patternsthatconnect

I am interested in the use of colour in sculpture. Here’s a picture of one of Eva Rothschild’s at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, entitled Someone and Someone , 2008

Colour is both physical and non-physical (optical) at the same time. It has the power to de-materialise the material as well as bring it to our attention.

I have written before about signs and art.

This sign is art

Leo Fitzmaurice, Arcadia (one of a series scattered around YSP)

whereas this sign is not

Just because it is at Yorkshire Sculpture Park does not mean it is art

The function of the Leo Fitzmaurice sign is different to the function of the caution sign. However this could simply be that they are differing kinds of sign. One is a label and the other is a warning.

Though Arcadia is a label sign, the thing (or place) labelled is absent, bringing our attention to its absence. It reminds us that the map is not the territory, the name is not the thing named (Korzybski).

The Arcadia sign refers to a past, almost forgotten, inaccessible reality (or myth) and elicits action which is more like not-acting: the act of reflecting. For me, that makes it different to other label signs.

In one way the caution sign is similar, it requires a ‘slowing down’ a reflectiveness of sorts. Though its hardly a reflection on signs and their relationship to our experience, or on art and life. If the caution sign were to elicit this kind of reflectiveness it would have failed to do its job, we would no longer be proceeding with caution.

Here’s another sign from YSP (again not art)

Warning sign alerting us to read signs!

It is a sign about signs! (You might need to click on the image to get the smaller print.)

It reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets obsessed with putting up safety signs and eventually resorts to putting up signs exhorting us to take note of the signs.

Sometimes someone mistook art for non-art.

Sometimes someone (deliberately) mistook non-art for art,

in which case did it become art? Or maybe just non-art, or what about non-non-art?

The sign says

"Please do not climb on the Sol LeWitt"

yet the art work says

"Please climb on me"

The meaning of the communication is the response it elicits, not necessarily the intention of the communicator.

My guess is that  Sol LeWitt knew that one of the meanings of this piece would become  “climb on me”, maybe it is the message of all public sculptures ( some more than others).

The sign not to climb, the verbal communication, is incongruent with the non-verbal communication, the sign that is the art work itself. Possibly, that’s why people ignore it, or notice it after they have already transgressed! I suppose it’s a lot like “do not walk on the grass”.

In our visit to the sculpture park our party got separated for a short while. There was Luke, Charlie and I wondering where the other four had got to, and when we met up they told us about how they had negotiated 71 steps. I asked if the 71 steps had been art. Yes, it was a piece by David Nash.

They had also been in a viewing gallery that was not art. David described it  as “like a cage within a cage” and told us how he had feared he would not be able to get out. He kept telling us how it had felt to be ‘trapped’ inside. It started to sound like an art experience to me.

“Is that the viewing gallery over there?” I asked, pointing to a structure in the distance.

viewing gallery (?)

Yes it was…

…and yes it was art. It was Basket #7 by Winter/Horbelt.

Did their not knowing it was art make it an even more interesting experience?  Was it more art the less they knew that it was art?

At YSP the other day (see yesterday’s blog), I was amazed at how much the sheep seemed to appreciate this Barbara Hepworth (or is it by Henry Moore?)

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Sheep can’t read the sign that says “please do not climb on the sculptures” but they do seem to be able to read the non-verbal ‘sign’ that says “walk around me”.

I didn’t want to watch a wedding on TV,  so to somewhere outdoors with art….. Yorkshire Sculpture Park.  Surely, the most accessible modern and contemporary art venue in the UK.  I went with six members of my family, some of whom were less interested in art than others. We did get some of the usual comments resembling “anyone could have done that” along with genuine surprise to find that certain pieces were actually exhibits. And just for a moment Arcadia, my favourite piece, took me by surprise. I mistook it for a real sign! (I don’t believe I am admitting to that, and it was only for  moment).

Leo Fitzmaurice, Arcadia (one of a series scattered around YSP)

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On the way back to the railway station my son said that he had become conditioned to seeing sculpture in with the landscape and was expecting to be surprised by an exhibit here and there on the journey. No exhibits, but lots of signs, none of them for Arcadia. I  missed the sign for the railway station.