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This is inspired by my earlier work, which focused on the idea of waste – particularly on the issues of mass-production and single-use products – which I highlighted through the life-cycle of a party popper. In order to highlight the very brief life it lives vs. the waste components that are left when it is spent, I thought it would be ironic to describe its life in the form of a manual. I was inspired by Ikea’s iconic assembly manuals, which impart knowledge in terms of demonstrating how to assemble their products on a step by step basis, without the need for written instructions, just using relatively simple illustrations. My manual uses this format, which concludes with an image of a discarded used popper.
Looking back, I particularly like this piece. Personally, I find its total simplicity effective in drawing the reader’s attention to the life cycle of the product – one that is particularly short. I am also pleased with the final presentation, which appears much like that of a genuine Ikea manual.
To accompany this I created a poster, employing the same graphics used in the manual, to again illustrate the necessary steps, this time in a different format.
Simple impression, in clay, of a party popper. This piece, despite having been created spontaneously, and using scrap material from another piece of work, retains its own creative merit. Regardless of its simplicity, I find it effective in portraying the lasting impression that single-use products have on our environment.
Alongside my response to both the ‘found object’ and Serra’s process of verbs, I have created a GIF, representing the stages a party popper goes through when used. I have done so in an attempt to shed light on the value placed upon simplistic mass-produced, material goods, within our society e.g. clothes that are so cheap they are bought for single use. And how this cycle is constant.
Having read the brief, where we were asked to consider the wide array of objects and images that we interact with within our daily lives, I was slightly overwhelmed by the numerous possibilities that were open to me. Given that anything could be considered a found object (and being fairly indecisive at the best of times), finding artistic merit in an everyday object became particularly frustrating. In the end, I decided to walk to a local supermarket, and walk out with whatever I could find that best fitted the brief, in my eyes. At one level, it was bound to be something mundane and mass manufactured.
I walked out with a bag of assorted party poppers.
In the brief introduction, a list of verbs was provided, suggesting ways in which we could adapt and alter our chosen object in order to produce something new. The list presented was an extract from Richard Serra’s Verb List (1967-68), which had been created as a series of “actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process”. In his own practice, it served as a guide for subsequent works, completed in an array of media. It acted like a linguistic layout, presenting various artistic outputs, dealing with the nature of the process. In an interview, Serra expresses the importance of inventing strategies that allow for more comprehensive and unconventional thinking, moving away from standardised and academic ways of doing so.
In using the list to adapt and alter my object, I hoped to gain a more elemental understanding of the applications and characteristics of certain actions that I could subject my found object to.
Amalgamating Serra’s verb list and the found object, I created a booklet. It includes 50 photographs that present 50 verbs, derived from actions I have subjected my found object to, the party poppers.
‘A found object is a natural or man-made object – or fragment of an object – that is found (or sometimes bought) by an artist and kept because of some intrinsic interest the artist sees in it’
The term ‘found object’ was conceived from a loan translation, that is, a word or phrase directly taken from another language through literal word for word translation. In this case, from the French ‘objet trouvé’. This artistic concept was introduced to the world in the early 20th century, in a period where many artists sought to challenge the traditional notions on the true nature of art, and its value. Art created using the found object, describes undisguised, often altered, objects or products that one could find in day-to-day life. These objects, which lacked any association with art, being an item or thing with their own individual purpose, were considered particularly unconventional, in their use as an artistic medium.
Pablo Picasso, acknowledged globally for his contributions to the development of Modern art during the 20th century, first applied the concept in his painting titled ‘Still Life with Chair Caning’ (1912). The piece was completed on a circular canvas, edged with rope, with a printed image of chair caning. By incorporating industrially produced products (low culture), into the field of fine art (high culture), Picasso effectively opens up a line of questioning, concerning both the role of the technical skills in making art and of mass-produced objects.
Despite Picasso’s earlier involvement, the concept is widely thought to have been perfected, several years later, when Marcel Duchamp released a series of “ready-mades”. They were a group of unchanged, ordinary items, that had been selected and exhibited as art. The highly acclaimed ready-made piece, entitled Fountain (1917), displays a standard urinal, acquired from an ordinary hardware store, on a pedestal. At the time of its exhibit, Duchamp was a board member of the Society of Independent Artists. He had anonymously submitted the piece to the board, and after much deliberation, the rest of the committee went on to state that “its place is not an art exhibition, and it is by no definition, a work of art”. Contrary to the board’s position, Duchamp believed in the importance of intellectual interpretation.
Following this, he left the organization, and in the years leading up to World War I, he too rejected the work of many fellow artists. Artists who created what he classed as “retinal” art – art created with the sole intention of pleasing the eye. Duchamp thought little of this, and instead found greater importance in efficiently utilising art in ways that seek to serve the mind.
My name is Alex, I’m 20 and from South London, Crystal Palace.
I have always been interested in art as a visual language. I love how diverse it can be, the significance it holds in being able to represent feelings, attitudes and opinions. Sometimes blunt and straightforward, and other times indirect and interpretational.
Tolstoy stated, “Art is the activity by which a person, having experienced an emotion, intentionally transmits it to others”. In the transmission of ideas and feelings, this creates a connection between the art and the viewer, artist and viewer, which is what I consider to be at the heart of art itself. This connection, either personal or shared, has the ability, in the right circumstances, to affect the real world. That being said, in some cases, the complete absence of a connection can also have a great effect.
I have explored a range of techniques, from clay to concrete, to printmaking. I have always liked painting, with oil my favourite medium, used predominantly for portraiture. I greatly admire paintings produced during the Italian renaissance, in their methodical approach, and exquisite execution.
In art projects, I have always tried to focus on current issues, issues that are relevant to people’s lives today, whether that be the refugee crisis in Syria, or problems with social housing within the UK. By presenting, and in some way exposing, these concerns, I feel this adds true meaning to my art, and the time and effort it takes to create it. This is something I’d like to carry through onto this course.
