Treacle-Action

Nice collaboration with Lois. I liked the action, and loved the outcome.

Cain Caser

A very interesting Artist, not very well known, I guess. I especially like his work as he is talking about it as portraits. With that in mind, it really is at the gap between abstraction in figuration. It is also interesting, as we as humans are so used to look at faces every day, that nearly every form -even when it is abstract - can be depicted as a face.

For me, it´s a very interesting field, and it makes clear, that figuration and abstraction, are only defineable in a subjective way. It´s dependent of our visual experience, and the hierarchy within that.

6

4rtist.com from klitorik* on Vimeo.

Lecture Heather McReynolds 12.5.2011

Yesterday´s lecture was a good one. Heather McReynolds spoke about her work, and about painting in general.

It showed me, that painting does not have to be under conceptual constraints, but can be intuitive, and out of concious approach. She rather saw the dialogue between the paint, the material, and the painter him/herself. Even if the paintings themselves did not really speak to me, it was nice to see, that someone holding a lecture in College has an approach like that.

Headdress

127 x 127 cm each / oil on canvas

This Series is dealing with the tension between what an image actually shows, and the story behind that image. I´m very interested in this gap. An image always gives only a fragment of a bigger story, therefore it is not very precise in telling, not to say manipulative. In the first view this series shows rather funny images of people covering their head in strange ways. but I think one can feel, that there is something serious going on. The templates for these paintings come from german newspaper and internet press. The backround of the images are held in a photographic out-of-focus style, the protagonists of the images are depicted in a more painterly manner, maybe more subjective. I wanted to leave the objectivity of the photograph to the backround of the painting, and express the human less neutral, more subjective.

The images are from protesters from Egypt / Cairo, saving their heads from the stones that are being thrown.

UFO

Pappschablone/Cardboardstencil / Oil on Wood / 20 x 25 cm

Knopf/Button / Oil on Wood / 20 x 25 cm

Knopf 2/Button 2 / Oil on Wood / 20 x 25 cm

The Appearence of images really interests me. They tell lies, manipulate, but still form the way how we see the world. They are mighty, and sometimes they are misused as a proof.

Basis of these paintings were Ufo images from the 50´s, and 60´s. where there was a big ufo hype, and everyone has seen Ufo´s everywhere.

I think I will continue this series with self-made photographs, where I fake Ufo images myself with very simple objects like ventile caps, tea lights, etc.

Appearence dictates the being.

working process

The working process of -headdress-

Tutorial / Naomi Pearce 10.3 11

NAME OF STUDENT: max strasser

NAME OF TUTOR: naomi pearce

DATE: 10.3.11

STUDENT TO FILL IN:

What points were discussed during the tutorial?

First we talked about the diversity of my work, and that a fix red thread is not yet visible. we talked about the newest work (guy with pot on his head) and naomi questioned if the scale should be smaller, more intimate. Naomi mentioned, that I seem to construct images that are outside world. I mentioned my interest in the -fake-, (such as my fake CCTV pictures, or UFO pictures), and in the appearence. also the new painting from the guy with the pot on his head appears to have another context (it actually is an image of one of the protesters in Egypt, that protects his head from the thrown stones. Naomi suggested me to spend a day searching for things that are fake, or seem to be something what they are NOT.

What issues will be thinking further on as a result of this conversation?

I will think further about the discrepancy between appearance and being within my paintings. I´m interested in images, that seem to be something, but are something else. Not in terms of formal abstraction, but in terms of meaning. I will also think about, how the title, and also the painting characteristics influences the meaning.

STAFF COMMENTS:

We began by discussing the position of your practice in relation to other more established painters such as Gerhard Richter. In terms of your interest in depicting moments of uncertainty or creating a sense of unease within the viewer we both agreed that Michael Borreman successfully achieves this. This led us to discuss in more detail the importance of scale and the possibility of building up a narrative with multiple canvases which relate in some way to one another.

I suggested looking at artists who work across a diverse range of media but still explore similar conceptual themes, these included Jamie Shovlin who repeatedly explores ‘the fake’ in his practice. Other artists that may be of interest include Gregory Crewdson and Robert Gober for their presentation of familiar and domestic scenes/objects in a disconcerting and uncanny manner.

