drawing a straight line
I approached Mark Dixon to make some work for the window room. We decided to experiment using his (static electricity?) machine to make a simple a straight line drawing . However, due to the nature of the machine it creates a series of extraordinary marks on the surface of the wall. They are created from a piece of wire dipped in ink. The wire does not make direct contact with the wall at any point. (I will save the true technical description/explanation for Mark).
The overall effect is interesting but it is when you get up close to the wall and see the minute detail that the drawing is most intriguing.
When people know how the drawing was created they seem to derive more interest from the work.
Mark, since last Thursday I have hardly thought about anything else at Wysing other than your mesmerizing straight lines in the window room. So many words are trapped in my head awaiting to be triggered off. I wasn’t there when you created these electrifying images - is there any chance of my seeing you in action? I’m sure many others would be interested too.
Abbas
Comment by Abbas Hashemi — April 21, 2008 @ 5:59 am
This project is building all the time, its great! Well done CJ and Mark. The reading of the piece is so open too, reminds me again of unconcious thoughts and cities!
Comment by simonwoolham — April 22, 2008 @ 7:17 am
I was fortunate enough to witness Mark creating these drawings and so therefore knew how they were made - It is a fascinating process and certainly a spectacle. So, in a way, I feel privileged to have encountered this ‘(a)live’ (private?) performance. Maybe others who did not experience Mark in action, so to speak, feel excluded from this seemingly important part of the making process?
SOME QUESTIONS:
I wonder if it is entirely necessary for people to ‘know’ how they are made or should we just simply look at what is in front of us - deal with the here and now? Are the drawings able to ‘hold there own’ without being privy to that information? Or are we seeing something ‘after an event’ - the ‘document’ of an action. Should there have been explicit written information about the process involved to the viewer?
I guess these are some issues raised following on from the discussions the other night at WAC about the documentary process.
Comment by davidk — April 22, 2008 @ 10:05 am
I think the drawing very much holds it’s own.
Informaiton on how it was made changes the experience of the piece for me, I find myself curious about and absorbed in the process, the drawing itself losing it’s power over me … but then again I would say that wouldn’t I!!
Comment by nora — April 24, 2008 @ 10:41 am
I don’t think, for us as artists at Wysing, it is possible to not know how the markings across the wall were made…you look at what is in front of you, but you also ask who’s work it is and how they did it, because we all know the context of how this space has been set up to be used. There was a similar question brought up during the discussion last Thursday - about ‘Fragility’ in the Wysing gallery. Despite information not being readily available in the same time and space as the presentation of the work, on both occasions hasn’t it become clear to at least a number of people? And does it matter that we weren’t there to actually witness it, or if we weren’t aware at the time of the process of the work coming together? I don’t think it necessarily does. Art doesn’t cease to exist altogether once it has been removed from a gallery context. More often than not experiences of art are expanded through books, magazines, conversations, internet sites.….and these forms are different, but that doesn’t make the not valid. So, is it possible to ask whether they are able to hold their own in this context…I think it’s difficult to answer when you know it’s Mark’s work, when you know something of Mark’s approach to making work….
Comment by Katherine — April 25, 2008 @ 12:44 pm