prize. Should be interesting... I always find that photographing my work definitely alters how I perceive its function. The joy in this piece (currently untitled as I am going through a phase of retitling my work) is that, like most of my work, it almost comes in an assemble-it-yourself form. By this I mean that the works never have a solid form and apart from the cubes, can be changed and moved around. This means that although I do sometimes forget the exact way the piece looked previously (professional I know), the work seems to be more mobile and the inconsistency allows the piece to function in a more dynamic fashion.

Rob Kennedy

Having a tutorial with Rob Kennedy was very useful in opening up areas of my practice that I had been considering whilst writing my dissertation. These particular elements were focused on ideas of collaboration and participation and additionally the subversion of the traditional white cube gallery.

During my tutorial we touched upon Kennedy’s past exhibitions, especially his show at CCA in Glasgow. In this show he invited a group of artists and used their work to create a dialogue between the sometimes contrasting practices and methodologies. Also he broke down the conventions of the gallery space by relocating walls and integrating detritus from the back rooms of the gallery into the curation and the actual works. One piece that I found interesting was a tennis table piece. The table was set up in the gallery space and invited the gallery viewers to interact with it. This idea of interaction is something that I have struggled with throughout my time at university and by placing such an almost confrontational object in a gallery, the interaction was bluntly thrown at the viewer.

These ideas rather excited me as I have been looking into involving a more curatorial context with my work. Kennedy suggested having an exhibition in my university house, again something that me and my flatmates have been considering for a while. The subversion of traditional exhibition spaces could allow my work to function in a different context to that normally associated with the white cube. I am going to look into the politics of hosting an exhibition, if any, mainly regarding health and safety and see what the likelihood of this coming together could be.

As I was between studio spaces there wasn’t much of my work around which was quite useful in a way as I focused mainly on the conceptual areas that I had trouble with. We addressed many of these issues through conversations that lead to the above.

The lecture was slightly underwhelming after how inspiring the tutorial had been, though it was interesting to see images of the CCA show and to hear Kennedy go into more detail about certain parts of his practice.

I also went to a video screening/performance later that evening and was inspired to see some of Kennedy’s recent work. A particular piece stood out above the rest as it had a political context. It was an intense piece that essentially overloaded the senses through sound and moving image. This made me consider the use of sound in my work and also how I could potentially integrate video into my work. I particularly enjoyed the stretching and warping of speech. Now I am looking at distorting speeches from political statements and seeing if I can turn them into tones or choruses.