Where did the Philanthropists go?

Been a funny ol' evening.

Went along to Earl Solomon's opening in the Foyer, was speaking to him for a bit at my opening and he invited me along, had a phonecall from Andy saying he was in town and going along so it would be good to meet up. Went along with Martin, had a quick chat with Jim Ewan before someone tapped a glass and some guy launched into a speech.

It was a little odd, but I expected it because Earl had been saying that he was asked to do a speech, and that's what the Foyer were doing from now on. But the speeches seemed to go on for ages, and then some woman had won something or other and she was congratulated. The whole thing was so fucking corporate. I'd just like to take this time to say that the work was really good, really interesting drawings, and any criticisms I am going to give were of the opening, and not the work. So anyway there were all these guys in suits and women in dresses about, I recognised a few faces from work and some artist and art folk about, and the Lord Provost pushed past with his chains and that, all very fancy. When the speeches passed we went for a wee look at the work before some guy in a suit practically pushed us out of the way (When I say practically, i mean he walked right into my confort zone when I was looking at a piece) The rest of the attempt was being pushed in this steady flow of people, around groups of folk talking like being in some sort of horrible fast flowing river smashing into some rapids or something.

That coupled with the disapproving looks from men in suits forced me to make a sharp exit. I'd like to have stayed to speak to Earl or Andy or someone but I just couldn't face staying. I had spent most of the day cleaning the living room and hadn't had a shower and did in fact look like shit, but that's never been a problem before. Anyway I wasn't a fan of the pomp or the ceremony or the clientelle so I made tracks. I didn't get any time to take in the work either which was a shame.

It struck me as such an odd thing. People don't make speeches at exhibition openings, just to appease the sponser, I dont think they should have to. Its similar to my opinions on statements in exhibitions. On top of it all, I wonder what the sponser intends to get out of it, and what the price of corporate sponsorship is.

Art is art, it justifies itself, its interpretation changes from person to person. I just don't see why a sponsor should need the artist to talk about their work, or advertise their business. It just seems like an advert, distastefully plastered onto the back of the work. I don't accept advertising in Cake, because i feel it compromises the space which is made available for work, and that it simply gets in the way and compromises the work. As the title of this blog asks, where did the philanthropists go? What happened to those rich guys who just donated to the arts, set up trusts, art schools, commissioned work simply because they liked it?

These days it just seems to be corporate agendas, logos plastered over events, fliers, publications. Its all very well, as artists there needs to be funding to make the work and attempt to make a living, but why does it need to be so in your face? It was a side of the art world that I don't like and don't particularly want to be involved in, but that seems to be the case in Aberdeen, there are more openings like this than otherwise. Perhaps its time to set sale for a different shore, just get out.

Tomorrow I'm going to Glasgow!

17

Well I've just finished 17. It was a pretty good book to read after my show. It was a good read full of interesting anecdotes, and as I've already said in some previous blog, provides an insight into the thoughts and motivations of a working artist.

I'm not going to say I agreed with everything he said, but overall his questions and explorations have given me a few ideas of ways of thinking, different approaches to making work and exploring music. Different ways of percieving work, music and where I am going. I'm not going to throw away every record I own, or restrict my listening tastes or proclaim that recorded music is at an end. The permeation, and the evolution of music tastes are something I plan to explore at some point, but not until I'm much older probably.

The whole autobiographical nature of the book got me thinking about my own life and things I have done. Probably added to the fact that this time next week I will be 25. I guess I've managed to fit quite a lot in, but theres also quite a lot I've missed out on, things I wish I had done but never, experiences I haven't....well experienced. It's not really that big an issue really, 25, but I don't like the thought of getting older. 25 always seemed ancient when I was younger, and now I'm here. Not that any of it makes any real difference, but it just feels a bit old. When I was a kid I thought 25 people were grown ups, and it just seemed so far away and never really though I'd get there.