I´m happy to have seen the exhibition of Gabriel Orozco in the tate modern. It was interesting to see, how the theme -symmetry- continuously repeats in his work in so many applications. I also liked the simplicity of his ideas, and also the accomplishment. His skill to reinterpret games, locations, objects is stunning. I would love to bring the continouity and at the same time simplicity of art projects into my own work, and it is out of that competition of bigger-more complex-more colourful-more freaky.

His work is an detailed looking at the little, special particularity of everyday life.

Tutorial / Jessica 23.3.11

NAME OF STUDENT:max strasser

NAME OF TUTOR: jessica voorsanger

DATE: 23.3.11

STUDENT TO FILL IN:

1. What points were discussed during the tutorial?

Jessica was -another time- surprised by the new direction, my painting is taking. I was telling her, that I´m getting interested in the appearance of paintings, and what´s on the other side actually really the story behind them. She liked the fact that this is a more general area, as I have difficulties sticking to a too constricted theme and working within too much structure. Working with this kind of ambiguity would offer me a wide area of possibilities. I told her about my idea, to rather work in projects, than with a -life theme-, and she said, this is probably the try to escape from a theme, a excuse (I hope, I understood that right). I also told her about a photo project I saw in german media, where landscapes are being photographed, where there are quite hidden -atomic power plants-, and I liked the tension between the apparent idyll, and the small disquieter that destroys it. She then mentioned a postcard with firemen looking at something beautiful in the foreground, whilst in the backround there appears a fire, which they don´t see.

Then I talked about my visit at the susan hiller show in tate britain, especially the -punching judy- room, where this children-story (which I didn´t know before) becomes a kind of horror at the end, which I quite liked.

What issues will be thinking further on as a result of this conversation?

There are different themes, that seem to appear in my work. The fake, appearance, and disquiet idyll. Danny treacy with who I had a guest tutorial, said, that there seems to be something uncanny about the bear-brush, and the puppet head. I very much liked that. I see connection to my destroyed self portrait, which was also an act of destroying the idyll (maybe(coward)). The newer work also appears much more peaceful, than it actually is (hopefully).

On the other hand, I could very much imagine, to paint someone with a tomato smashed in his face, that -on the painting- looks like blood. -same game other way round, but I seem to like to implant a story in the head of the viewer, that is not the right one behind the image. But the viewer decodes the appearance, not the actual “true” content.

3. Any other comments

---

STAFF COMMENTS:

Max has consistently been making interesting work but the development of his themes/direction has had randomness to it until recently. One very important method of making work and allowing it to develop is to understand your own working processes. Max is someone who quickly loses interest in self-confining thematic restraints and so, this slightly more ambiguous approach developing the direction and content in the work I think had been a successful development for him. As long as he remains reflective and questions the outcomes within the work he is creating the work can continue to flourish.

I think he also needs to address the materiality within the work. He jumps around painting styles, relatively randomly, but to what purpose? Can this be part of the work, or at least it should be a considered aspect of it.

This is the photo that I mentioned about the firemen:

McLean, Virginia, 1978 by Joel Sternfeld

Susan Hiller Exhibition / Tate Britain

The Susan Hiller exhibition was a brilliant one. She just brings order to things, and makes a brillian piece of art out of it. Her Approach is quite simple in most of her work - collecting and ordering and finding interesting criteria in classifying things.

But also the piece..... was a good one for me to look at. The child-story of punching judy turns out to be some kind of horror- or war-scenario, using two projectors projecting on the opposite side of one room. some sequences repeat many times, and slow-motion and out-of-focus-scenes make it authentic. Furthermore an annoying voice repeats stuff like: "This is how to do it" many times.

It was interesting to see, how she turns stuff into horror.

She also had a diverse range of works shown in the tate britain. she works in projects in different approaches. The concept for most of the projects is very simple, which leads me to a lovely conclusion:

The content of every day contains potential for a good piece of art.

tutorial / danny treacy

MA FINE ART: TUTORIAL NOTES FORM


NAME OF TUTOR: danny treacy

DATE: 24.2.11



STUDENT TO FILL IN:
1.What points were discussed during the tutorial?

