patternsthatconnect

At last I got to see the show Construction and its Shadow at Leeds Art Gallery, that had appeared on the Abstraktion blog a few weeks ago.

Constructivism and its Shadow at Leeds Art Gallery, May 2011 - finishing soon

When I mentioned to the museum attendant how good I thought it was she seemed pleased that I liked it (we all like to get a ‘like’ every now and again). She said that most people who comment say that it’s rubbish.

What? Most of this work is ‘old’, the exhibition is a reminder of a tradition. Surely, the fact of abstraction has lost its ability to shock, surprise and elicit “a child could have done that” by now. Especially this work, most of it is quite complex and I would have thought difficult to dismiss. Well, I have been wrong before!

In my continuing quest to see abstract art outside of London, I had a good day in Leeds. At the Constructivism exhibition I was particularly interested in the work by Jeffrey Steele. Later, I noticed that at the seminar I missed, about the influence of the British Constructivist and Systems groups, Jeffrey Steele had been speaking and I wished I had been there.

Jeffrey Steele, SG 1 62, Oil on Canvas

In the permanent collection of contemporary art (post 1880 I think was their definition) I saw a Robyn Denny that I haven’t seen for ages. When I saw it, I remembered hat I had seen it before, at Leeds many years ago. I also imagined that, back then I saw a big John Hoyland painting, but if I did it wasn’t there today. (Just checking the catalogue I downloaded from the gallery website, there is a Hoyland in their collection. I would have liked to see that)

There were three impressive John Walker paintings, as well as some by Terry Frost (not his best), and one by Gillian Ayres (Helios 1990, not my favourite).

There were some interesting paintings in the other collections, I particularly enjoyed looking at an Ivon Hitchens landscape.

Then, visiting the cafe was an art experience itself, not the food necessarily (which was good and reasonably priced), but the environment of the Tiled Hall

Tiled Hall 1

Tiled Hall 2

Tiled Hall 3

Tiled Hall ceiling

well, this is definitely the ceiling

On the way out I did wonder whether you could see too much Henry Moore (!)

Henry Moore figure outside Leeds Art Gallery, looking away from the gallery

Henry Moore figure outside Leeds Art Gallery, looking towards the gallery

perhaps not.

Henry Moore Institute

We did go into the Henry Moore Institute attached to the Gallery (nice building) and looked at interesting photographs and sculptural pieces by Jean-Marc Bustamante, but in a hurry, because it was very nearly 5pm and they were getting ready to close.

‘Mind and body are one system’ is an NLP mantra (like  ‘you cannot not communicate’ and ‘the meaning of he communication is the response you receive’)). Many of these originate in Gregory Bateson’s writings. In Steps to an Ecology of Mind, referencing Aldous Huxley, Bateson argues that integrating mind and body, conscious and unconscious, achieves a state of grace, and that art has precisely this function. I find something similar in Stephen Gilligan‘s work, where self-relations is about integrating cognitive and somatic minds.

In Tony Godfrey’s book Painting Today, discussing Jonathan Lasker’s paintings, he explains that Lasker makes postcard-size drawings or doodles, with ballpoint pen and oil, and transposes them to large paintings as a way of consciously appreciating the unconscious.

I like the idea that the small-sized work: drawing, doodle,sketch, engages the somatic or unconscious mind (perhaps like automatic writing) and that one approach to integrating the two minds is to then transpose the product of the unconscious,consciously, to a larger scale painting.

I hope that it is appreciation rather than exploitation.

My son Joel suggested that some people tend only to see optical effects when someone else brings them to their attention. Will you join me in an experiment?

Look at this painting and note what you see, especially noticing the optical effects.

Glow Grid: abbiedawn, 13 05 11, Acrylic on Canvas, 61cm x 61 cm

Now, did you see the white discs in the middle of the squares, secondary in intensity to the coloured discs, or is it only now I have mentioned it that you can see them?

Please let me have your answer by using this poll

Thanks for your help.

Gregory Bateson faced his students with what he said was an aesthetic question: “what pattern connects the crab to the oyster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me, and me to you?”

Lines of symmetry, erupting into pattern, transforming into speed, colour and line,  a million lines never precisely repeating: the pattern which connects.

This wonderful audio-visual slideshow by Christopher Kinman, posted on The Rhizome Network, is an appreciation of Gregory Bateson entitled The Pattern Which Connects (click on slideshow to view it now).

I got the following little exercise from a paper by Donald D. Hoffman. It is possible to see one of two cubes here. (You can see them both, but not at the same time.)

The subjective Necker cube (Bradley and Petry, 1977)

One has corner A in front (cube A), and one has corner B in front (cube B).

Which of the two cubes do you see first?

Whichever one you see first, note that you’ve seen it, and then allow it to shift, so that you see the other one. Amazing, isn’t it? (Maybe it’s childish of me to get so fascinated by this and to keep on shifting from one to the other just for fun.)