I suppose I still haven't got there, to my idea of what 25 was when I was younger. When you're a kid you think that when you get older, when you get to 25 you have to be all sensible and settle down and have kids and jobs, wear a suit and have a haircut. Here I am at 25 and don't feel any more mature than when I was a kid thinking about the future. But there's always the thought that when George Harrison was 25 he was recording Abbey Road, having already gone through a massive pop career, spritual discovery and enlightenment and written While my Guitar Gently Weeps. I don't really know what I've got to show for my time here, other than a stereo on a bike and a record player stuck to a wall.

Tea

It's 12:52 on Saturday we've just finished a 80 bag of Tetley. The question is: Can we drink 100 cups of tea by my birthday?

You decide. Or rather we do.

Pictures of Matchstick Men

Just been lazing today mostly, but doing a bit of passive research as well. Was reading 17 and it reminded me of the proposal I had written for New Work Scotland at the Collective (For which I have recieved two individual rejections) so I ended up doing a bit of research behind that to see if I could improve the idea any. Through wikipedia I ended up reading about George Harrison, Pete Townshend, Lonnie Donegan, Cliff Richard and Keith Moon.

The Who were the first band I really got into properly, my brother wanted to be a mod, but this was in the late eighties and he had already missed the Jam-led revival of earlier in the decade and was just riding out the Madchester and Acid House era waiting for Britpop. It was years later when I got into The Who, but could remember my brothers listening to them. Shortly after my brothers when to their reuinion gig in Glasgow and didn't invite me, but that's beside the point. What I'm getting at is that I've rediscovered Baba O'Riley, and what a good song it was, the simplicity of the guitar, piano and bass, but this driving synth line all the way through, it's not a loop but a long continuous synth line created from specific details of the Meher Baba.

Before the release of Who's Next, Townshend was working on another high-concept follow up to Tommy, it was to be called Lifehouse and it was to be a fully immersive experience allowing the audience to Join together in the band to create the music as a fully inclusive experience. The project fell apart for some reason or another and they went ahead with making Who's Next, a more conventional, yet still amazing, album. Baba O'Riley was sort of a prototype for the Lifehouse project and just stands out.

I also found out that Townshend had set up a website and designed a piece of software to take people's details and turn them into synth lines, for possible use as a song. I went on to the site but they've stopped collecting details, so that's that avenue closed. Ho Hum.

Back to Baba O'Riley, I downloaded it for a listen and saw a few other tracks I'd downloaded, Born to Be Wild, obviously for Ezy Ryder, The Prisoner, Psycho Killer, On Her Majesty's Secret Service by the Propellerheads, Silver Machine (Infected By The Scourge of the Earth), Good Enough after seeing Dodgy at Wickerman, and Pictures of Matchstick Men.

I'd downloaded it a while ago after hearing it on My Name Is Earl and listened to it a few times, and a few times over the weeks since. Its weird, Status Quo's first offering and its a slice of pure psych, before Mssrs Parfett and Rossi become fond of that one riff and made music which still rings out through terrible terrible pub djs. Matchstick Men has this amazing hook, and then a crunching rythm which leads the song through the first verse before the whole mix is passed through a modulator and swirls throughout the room like some sort of bizarre trip.

A few songs for the first mixtape, perhaps.

The Golden Record? Hmmmmm

Ok, an afterthought. I also saw a not very good show today, and it seems wrong to post something negative but I've never really written a bad review. I'm not particularly known for writing reviews, and not entirely sure that I have even written one down before, in this blog that is.....

Anyway, after the Fruitmarket we wandered up to the Collective, just to see a bit more before we left. We had walked past earlier and it looked quite exciting. There was a massive print of Karen Carpenter and Carl Sagen with stars in the background and lots of colourfull record-sized prints. That, added to the title of the show The Golden Record made me think it would be quite interesting. I had read something about it and got a flier through from the collective the other day, but had forgotten what I had read when I went into the show, which was a good thing.