At first we talked about my difficulties with research and conceptualism. If the work follows the written word, or the written word follows the work, and which role plays the instinct in art, and if research can kill it. I mentioned my problems with the question \"why\" and we discussed the validity of that question. In context with my handbrushpainting, and even more with the puppet head we discussed the role of the \"canny\" and the \"uncanny\" in my pictures. Danny was also interested in the context to my family. on base of the dolls head, we came to my interest for clowns, when I mentioned, that I think that the image of every cute thing also contains it´s opposite, the \"uncanny\" side. Canny told me about the origin of the clowns face, which is a rather horrible story.
Furthermore we talked about my cctv paintings, and Danny adviced me to think about the unity of the series, and to choose places where no cctv is expected.



2. What issues will be thinking further on as a result of this conversation?

I found the advice of Danny concerning the CCTV pictures very useful, so I´m thinking more about the context between each piece, and choosing places. He also said, that he believes, that going on working is the best research one can do, so I will try to find my way through working. I´m also thinking about involving more objects or photos related to my family in my work.



STAFF COMMENTS:

As you have mentioned above I found a strong sense of the ‘Uncanny’ in your work. There is something animated within your imagery of very dead things (the brush, the dolls head, the cctv footage). I think you are using the paint in a very interesting way to achieve this. I think you are right to be thinking about the concept/context which can unite your imagery. I would advise you to look at the work and writings of Mike Kelly, particularly on the uncanny and his collection of objects. I really think your strength is in presenting to the viewer a world that is both innocent, almost childish or naïve, yet there is a strong underlying sense of something not quite right, very good.

frank auerbach

it´s a shame that I didn´t came across this painter earlier. one of the most intensive and paste-like painting styles I know. but there also seems to be (maybe it´s just me) that sense of unsharpness like in photos in parts of that painting, where the figure and backround meet.

Graham Rawle

A very interesting lecture. The content of it was not really relevant to me, but just the way he enjoyed doing his art, and transferred this onto the artwork. Graham seemed very idealistic, in terms of who he is working for and for which project.

I also found the simplicity of his work quite stunning. A simple Idea, but consequent working on it.

He really seemed to be united with his artwork. Very inspiring for me, as I´m still searching for the "ME" in art.

interesting Borremans interview 2006

I’ve always been struck by the tension in your work between your technical virtuosity and the realism in the paintings, and this unsettling, surreal world they suggest…

All of that creates a kind of psychological impact that is interesting. It’s kind of conceptual in a way. We all deal with images as a language, we all respond to these codes, but I fuck these codes up—that what’s I do. Following the elements in a work usually leads to something, leads to a solution. In my work, it fails to do that. You have within the imagery a kind of “ideological failure” is how I put it. I look out for that, I mess around with it, because I think it makes you question not only an art work, but also an image, and with that reality and truth. You know: Does truth exist? What is it?

Is that why you’re drawn to this uncanny world filled with an ambiguous past? You’ve frequently used some dark imagery out of the 1940’s…

In these new paintings, I’ve tried to avoid it. But there are several reasons why I’ve used that type of imagery. For one, I didn’t want there to be an individual in the paintings. In my paintings, there are no individuals, they’re just types, stereotypes, two-dimensional images. They’re human beings in their symbolic quality, like the pieces in a chess game—they stand for something. I also wanted to avoid showing contemporary people because I think that has an anecdotal connotation, which wasn’t useful for me because I wanted to depict this very general, 20th-century man.

So I took the image of man in the middle of the 20th century. That’s an interesting period, of course, because you had the War then, and there was this time from the 1930s to the 1960s with tremendous change in society and in life. Therefore, it’s fairly significant, especially in the way we look back it, which is why I wanted to use that imagery.

It was also to erase time a bit, to make it general. But I found out that the imagery also has an aesthetic quality and that perhaps that quality was too dominant sometimes, and the work was appreciated mostly for that. That disturbed me, which is why I’m seeking a more efficient way to work out my concepts.

In changing to a more contemporary imagery, you’ve also harkened back to Velazquez and Manet and even Chardin—in doing these new portraits for example.

That’s a form of dialogue with tradition in painting. But of course the portraits are not real portraits. They’re not about people that are depicted, or making a characteristic image of them that speaks for what they are. I just use this exterior form of a portrait so that you have certain expectations of it, but it doesn’t really work like a portrait. It doesn’t reveal anything or go where we’d expect it would go. So on the surface you have a portrait, but the content of it is just not there. There’s nothing there.