If there were two of you viewing this figure together, one of you could be viewing cube A and one of you could be viewing cube B, thus seeing a different cube even though you are looking at the same thing. Then, when it shifts, one could turn to the other and say “I’m seeing the same one as you now” and the other reply “no I am not seeing that one any more, I am seeing the other one”. You could continue to look at the same thing together and both continue to see a different cube, even after it has shifted.

Now the important questions: where is cube A when you are viewing cube B? and what are the implications for our everyday perception of the world?

In the workplace I have mentioned before there are some Albert Irvin limited editions. They look a lot like his paintings. not as big, but big for screen prints.

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Here’s a link to a little film of Irvin looking at some of his own paintings in the storeroom of the Tate and talking about them. He says they are abstract painting, and adds “whatever that is”.

Then at the end, when asked how he would like to be remembered as an artist, he answers “I would like to be remembered!”

There’s something about this place I really like

I don’t like that I missed the Bridget Riley show at the museum and art gallery even though I was in Birmingham I few times whilst it was showing.

What contemporary art do they have in the permanent collection? There will surely be an abstract painting or two. I must go there on normal opening times and check it out.

Meanwhile, if you know what I might see there (other than Pre-Raphaelite stuff that doesn’t interest me much) please let me know in comments.

In the workplace I mentioned yesterday, there are also these three art works by an unknown artist.

The various artworks at this site were purchased when under previous management, perhaps a CEO who thought they were good investments (they probably were) or that it is the responsibility of business to support the arts (it probably is), or maybe she just liked them? Anyway,  they have recently been catalogued but no one seems to know who made these three abstract painting/relief/collages.  Noticing that the collector went for living UK artists maybe that narrows it down a little bit.

Please comment if you think you may know who made them.

If your workplace had John Hoylands on the wall would it become a place of joy?

In an office where I sometimes work there are a few Hoyland limited edition prints from the 80s and 90s.

Early in the morning, before most people get to work, I sometimes go and view them.

Mostly they just get ignored,

They are in meeting rooms,

Unlooked at, they just ‘brighten up the place’.

I am enjoying this one a lot just now

It reminds me of one of Hoyland’s paintings from around the same  time this piece was made (1986).  The painting is entitled ‘Lust and Luxuries’ 1984 (it is reproduced in issue nine of Turps Banana, accompanying an interesting interview with Hoyland by Peter Dickinson) and is reminiscent of a plate of cakes. The workplace print (is it a lithograph?) looks more abstract than ‘Lust and Luxuries’ yet it does have plate of food associations for me. Does it for you?

I think it also has face associations. I don’t want to see the towards-violet shape near the bottom edge as a mouth yet I do.

A friend with synaesthesia once said to me that he knew paintings were good when he wanted to eat them!

When it’s not abstract colours and shapes it’s a plate of food or a face with a mouth possibly ready to eat a plate of food. I have the feeling that I am not supposed to be thinking in terms of associations in relation to Hoyland’s oeuvre, and at the same time I wonder of these food and eating associations are part of what makes the print attractive to me. Or maybe I have an oral fixation and I’m saying a lot more about me now than I am about the picture.

…according to John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St, Clair the territory isn’t even the territory, (Whispering in the Wind page 25). They use the term First Access (FA) for the point where we gain access to information about the world through our sensory systems. The information received at FA is already a map, though we are accustomed to think of it as the territory. The vast majority of what is out there never reaches our senses, and the information that does reach us is also transformed. FA is the product of these transforms or mappings. Grinder/St Clair use the abbreviation F1 to refer to the set of mappings that occur before FA.

Then there are the linguistic transforms that take place after FA, the mappings that we usually refer to when, with Alfred Korzybski, we say “the map is not the territory”. Grinder/St Clair use the term F2 to refer to these transforms, our linguistically mediated mental maps.

It seems to me that abstract painting is particularly well placed to explore the pre-linguistic, F1 transforms or mappings or representations, that occur between the events of the real world and our visual perceptions (It can and does also explore F2 mappings as does figurative painting).

Glow Grid: abbiedawn, 13 05 11, Acrylic on Canvas, 61cm x 61 cm

The coloured discs you really see in this painting are not out there in the external world, they are not on the surface of the painting. Neither are the 49 bright white discs that appear in the centres of the squares (especially when you look slightly sideways). They are part of the F1 transforms, mappings or representations that take place between the world out there and FA. I suggest that whilst that’s so for everything you see including the canvas, knowing that these colour/shapes exist only in our  F1 mappings shows us something about that mapping process. I think the painting is helping us to model colour.

Something else about these subjective/colour shapes that intrigues me is that we see the discs as perfect circles. Although the drawing is inaccurate we see the discs as if they were accurately rendered… your eye is more accurate than my hand. Your representation or map is, in this respect, more accurate than the territory.