I was instantly confused by the show, on entering the first space in the exhibition. The walls were filled with LP sized paintings of lots of different things I couldn't really make any connections between. I wondered if perhaps they were an artist's recreation of records, because they all had titles and names underneath them, and what I assumed was a recreation of a Karen Carpenter record sleeve (I have absolutelly no knowledge to back this up on, only that it appeared as that) was attributed to Karen Carpenter and titled with the Album cover-like text from the painting. I thought this was just until I noticed a piece by Bedwyr Williams, then again I was thrown into confusion.

The rest of the exhibition consisted of two screening rooms. In the first there was video footage of Carl Sagan explaining the concepts behind the original Golden Record, from a documentary by Mel Brimfield, the curator, and Sally O'Reilly. And in the other room another screening, of people addressing the camera giving their takes on a subject which I missed.

The exhibition itself was a large scale project put together by Collective's Assiociate Producer Mel Brimfield, as a collabouration between artists, actors, commedians and filmmakers, the different groups involved with the Festival. She has based the exhibition around the record sent into space on the Voyager probes.

These idea of the collaboration between the different Festivals, and making work around the record is interesting (Especially the latter, for its relation to my own practice) but here combined, the show just doesn't hang, it doesn't work. With this knowledge and re-entereing the show, it all just feels forced. It all becomes a bit contrived, like a primary school project, with people from different types of people being given 12x12 canvases and asking them to react to random words to create a series of images which are a slice of our modern lives and expereinces. The use of the Golden Record is just completelly underdeveloped, and the exhibition seems to rely on its high profile celebrity participants (Including Kevin Eldon, and Karen Carpenter, the wife of Carl Sagan) rather than the work. The video pieces also follow this pattern, coming across amaturish and pointless.

Before reading about the background, the show confuses rather than intreagues, and even armed with the concepts, it comes across half-baked and self indulgent. The presentation of the outcomes is far from considered, simply hung on the walls and projected in darkend rooms. After the Cardiff and Miller show at the Fruitmarket, this failed to impress.

I don't know if I should really be reviewing art, or talking about other artist's shows. I'm probably not doing myself any favours. Its just what I think really. Its also not as though anyone reads this.

The House of Books Has No Windows

Just got back from the Edinburgh, more driving than other stuff, but I'll go back next week or something. Feeling pretty inspired after seeing the show in the Fruitmarket, got some new ideas brewing, a different way of thinking maybe.

On the way there and back we were looking through tapes in the car because the current location of my itrip, and, more disturbingly, my ipod. Anyway Kieran wound up a few that had come unrolled and we tried them out (after finding and listening to the actually quite good Now 44, but abandoning New Hits 99, as the utterly awful tracks outweighed those which might have had some novelty or nostalgic value) and popped one in which my friend Emma Collins had made me when we were in first year. I've been thinking about mix tapes a lot recently when I was doing the bike. Kinda wanted to collect some mix tapes for the opening, then decided on the tape adapter and iPods, then the battery ran out so we used an amp. Anyway, mix tapes: Finding old mix tapes is a weird experience, quite like finding old diaries I suppose. I found some old diaries at home and they were horrible, I should burn those, theres nothing interesting or nostalgic in there, just embarrassing and horrible things I've done well to forget and get over.

However, again back to mix tapes. I found this tape Emma had made me and I could remember when she made it, what I made for her, and what we had talked about before we had made them. I had already found a couple of tapes last time I was at home, and had thought of them when I listened to them I could remember when they were made, and it was a kind of chart of my music tastes throw time, how they change and grow and return over time.

To the main point anyway, I've decided to start making mixtapes again. Properly. In my bedroom with all my cds around me, everything properly recorded from cd like I used to, but anything I've downloaded with itunes, but I'll still have to listen to every track to record it. I'm going to do one a week and see what happens. But there you go.

Fat Arsed Lassies and Beyond

Well its been a wee while. Finally settled down after Thursday. All went really well, was really busy. Now I'm on holiday for the next three weeks which is great. Time to chill out, relax, see some art, visit some places, do some research and have a good time.