There’s this amazing quality to the paint…

Yes, but that’s another aspect of the work. I think an interesting work of art—whatever it is, whether it’s film or literature—should have a whole range of qualities, and therefore you can appreciate it for very different reasons and from very different angles. Good art needs that. In a lot of 20th-century art, you have this focus on only certain aspects of art, and it was a very interesting period for that. But that’s finished now. That’s why I think I’m a very subversive and revolutionary artist [laughs]. An artist has to be convinced of that: It’s not pretentious, it’s not arrogance, it’s a responsibility.

You know, art is always a testimony, is always witnessing its time. When you look in the past, it’s always the art that tells the story, really. It’s the thing that remains, and we should not underestimate it.

Is a sense of being culturally haunted by the Second World War part of the imagery in your painting?

Well as you know, and it’s a cliché of course, that every work of an artist is a kind of self-portrait. And of course this period has an influence on me, because when I was little in the 1960s and 1970s, older people only talked about the war. It was really present still. It wasn’t that long ago. All my aunts and my grandfather and grandmother had all these stories about the war. As a child, that was a tremendous influence.

This dialogue with tradition in painting you mentioned—is this continuity of tradition part of what you find productive in painting?

I started painting kind of late. I was in my early 30s. I did drawing before and did work in graphic media. I always wanted to paint but I never dared to do it. I never found my way in it. I tried from time to time. But I’ve always been interested in the medium. Now, the more I paint, I can’t stop anymore.

One of the reasons I consciously chose to work in painting is that you can’t use it only as a medium. It has this historical connotation, and either you want [that connotation] or you don’t want it. So if you paint, you should make use of that. It’s inherent to the medium, and it’s very important. If you don’t want it, take another medium. It’s as simple as that. Therefore this dialogue with other painting is to me very essential.

It also has to do with another aspect of the medium of painting: Good painting is always contemporary in a way. I just came from MoMA, from the Munch show—he’s not my favorite painter—but his paintings are concretely there. They’re mental things, they’re not objects. They have this mental vibration, and they are here now. A painting is always now. When I see a self-portrait by Rembrandt, and it’s well conserved, it looks like it was painted yesterday. There’s this leveling of time, this erasing of time.

You mentioned starting in drawing, which is also a major facet of your work. Do you see drawing and painting as distinct projects?

There are similarities, thematically, between my drawing and my painting, but they are different things, because they have a different function for me. The drawings are more literal, the putting on paper of ideas really. Painting is a more passionate thing. There’s much more risk in it. There’s me and there’s the painting, and we have to come together in a way. Drawing is my medium, I control it much better. The painting I don’t control that much. It’s like a mistress.

But your paintings are so assured, the technique is so assured…

That’s how it’s got to look [laughs]. I always think I can do better. That’s why sometimes I have to postpone a show—I postponed this show three times. Sometimes, mentally, I’m just not finished with a group of works, and I often make the same painting several times, just to see if I can do it better.

There’s an example of that in the new show, with these two paintings of a man’s legs…

Yes, but in that case they were both interesting. That’s why I made a diptych out of it, because it gives something more to the whole. It was an interesting accident.

Let’s go back to the drawings. You tend to work on very intimate material—envelopes, passepartouts—materials that aren’t necessarily traditional drawing mediums.

What has always fascinated me about drawing since I was a child is that you can, on an envelope or whatever, evoke a complete world. You are god. That has always been completely striking for me. I can do anything, and I don’t harm anyone.

But your drawings and paintings are often about seemingly harmful experiences, or about being controlled.

Yes, but what’s wrong with that? It’s all around us. In fact, it’s less there in my work than in the real world. That’s part the romantic element to the imagery, too, in the sense that’s there’s no way out, that we’re all prisoners—I mistrust institutions. It’s like Caspar David Friedrich. He used nature as a metaphor; I work in the interior.

You also work from photographs; what do you think has been so productive to a whole generation of painters about translating a photographic image into the medium of painting?

Well, you have to be able to deal with it. A lot of painters stay too close to the photograph, and it’s clear when you see the work. You have to leave the photograph, to manipulate it a bit. And the photograph doesn’t have to be interesting; it’s the painting that has to be interesting. I never use a good photograph because that’s finished. When you have good photograph you cannot improve it anymore. So I always work from an image that has a lot of shortcomings. Then I have a feeling that I am creative, that I am changing the original image.

