Bleeding Flowers
Canned tuna led to weird stomachache. I have been staying in bed all day long, yet still feeling tired. Today, I’ve realized that the hectic life in the Academy became such a part of me in only 3 weeks. I feel that I’ve missed a lot today. Now, Marc Monzo’s talk is taking place and I’m writing these lines.
Last night, Imran Qureshi gave a talk at Galerie Ropac. Today, I have been thinking of the bleeding flowers of Imran Qureshi. Flowers have been an important element for feminist painters such as Georgia O’Keeffe or Judy Chicago. Besides its resemblance to vagina in terms of form, re-narrating the characteristics that are attributed to women and flowers was crucial to them. In Qureshi’s oeuvre flowers are symbols of life and they bleed. The dichotomies such as life and death, domestic and uncanny resonate in the work of Qureshi.
Miniature is a technique that requires serious concentration. During the talk, Qureshi mentioned how he started to paint miniatures. The painter used to believe his temper would never fit to such a calm way of working, however his professor insisted on him to try. After a while, Qureshi decided to challenge the given regulations of this centuries-old tradition: he played with the framing – nowadays he even works with installations – or painted contemporary figures in traditional postures of miniatures – for instance, his brother in 1970s costume. Such a quaint tenet alters in the hands of Qureshi.
Imran Qureshi, Moderate Enlightenment, 2009
Collection: Ali & Amna Naarvi. Courtesy of the artist and Corvi-Mora, London.
Among those figures, one of them is Qureshi’s religious student, who was making music and carving sculptures like all the others in the art school. However, because of his religious clothes, he was always othered as “The Molla”. In some paintings, the student is wearing socks with a camouflage pattern. According to Qureshi: “If we wear such patterns, this becomes a fashion statement. But when a religious person wears this, it becomes a threat.” The white-knucle that aroused especially after 9/11…
Imran Qureshi’s talk was followed by a public intervention of the performance artist Daphna Meros, who is taking the Public Space class. Meros problematizes the signs in the city and the (silent) regulations generated by/for the pedestrians. The intervention was consisted of two parts (unfortunately, I had to leave before it was over as a result of dizziness). In the first part, Meros asked the participants to walk through a narrow alley – first, one by one then with a partner and afterwards in an uncontrolled flow; by looking at the floor, to the sky; walking backwards; making zigzags; stopping to make eye contact and not allowing other to pass…Using different speed and changing the order transformed the intervention into an urban dance.
Archaic Way of Taking Photos
"Funny, how sometimes life gives you things... You just have to try", said Valerié Jouve, while talking about a camera with math professor and dedicated photographer Peter Hallekalek on the way to the Kiefer Quarry in Fürstenbrunn to visit Andreas Lolis's class on sculpture. How true!
After passing by the beautiful scenery with small houses, we arrived to Fürstenbrunn. Students of this class live and work together in the space for the period of a month. They wake up, have coffee, use the flex to shape the stone, make sketches, look up to the mountains, hammer the stone; gather around the grill, have drinks during deep conversations or just chat a little, get drunk, dislike each other or maybe make out...As one of them said the other day: the Quarry is kind of like the art version of the reality show Big Brother – well, exaggerating of course.
Andrea Lolis sculpts marble to create polymeric foam, black plastic bags, or say, a gift as he has been carving today. Because of its looks one expects the material to be really light. The heaviness of marble in contrast creates confusion. For instance, Nina Kerschbaumer couldn't be sure if the leftover plastic nearby is also marble or not.
Jouve introduced a camera to the class, which she calls "archaic way of making picture." The camera is so simple: "one optic, one film and a space in between." As the camera allows playing with angles, the perspective and the feeling of the space change incredibly.
Here, almost all of us are non-native speakers. Therefore, from time to time we use different words than a native speaker would do, which also, from time to time, leads to poetry. In that manner, I love how Jouve plays with the language. For the photographer "the machine corrects the perspective" and I will "nourish the blog", when I'll get more images from the class.
Nourish... Such a nice word...
Confusion of the tourists
pictures on flesh
“Literal madness: images written not just as words on the page, but as pictures on flesh.” (p.138)
Pictures on flesh… Tattoos – like poetry or, say, painting – are gestures of life… Before starting to write, I usually have a 30 minutes exercise that I let go of words – Jennifer Allen taught that technique two years ago in her writing class at the Academy. It’s reminiscent of a gestural painting. This morning, I’ve learned that Irina Nakhova’s class start with such gestures as well. In a similar fashion, Melissa Gordon and the students were marking with various objects – just putting traces on a huge paper laid on the floor.
Painter Beatriz Morales, who is in Nakhova’s class, showed me a series of hers: Hidden Truth (2015-2016). Basically, Morales paints images of violence by covering the main act with a splash of paint. Another simple gesture, yet veiling something uncanny.
Beatriz Morales, Hidden Truth Copper, 300 x 500 cm
How do you survive in the world as an artist? asked Irina Nakhova in the class today. Do you teach? Do you have a side job? Do you try to sell your work?
I would add: do you cry out loud from time to time?
End of week 2