So Thursday, yeah it went really well. John, Martin and I headed off about ten past seven, John with a handycam strapped to his helmet, Martin prepared to max his body out keeping up with us on foot and me in my Peter Fonda cowboy hat and shades. We got the Silver Machine out of the car, I fixed up the speakers and gave it a wee blast of leftfield before we set off.





We headed down College Street down to the arches, there were a few honks, but probably more about John's helmetcam than than the speakers on my bike. We headed through the arches and then me and jon had to cycle round the industrial estate for a while to let Martin get to Torry bridge. Ended up making a mistake and coming out on Market Street instead of next to the river, we passed Cam and Roisin as I got to the bridge. Gave them a quick blast of the stereo and they gave me a quick blast of abuse as I got onto the bridge.

Martin caught us again as we headed over the bridge and on up to Slogan.
We got up to the space and there was a group of people outside, who I assumed was everyone waiting for me to get here. When I got to the window I looked inside and realised that the space was totally packed and it was a bit of a struggle to get the Silver machine into its place in the middle of the space.

Here's a few of my favourite photos from the opening itself once we had arrived.

Stew smiling next to a photo of Louise
The Haynes Manual. And some booze. We drunk Project Slogan dry. Twice.
Assorted people hanging out in the space.
Me talking to John and Mhairi about somehing.
Loadsafolk!
Say Hello!
More

The screening of Ezy Ryder. It was quite difficult to fit everyone in and project it at the same time.



So it all went well, was suitably drunk when we headed to the pub afterwords, although we went to Snafu and it was baws. The rest of the weekend was pretty good as well, my folks were up and Mr Brady paid a visit so just chilled out mostly, went to Banchory for a cup of tea and my mum was in search of some sort of mythological Victorian train.

So now to my holiday, technically I've been off work for three weeks, but that's been spent with the show so I can finally relax now. I'm going to go to Glasgow and Edinburgh for a few days each just to get out of Aberdeen for a while, as could be told from my previous blogs getting a bit sick of Aberdeen and just want to experience a real live city. Going to Edinburgh tomorrow to see the show at the Fruitmarket, apparently it's amazing.

Got Bill Drummond's new book at the weekend, 17. It's about this art project he has been working on creating a choir of non verbal, non musical music, working with a different seventeen members each time and creating scores of instructions. The book goes into his motives, and experiences that led him to the idea, also his doubts and failures during the project. it's refreshing to read that someone who is classed as a professional artist has the same doubts I do.

Last weekend in the run up to the show Martin showed me a piece in Creative Review about these Trinidadian kids in Queens who mod their bikes with the biggest stereo systems they can find. There's a documentary been made about them that was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival this year. (You can find out about it here www.madeinqueensfilm.com) At first I was a bit shocked and quite annoyed that I hadn't thought about it before, and obviously worried that people would think I had just nicked the idea, or assume that the work was being made about these kids. Although now I'm ok about it because nobody else I've come across has encountered the film or made the connection in any sort of negative way. Although time will tell if this happens. It was a pretty bad time to recieve the news, a week before the show went up, but with no time to try and react to it, not that I should have really, the ideas behind the show have been stewing for two years now.

I've also been putting together a proposal for my next show, something that is slightly older than Fat Bottomed Girls, but is also where the idea of that show came from. It'll probably end up quite a safe show, but it's something I wanted to do more and more when I was working on the photographs for Midnight Bicycle Mystery, to work on some more photographs, but this time something more sculptural. If that makes any sense at all. At the moment it's called The Pleasure Principle, and that's all I'm going to say for now.

Another idea, which with The Pleasure Principle will probably put and end to this transport stuff for a while, is building more, different models of the Silver Machine, and an idea Amy suggested, to take them on tour.

I think I've rambled on enough for now. I'll hopefully write a bit more over my holiday.

Three Days to Go

Three days and counting to the opening.

Slightly scared. Here's another wee sneaky peak. My first fully fledged photographical outcomes. They come with text as well, but that can wait for the show. I dont have a title for the series yet.....answers on a postcard.....