And since photography has been there it has been an aid for artists, a device for painters. You don’t have to have a model standing all day in your studio, although that gives a different kind of painting. I paint from nature as well from time to time. It’s important to do that. When I paint in small formats, I often do it from nature.

You mostly work in small scale—except for this huge painting in the new show. Is that influenced by your training as an etcher?

It’s practical—such a big painting like The Avoider is not practical. I’m a pragmatic person. Painters mostly are, because it’s a medium for pragmatists. You don’t need much—with drawing even more so. Sometimes an artist has to rebuild a whole museum, and I can get the same impact on a small page.

I’ve also been experimenting with film, small 35mm loops. Film is not a pragmatic medium, but it’s actually very close to what I’m doing in painting. The relationship between painting and film is much closer than painting and photography. Painting to me is a moving image when it’s painted well. To me there’s a connection, and experimenting with film is a very obvious thing to do—it comes out of the painting.

Mid point review

Comments /notes

Brave to destroy work.

Looks like destroying, but some beauty. Lovely layers and brush strokes.

Not destroying, aestheticising. Spray painted image more dramatic. Resonances with graffiti and vandalism. Left painting seems affected.

Questioning the idea of painting as self-portrait. Conveys sense of the artist in the conventions of representations of artists.

Unknown Kettle’s Yard exhibition where an artist destroyed self-portrait using a blue square. Aware it is a portrait of Max in both images.

Pasolini film (Theorem) depicts an artist’s movement through the rhetoric of painting. Sequence in film about object, gesture, movement. Work feels rhetorical.

Canvases warped. Part of the aesthetic? Alter pieces?

Greyscale and relationship to photography. A dialogue. Passport photo, identity, identity theft.

Scale odd. Political portraits. Dictators. Maybe relates more to ways of destroying photos. Paintings difficult to destroy. Image destroyed, not the painting.

Spray paint over face – censorship.

The relationship between the two paintings allow you access to what has been erased by the spray paint.

Beginning of a series? Negotiating destruction.

Scale cold be larger e.g. graffiti murals. If enormous, deconstructs the self.

Evokes feeling of punching your reflection in a mirror after a bad day.

Read in relation to the capitalist realists, e.g. Richter, Frize.

Parody of anti-concept in painting?

Where does the work go next? How valid is the self-portrait in contemporary society? What space does it create for the viewer? Does the work have a romantic character?

Interesting to see the canvas destroyed. Addition of lots of layers, like layers of graffiti.

Want to see the process in relation to the work, e.g. the grid.

Playful element of sprayed face on plinth. Maintaining a lightness would be wonderful.

Gesture of erasure seems reluctant (spray paint). Tentative.

Third painting could be destroyed absolutely and set up a different relationship between the first two. Process of erasure could be documented (video).

Destruction can be cathartic. No sense of release in the work.

What is the next stage? Could have pedagogical or interventionalist aspect. Joseph Beuys. History of art being defaced and destroyed, e.g. the suffragettes.

Painting a very genuine process. Could raise questions of what’s real, i.e. has the erased portion actually been painted? Example of a unknown piece in the Istanbul Biennale. Three dimensional faxing of the David.

Could use different blacks to improve.

Next steps? Erasure painting into a corner.

Defacing photos in newspapers. Walter Benjamin.

Lots of ways forward. Could be menacing – Talking head, the broken digital image.

Longing for colour. Greyscale easier? Greyscale produces a different temporal relationship.

My Comment to the comments:

I liked the discussion, if it is actually an destructive, or an aestheticising act, because it is what I wanted to arise. I also liked the connection made to identity, and passport photos, as it goes above the fact, that it is just a self portrait, as it contains something else. I´m still not sure about the question, if the "destruction should be documented or not, as a video would add another form of aesthetics, and visual impressions, that I´m actually not interested in. Documentation would be a work of its own, not really connected to the painting. I got really interested in the question if the erased part of the painting really got erased, or not. So it arised the idea to make -fake- destroyed self portraits, with parts, that seem to be destroyed, but actually never have been painted. Also the connection with censorship gets another face, as only a blank part of the canvas is censored. I would stick to the black and white portraits, but would “destroy” in another colour, randomly chosen. So a completely “overpainted” canvas with colour, in the context of a series, would appear like a destroyed self portrait, that it actually never was.

