15 October 2014

Contemporary art sketchbook walk - week 2

The first gallery we went to seemed to be out for lunch - no-one there to let us in... so it was on to the next, past some east end Des Res areas -
An old sign carved into the bricks at the end of the building -
The entrance to Cell project space was through a tropical passageway and up the stairs -
into Yuri Pattison's installation, Free Traveller (till 2 November) - video work, sculpture, and a new online work -
Then on to Hada Contemporary on Vyner Street, showing portraits by Chun Kyungwoo (till 30 November), whose work "explores the preconditions that allow human contact". The photographs are taken with long exposures during which the subjects move about a bit, hence the blur. For this group, each man came, at different times, and sat for the number of minutes of his age;
Portraits based on connection - the configuration of the character "ren" which means "human being" -
Along the way to coffee and the passing-around of sketchbooks, planters made from pallets -
Then to Wilkinson and the work of Jewyo Rhii (till 26 October) - cooling systems, ersatz typewriters, strangely cobbled-together objects with a not-quite-whimsical edge -

I loved the look of the ice on the battered tins -

Another gallery door along the way -
Finally to Acme project space, for Sarah Duffy's "Breathless" (till 19 Oct) - her interest in ventriloquism (belly speaking) led to learning to sing without moving her lips.
The gallery plan, or rather the list of works, includes an invisible component - the live ventriloquy performance of the opening night. It was rather compelling to watch the video, as it was.

Our topic for the week was tone, so we started by blackening some pages with charcoal, then both drawing and rubbing out. Of course the charcoal rubs off and/or transfers, but I liked what it did on the blank pages opposite, for instance when I later drew more of the shelving -

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