J U M

Well, here it is; the much delayed contemplation of International Exchanges: Modern Art and St Ives.

I was not able to take any photos at this exhibition, however, even a couple of months on from seeing it, I can still visualise certain works I saw on the day including Mark Rothko's Untitled 1950 (yellow), Jackson Pollock's 23 and several works by St Ives based artists such as Wallace, Hepworth etc. In my ignorance I was surprised at how many of the most well known figures of the Modern Art movement visited St Ives in their lifetime or were inspired by the St Ives artists in some way or another. It was wonderful to see such a large variety of styles and work together in this exhibition. I had visited Tate St Ives before, however, this time (with my new found love of everything art) I went away ecstatic and inspired. Truly, St Ives is a beautiful town, I would have loved to have visited it in the first days of Hepworth's move there when it was still an ungentrified fishing village!

I encourage you to watch Cambridge Art Historian Dr. James Fox's documentary The Art of Cornwall where he talks about St Ives and it's international impact on the art world.

This post is a personal evaluation of a few of the highlights of what I have done as a result of being part of the Youth Collective promoting Artist Rooms: Richard Long @ The Burton Art Gallery leading up to the opening of the exhibition which took place on October 4th.

To see more of the work being done by the project please see our Facebook page and Blog.

5th July - Tate and the Lisson Gallery

Our first step as the Youth Collective was to do some first hand research into Richard Long. We did this by going to see Richard's exhibition at the Lisson Gallery where we were given a talk by the curator of the gallery on Richard Long's work and concepts. For full details see my review of the trip here.

Guided tour around the Tate Modern's Artist Rooms with Anthony d'Offay.

ENVIRONMENTAL TAKEOVER

ENVIRONMENTAL TAKEOVER was the Youth Collectives' initial idea on how we could promote the exhibition. The Tumblr blog acts as an online gallery of all the environmental art work sent to us by local schools, colleges, groups and individuals. We have already had a few contributions and now that the exhibition is open I trust we will receive plenty more. 

Logo and Festival Poster

In order to create an identity for the project I designed a logo using black chalk which would be inspired by Richard Long's work. I decided to use one of Long's slate circles as a starting point for the logo as I knew I wanted it to be easily replicated, perhaps even stenciled later during the project. In order to get the desired effect I, quite simply, I used a compass to draw a large circle then used black chalk to draw long rectangles wherever I saw fit. The process was slightly like dry stone walling, you don't necessarily know where you are going to put each stone however once it is in your hand the piece comes together rather quickly and perfectly.

20th September - Royal Albert Memorial Museum

Trip to Exeter to see RAMM's Detached and Timeless Exhibition. In addition to my  short review of the exhibition here I also thought on how what we had learnt relates to the Youth Collective's aim to encourage people to look at and think about art, in particular Richard Long's work, differently.

"After analyzing our experience of the exhibition we decided to apply what we have learnt to the Project and see how we could incorporate our knowledge to the Festival. It would be fair to say that we now have a fairly reasonable amount of experience of Long’s work after seeing it at the Lisson Gallery in London and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. This truth might help us when we are talking about the work and give a slight authority to what we are saying. I have realized that this is not actually a battle of trying to persuade people of Richard Long’s work not just being a pile of rocks but actually a war on the whole theme of conceptual and abstract art itself. If we can persuade people on the whole concept being sound then Richard Long’s work would logically then also be art to the young people coming into the Burton. "
 

30th September - Hospice Stone Spiral

On the 30th of September Zo and I created an instillation on the North Devon Hospice grounds. On getting to the Hospice I was not sure of what we should create, I knew the end result had to be closely related to Richard Long's work but apart from that we had artistic licence to do basically what we want. I was also aware that in this unique situation there were other very important factors that had to be taken into account such as accessibility and creating something that could be interacted with by all the residents of the Hospice. Zo and I started making a circle however by the end of the session the aim and end piece had slightly diverged from this original idea.

A few Hospice residents came down to where we were creating the circle and we had an opportunity to show them examples of Richard Long's work in his book Walking the Line. We also spoke to them about the exhibition and they were very interested in Long's work and our application of his method in the Garden. On meeting these lovely people Zo and I decided that it would be wise to create a spiral so that those using wheelchairs and mobility scooters could also interact with the piece and add to it. We also liked the idea of the spiral, once the centre was finished, being continuously added to and growing. 

Stone can be used to create circular forms for a variety of reasons, we have examples like Stone Henge - though we do not know what purpose they certainly had a purpose at the time they were created, Richard Long's circles which are very aesthetically pleasing but have conceptual meanings and our very own circular form at the North Devon Hospice which serves as  a contemplative, perhaps even therapeutic, structure for everyone to see, add to and understand.

4th October - Exhibition Preview

Before the Exhibition Preview on Saturday afternoon the Youth Collective had a meeting with Christopher Ganley from the Tate where we discussed what we hope to achieve and how we plan to do so.

As part of our work as the Youth Collective we gave small groups and individuals that were at the preview mini tours of the exhibition, we spoke about multiple aspects of Richard Long's work, from the construction of the pieces to the art on exhibit in relation to his more contemporary work.


I also had the opportunity to speak to Richard Long himself about his work in the local landscape and also on how the Youth Collective have been working to promote the exhibition. He was interested in the North Devon Hospice stone spiral and commented on how stone circles are timeless and universal in their use.

I also got five of Richard Long's Walking The Line books signed to use as gifts or prizes for the ENVIRONMENTAL TAKEOVER aspect of the project. If you or a group you know are interested in submitting your art to the online gallery of work then please email us with your environmental art.