baselitz

As I am writing about the abstinence of content in the work of Gerhard Richter, and how he tries to avoid the suject, it reminded me of another german painter -georg baselitz- which had the intention to make the image a painting again. his way of doing it is, that he paints the picture upside down. This aims to give the viewer another approach to the picture, and wants to put the painting itself in the foreground the image in the background. Sometimes he also replaces the black with white, and the white with black, which furthermore abstracts the image.

one could ask, why he doesn´t do abstract painting, if he intends this kind of approach, but actually I love questions left with the observer. If one has every answer to every question, is the painting of any interest anymore? Does the magic remain?

Sonntagsbilder (Sunday Paintings)

both 60 x 60 cm / oil on canvas

Whilst talking to Jessica in a tutorial, I mentioned I would really admire people that finish a painting every day. I meant one in particular, Edward Gordon, who sells a painting every day on his blog. Jessica recommended me to give my work also some kind of rule, or maybe regularity, so I started to search for something to paint every sunday, and paint it on the following week (not being consequent enough (and able) to finish a painting every day. I liked it, as long as I found the object on my daily way to somewhere (shopping, visits etc.) but in the third week, I did not go out of the flat at all, so I had to go out especially for searching something that I could use as a template. This felt very artificial to me, so I thought this would never be a long term project. I went home without anything which was the end of the series.

But now I see the links to to my first portraits I did (the black and white big ones) as they also were randomly found objects - in this case people - which I painted afterwards. I like to paint things, that are confusing people with the question: Why is he painting this, does it have a relation to him? Are these objects or people really worth being painted by someone - as it needs time and energy to do so??

I like playing with expectations of the viewer, what painting should depict and be. Painting is a good way to do so, as people know, that it needs time (better as for example photography), and the historic backround painting has.

Gasworks

We had a small, and very short exhibition at Gasworks gallery. It was a lovely experience, even if the rehanging of stuff was a bit annoying. It would have been better, if the curators would have been in the gallery from the first day on, to make it bit less stressing for people at the end. But it was great, as the whole course (pt.2 & full time) got together, and put up a show, which was a very good one at the end. It also was a good opportunity to get to know the people, that we are actually studying with.

I showed Paul, which looked great in the gallery space - could have been streched better. -Next time.

Good atmosphere, and a lovely evening.

Thanks everyone

Tutorial / Jessica 19.1.11

NAME OF TUTOR:

jessica voorsanger

DATE:

19.1.11

STUDENT TO FILL IN:

1. What points were discussed during the tutorial?

Jessica was surprised, how the visual language of the paintings changed, and how the

newer work conflicts with parts of the written proposal. I mentioned my problems to

follow self-given rules, and also expressed my feelings about the content of my

pictures, and that I wanted to liberate me from that. I told Jessica about a project that

came in my mind over the christmas holidays (make the content google-dependent...),

which I abolished, because of the unpersonal charakter of the internet.

We also talked about the possibilities of the “fake” (CCTV).

We reviewed the possibility to work with randomness to give the content, and how it

could influence my work. We also discussed methodologies that work with temporal

and local constraints (e.g. searching for an object to paint on the streets on sunday) to

make a series of paintings.

2. What issues will be thinking further on as a result of this conversation?

I will try to think in projects, that run over a previously defined period of time, whose

content comes from self given constraints and methodologies. I want to include

randomness of content in my work, and want to work in series (which I tried often,

but never managed it).

3. Any other comments

The name of the artist I mentioned with the camera on the back of his head is

- Wafaa Bilal -

its a misinformation, that the pictures are directly forwarded to the internet.

sorry

Max (19/1/11) comments:

Max and I discussed the new directions that the work has taken since his proposal. He, very

interestingly, stated that he nds it very hard to follow rules, even if implemented by himself. I am not

too concerned with his veering o into another direction from the proposal as that allows for development

within the work. My main concern is that in his continued altering from his chosen ‘series’ or

paths that he will miss out on some key points of reection. These become essential points of

learning & understanding his work. The ‘random’ element that he strives for can certainly be key to

the development in the work as long as he is working from an informed perspective and with a

reective practice.