Alix Stafford

Tour Outline, Meckseper & Pylypchuk

WELCOME TO THE BLAFFER GALLERY

• Art gallery of the UH
• Opened its doors 1973
• Product of 2 oil fortunes
• Started with permanent collection
• Became a gallery that focused on contemporary art by recognized artists
• And exciting young emerging artists with artistic pedigree
• Many exhibitions originate here
• International flavour

Questions: Have you ever been to an art gallery before? What is the point of an art gallery? What do you expect a museum experience to be? How does culture of any sort impact your lives? Think about what you will take away from this experience and let’s discuss at the end. Ref: 18^th c free admissions policy in Great Britain.

Jon Pylypchuk

Poor student, majored economics, changed to English and then onto School of Art at the University of Manitoba.

Lives LA/Winnepeg

1^st solo show in US museum.

Themes:

• Confronting mortality
• Fear of loss
• Art as therapy “ Art is individual problem solving and people do it every day “
• Reflection of his own life, dark side versus black humour
• Importance of formal qualities of his materials, truth to materials
• Serendipity of works

Notes of interest

1. Exhibition culmination of 10 years work, chronologically installed.
2. Painter who didn’t find his voice in oil as teachers directed but who benefitted from a teachers’ strike to experiment, learn his craft and self discipline.
3. Rises to challenge of working without supervision. Establishes work habits.
4. Didn’t believe he had talent as oil painter, prefers to work in artform that comes more easily.
5. Creation of art is possible when one is happy.
6. Painter who founded an artists’ collective while at college.
7. Subject matter drawn from his own life; tragic-comic characters.
8. Can be seen as form of narrative, helped by use of texts, stories open ended.
9. Unheroic stance, humble aspects of life.

10. Curse words seen as expressions of emotion, liberating. And a trigger leading one into work. Making one reflect more on what one is seeing.
11. Divides his time between Winnepeg and LA.
12. Incorporation of wood glue as major component in his paintings, adds depth, bas relief effect.
13. Mixes water-colour/ink with glue.
14. Plays with the substance, element of serendipity in results. Cf Francis Bacon
15. Works on wood panels.
16. Large works laid on floor, painted, rotated.
17. Tries to work on more than one painting at a time, difficulty arises.
18. Naif quality to his work. Ignored teacher’s admonition not to incorporate animals and hearts.
19. Rebellious streak.
20. 2001 Shift from painting to sculpture, 2003 tall sculpture, armature plus glue.
21. Had worked with found objects.
22. Sculptures start out as well known animals, develop into something completely different.
23. They carry archaic messages, with immediacy. But no moral overtones.
24. Their development due to formal qualities of materials, their resistance.
25. Sculptures do not come from drawing. Sculpture precedes title.
26. Discontinues drawing as perceives lack of, arrest of evolution.
27. Initial inspiration for titles from musical lyrics, then original.
28. Work informed by life experience, in particular, confronted with parents mortality.
29. Levity when dealing with weighty issues.
30. Mother 44 when he was born, Father 46.
31. Mother had heart attack when artist was 15. Heart, a recurring theme in works.
32. Ukrainian heritage, focuses on death.
33. 2005 Death of his mother, boxing ring outcome fights with wife. Can also be read as a fight with death.
34. Scenes and sets
35. Yet feels that his latest works have less anger, viewer might disagree.
36. School boy bullies/buddies throughout his works, characters that he knows.
37. Regular cast in his works, though never intentional.
38. Characters exist outside work. It comes from somewhere.
39. Artist not aware of direct reference to his life until after completion of work.
40. Sees this as process of discovery.
41. Sees his oeuve as a series of struggles and waves of comfort.
42. When things start getting easy he pulls them apart and ‘makes them hard again’.
43. Artist lives with personal level of anxiety.
44. Art as therapy, a coping mechanism. Lightness.
45. Frog in bucket,  spray foam and resin. Ukrainian folklore.

46. Inspiration from colleagues and friends, and Philip Guston.
47. Not a great deal of artistic inspiration in Winnepeg, no great collections of contemporary art.
48. Wanted to be a rock star.

