Experiments with sandblasting
Nov ’17
The Basement
On seeing Rachel Whiteread
the casts of the beehive undersides of chairs is beautiful and some how evocative of my childhood – translucent colours of exotic soaps or perspex skateboard decks and wheels full of trapped light – desperate to touch them but the non-touching is a type of touching.
But once in I spent very little time in front of each piece. I marvelled at the craftpersonship of the casts of course and at the technical audacity and ambition. I think the sheer density of the effect of the holocaust memorial is overwhelming. The demolished house cast joyous, magnificent and tender.
But mattresses and hot water bottles whilst fun are less demanding of my time and i find myself outside after 10 minutes thinking that she needed to diversify somehow.
The idea of flipping void and solid, representing space as object
Contextual Research: Plinth
Plinth as altar for art object as sacrificial offering to be carved up by viewers
Plinth as dais for objects to be approached and worshipped in awe and wonder
Plinth as symbol of the act of generosity and emergence
Plinth for status, statue, standing
Plinth as soap box
Plinth as pulpit
Plinth to personify, lend identity, anthropomorphise
Plinth to raise object to convenient height to encourage interaction and motion
Plinth as obstacle
Plinth to involve, include
Plinth to ‘denigrate, ridicule, exclude’ (A. Rogers)
Plinth absented to involve, include (Gormsley)
Plinth as instrument to transform, elevate object into art
Plinth as art object (Brancusi’s Endless Column umbilically supporting sky from earth or earth from sky)
Plinth as masculine, penetrative symbol of power and control
Plinth as tool for negotiation
Plinth holding up object
Plinth transferring load to ground
Plinth as tabula rasa (4th Plinth Project co-opted as advertising platform for London)
Plinth left empty by torn down statues, awaiting the next tyrant, symbol of the repeated failure of utopian revolution
Plinth as stage
Plinth as sculpture
Plinth as subject of research