Bold street festival- Street art

Allan Kaprow Reenactment of Round trip

Performance art is something that I have in the past stayed very clear of and refused to touch with a barge pole. I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself involved in today until I found myself walking down one of the busiest streets in Liverpool city center banging a siv with a metal spoon. As I believe, in the original piece, Kaprow encouraged participants to carry two balls of paper, gradually increasing the size of them by adding more paper to them as they walked in a sort of procession. In addition, during our reenactment we were encouraged to make lots of noise, which added hugely to the embarrassment. At the start of our walk I found myself cowering behind everyone else desperately hoping not to be seen by someone I knew. As the event progressed I found myself becoming more and more relaxed to the point that I was getting overly involved. By the end of the walk I felt surprisingly liberated and free. It was a very different yet enjoyable experience with the definite highlight being, being confronted by a group of Tesco managers for raiding through their bins and having to explain that it was all in the name of art. http://www.moca.org/kaprow/

Lecture 'The consumption of art' followed by seminar

Lecture with Sheila followed by seminar with Jay-

After attending the Lecture about consumption of art (and not really understanding much out of it) I was very reluctant to attend the seminar, feeling that I didn’t really have much to contribute. It turned out that taking part in the seminar was the most rewarding thing I did today. I didn’t really understand the idea that Sheila was trying to get across but after discussing it amongst a group of people and hearing a variety of different opinions everything became much clearer. The thing that scares me about seminars is that I don’t feel confidant enough in my ‘artistic intellect.’ I often find that listening to people talk about art who seem to ‘know what they’re talking about’ makes me feel inadequate. The seminar today made me realize that you don’t necessarily have to be ridiculously eloquent and out spoken to get your opinion across about art, and that I will only gain confidence in sharing my views and public speaking if I practice doing so.

Biennial and FACT

As I entered the room containing the ‘one year performance’ by Teching Hseih, I felt an instant sense of unease. Although it took me a while to get my head around the concept there was instantly a superficial feeling of captivity and enslavement about the room. On studying the mass of information around me more closely the repetitive nature of the piece became more apparent. The thought of repeating the same action over and over again, on the hour every hour for a whole year was enough to drive me crazy never mind actually carrying out the process and recording it with meticulous detail. After spending roughly 15 minuets carefully following the sequence of photographs around the room I decided to leave. I left the room with a momentary feeling of guilt about my lack of dedication to art in comparison to Tenching Hseih. However the feeling didn’t last particularly long.

Talk by Lorenzo Fusi curator of Touched Biennial followed by visit to Rapid-Renshaw street

I woke up this morning with a feeling of absolute dread, 8.30am. The earliest I’ve got out of bed for a whole four months. A whole day of university ahead of me, almost unheard of for a fine art student. As the day progressed I was reminded of why I chose Fine art as a degree in the first place.

I found the talk by Lorenzo completely invaluable, listening to how the 2010 Biennial was curatored gave me a fresh insight in to the business side to fine art reminding me off all the possible job prospects available other than being an ‘artist.’ The thing that I found most reassuring was to hear how that even on a very professional level art is still very unpredictable. I found Lorenzo engaging, and articulate yet at the same I felt he didn’t take himself too seriously. This restored my faith in arty type professionals on the whole.

Renshaw Street was the first part of the Biennial I engaged in. I’ve got to say I came out with very mixed feelings. Some of it I felt I really understood and connected with. I was completely bemused by other parts and found them slightly disturbing. Lee Mingweis mending project was by far my favorite piece. I found it incredibly moving how the artist aims to create conversation and encounters between total strangers allowing stories and information to be passed between people. It made me think about how often I choose to avoid awkward trivial conversation in every day situations, and how realistically a lot can be gained from communicating with total strangers even if its is only a brief sense of satisfaction that I’ve done something out of my comfort zone. I loved the idea of the celebrating an item of ripped clothing rather than discarding it as turning something disposable into an artwork gives it an instant meaning.