Work 1. You left me once I now go have babies…..1999. Fear that his girlfriend, now his wife, would leave him. Attributes words to her. Lighthearted work which transitions in to darker, more aggressive stance, darker undertones.

Work 2.  Wood structure made after major hangover. Pain in his head. Sense of isolation. Despair. Can read hangings as something positive, or not.

Work 3. Boxing ring.  Literally created in response to his mother’s death and in the firm belief that his mother would take someone with her. He was terrified that it would be him. It was a fear that he carried with him for one year. Death fighting with him. Grave digger nearby.

Work 4. His 2 cats died on same day. Found in street. Work in response to that.

Work 5.  3 creatures. Attempt to create monumental, classical sculpture.

Questions are really determined by the responses of the group. Here is a selection:

• When you think about the visual arts what do you envisage?
• What is your initial response to the artist’s work?
• Why weird?
• Now look closely and see if you can relate on some level. How?
• What impact does the text have on your perception of the work?
• How is your experienced changed by a guide’s explanation.
• What do you feel about the collage?
• Why use animals?
• Given that art is about a dialogue, does this artist communicate well?
• What emotions is this artist communicating?
• Can you see a progression in the works?

Josephine Meckseper

German, studied USA, caught up in Anti Gulf War protests when studying in California. Taken aback by pro American jingoism, very different from European wariness and divided opinion.

International artistic pedigree: Exhibited USA Today at Tate Modern, London as part of Saatchi Collection; Witney Biennial, etc yet remains unrepresented artist.

Mother belonged to green party in Germany. Father officer German army.

• American politics
• Global wars for oil production = downside of capitalism
• Non affirmative display leading to affirmative action
• Works as signifiers of consumerism/capitalism
• Time just before protestors protest, demonstrators destroy
• Media/marketing manipulation
• Notions of the absurd in everyday life

Notes for discussion

1. Installations of parts of our culture, a mirror held up to our world.
2. Can be read as a consumer display forum.
3. Artist insists that it is not about judgment, nor affirmation.
4. She has a non affirmative relationship with the object.
5. But does allow that the capitalist establishments can be targeted/destroyed by demonstrators.
6. Black/white American flag, metaphor for b/w thinking as an axis of evil.
7. Suggests that this aesthetic makes stronger impact
8. Alludes to fragility of capitalism but, in spite of recession, nothing has changed
9. Objects are found or made, they are interchangeable.
10. General sense of throwaway culture.
11. Work referencing through layers of meaning escalation Iran/Israel conflict
12. An artist that looks at things from outside.
13. Repeats that there is no message in her work.
14. She is not an expert, is not trying to tell people what to think.
15. But there is clearly a sense of critical judgment, she makes us think.
16. Reflection on our own lives.
17. Artist designed gallery to house/be part of installation.
18. Painting, ref Jasper Johns, in colour alone.
19. Work conceptual with ideas that can be contradictory.
20. She comes up with concept first and then creates art.
21. Glass broken by demonstrators, provoked to destroy.
22. Images of cars, shrink wrapped, production line products.

23. Washington, a city of memorials to fallen heroes versus film of anti war protest
24. Same sort of documentary feel and as historically captivating as footage of Vietnam war.
25. Trophy case: The Children’s Crusade, ref Middle Ages and Great War soldiers.
26. Mass produced works that one doesn’t pay attention to gain archeological interest.  Cf Marcel Duchamp
27. Placing works in glass case adds weight to their historical import and context.
28.  Idea of time capsule.
29. Durability of materials.
30. Viewer mirrored in background, cant escape self conscious participation.
31. New York, gentrification leads to decrease in crime.
32. Commercialization of an election / war = Blackwater.
33. Type of carpet used in Debate but no debate going on other than in ones head.

Questions:

·        Does this appear to be a work of art? (installation)

·        What then are the major forms of the visual arts?

·        What is your immediate response on walking in?

·        Look closely and tell the group what you find interesting?

·        What themes is the artist presenting?

·        What is the relationship between those themes?

·        What impact does the B/W flag have on you?

·        When one removes colour from any imagery how does it change the message?

·        What is the point of ready mades?

·        Does this artist’s work resonate more or less deeply than Jon?

·        What are the differences?

·        Should art be about a message at all?

·        Will this exhibition change the way you do/see things?