{sculpture} – Page 72 – { feuilleton }

Mark Beard’s artistic circle

The Fencing Team by Bruce Sargeant.

Artists in the 20th century used to be multifarious in their activities, often taking their work through different stages or periods of evolution; Picasso and Max Ernst are two good examples of this. In today’s inflated art market this is no longer a wise move. As Brian Eno has noted in the case of the polymathic Tom Phillips, the pressure is there to establish yourself as a person who does one thing only, to turn yourself into a brand.

American artist Mark Beard isn’t happy with that situation. In order to satisfy a desire to create in whatever styles he chooses, he’s developed a number of distinct artist personalities, each with their own detailed biographies and even photographs (below). This isn’t entirely unprecedented, Marcel Duchamp famously had a female alter-ego named Rrose Sélavy, and was photographed by Man Ray in feminine attire, but offhand I can’t think of another artist going as far as creating six distinct personas. The painting above is one of a homoerotic sports-themed series by artist Bruce Sargeant who died, we’re told, in 1938 as a result of a wrestling accident. Examples of Beard’s other influences follow. For the complete artist biographies, see the Mark Beard pages at the Carrie Haddad gallery.

The artists

top left: Mark Beard (b. 1956); right: Bruce Sargeant and model (1898-1938)
middle left: Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon (1849-1930); right: Brechtolt Steeruwitz (1890-1973)
bottom left: Edith Thayer Cromwell (1993-1962); right: Peter Coulter (b. 1948)

Their works

Ideology: The Politically Correct Disdain the Frivolous by Mark Beard (1989).

Avant la Fuite by Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon (1894).

Swimmer Drying Himself, Berlin Olympics (1936), Young Athlete by Bruce Sargeant.

On the Strand by Edith Thayer Cromwell.

Das Krakenhaus by Brechtolt Steeruwitz (At the Hospital) (1923).

Cabinet by Peter Coulter.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Glass engines and marble machines

Remarkable steam-powered engines by glass artist Bandhu Scott Dunham. The one above is based on 19th century designs. Others are Dunham’s own developments which include contraptions to move glass marbles up and down a series of corkscrew paths. Still pictures don’t do these things justice, best to look at two short QT movies here and here which show the machines in operation.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Wesley Fleming’s glass insects
• The art of Lucio Bubacco
• The glass menagerie

Max Eastley’s musical sculptures

left: Aeolian Harp; right: Wind Flute.

The Wire has a selection of Max Eastley-related materials among the web exclusives on its site. As well as a photo gallery showing many of his musical instrument/artworks there’s a couple of video clips including part of Simon Reynell’s 1989 film, Clocks of the Midnight Hours. (Title borrowed from a poem by Borges.)

And as you’d expect there’s Eastley work to be seen and heard at YouTube as well, including an extract from Derek Bailey’s excellent documentary series about improvised music, On the Edge. For Eastley on record I’d recommend his 1994 CD with David Toop, Buried Dreams, but that seems to be out of print for the time being.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Avant Garde Project

Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson

New work by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is always welcome here and the above is exactly that, a large rotating mirror installed at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, along with other pieces comprising a major survey of his work.

Take Your Time a new piece at P.S. 1, made for the show, consists of a huge, tilted, disc-shaped mirror suspended horizontally from a gallery ceiling. What strikes you at first is the omniscient, bird’s-eye reflection of the room below, with you standing in the middle of it. Then you notice that the mirror is rotating very slowly, and with a subtly undulating motion that causes the room itself feel warped and unstable. You experience this as much with your sense of balance as with your eyes.

The New York Times takes a critical look at Eliasson’s work and complains about his not being radical enough, an objection which seems curiously old-fashioned as well as being the kind of issue that only plagues art critics, other artforms getting on perfectly well without concerning themselves with being avant garde and challenging above all else. Better to ignore the redundant polemic and look at the slide show of his works.

Take your time: Olafur Eliasson runs until June 30, 2008.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Olafur Eliasson’s BMW
• Olafur Eliasson’s Serpentine Pavilion
• New Olafur Eliasson

Forever Changes by Jim Lambie

Nothing to do with the late Arthur Lee, well…not directly anyway. I love the contrast between the dizzying floor design (created with vinyl tape) and the rather dour Corinthian columns in Jim Lambie’s installation. I believe the Flickr photo above shows the work being prepared.

Forever Changes, which also includes some of the artist’s playful sculptures, is at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, as part of the Glasgow International arts festival until September 29, 2008. A review for The Scotsman describes some of its details. Lambie likes his floor coverings, having previously produced dazzlingly vibrant works such as ZOBOP which you can see being created in a little time-lapse movie here.