My second visit to experience "Take your time" was far better than the first. A weekday does make a difference and perhaps I had my "ART" hat on or being back at uni makes me more critically aware...whatever.
Question sheet:
1. Have a really good thorough look at all the work in the exhibition. Make a note of 3 pieces you find particularly interesting or inspiring.
2. Go back to these works and record the following:when they were made, and a brief written description of the works including a small sketch. Elaborate on what you think these works might mean based on what you observe.
3.Craft objects are intimate with the body of the user, and form part of the users bodily memory. Discuss how Eliasson's work plays on the body of the viewer. Do you think this makes his work craft-like? Why or why not?
Right, well hummm..I really liked Room for one colour, 360 degree room for all colours, Moss wall, Beauty, Multiple grotto, leggo, one way tunnel and the maquette room. Narrowing down to 3 I would have to go for
27. Moss Wall (1994). Wood, moss and wire.
An entire wall is filled with a pale coloured moss. The aroma is fresh and natural, evocative within my experience of cool, sheltered English woodlands. The artwork stills the active body, stills the busy, distracted mind. Breathe in the scent, examine the smaller fronds. Close your eyes and leave the museum space.
Use all of your senses to experience the world, don't rely on one.
4. 360 degree room for all colours (2002) Stainless steel, projection foil, fluorescent lights, wood and control unit.
A ceilingless room, with a doorway, step inside and watch the walls flood with colour, lit from within, luminous and everchanging. I imagine this is what a bird would see in flight in the hours of dawn or sunset. When the colour ebbed away to leave plain white for a few moments I felt a keen sense of dissapointment (bring it back! my mind shouted).
Colour effects us ..don't try and deny it.
30. Beauty (1993). Spotlight, water, nozzles, hose, wood and pump.
In a dark cave the light, the mist and the viewer create a triangulation, though the viewer is not fixed and can change the experience by changing the shape of the triangle. In one moment the angles align and beauty is created. Shimmering rainbows spring in to being, twisting and drifting across the mist.
Don't just look at a subject or person from one view, try a different angle a different side.
Craft objects are intimate with the body of the user, and form part of the users bodily memory. Discuss how Eliasson's work plays on the body of the viewer. Do you think this makes his work craft-like? Why or why not?
Compared to these works, viewing paintings seems a rather passive art engagement. All the viewer's senses are required for appreciation of Eliasson's work. Some, especially "Room for one colour (1997)" require your body to be in the room. You can see the yellow light from outside the room, but you need to step inside to watch all the colour drain from your body and clothes. You need to step inside to feel the moment of joy of being surrounded by the intense colour of sunshine and stay longer for the joy to be exchanged with a subtle nausea. Most of his work requires more than standing in front of a wall. You are required to move, to bend and peer, to look at others, perhaps even engage with others. Your body feels the sensations. In the leggo room (the cubic structure evolution project (2004)) your participation and imagination is required. If we expereince the works without the body..say from over the internet we do not experience much...the body is needed.
Aspects of craft but ultimatley not.
A Craft object is intimate, because I can pick it up, move it from place to place, use it even. I can see this object every day, so it becomes familiar and intimate... before I touch it I know how it will feel, how much weight it has..prepare for its form. I can measure it's size against my body..perhaps with my hands, it belongs to me.
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