I love the ICA. Ever since Charlie introduced me to London’s underground mainstream arts centre I’ve been a regular visitor, in awe of the £15 magazines and the often insane exhibitions that they put on. Though the gallery has had some difficulties in the past few years, mainly involving losing lots and lots of money, there has been some good news. For one, it’s now open on Tuesdays.

Sadly, though after visiting the gallery on a recent Tuesday it seems that opening hours may be the least of the ICA’s worries. Unlike when I first visited five years ago, the ICA feels more like a museum than a contemporary art gallery. Their current exhibition: ‘Remote Control’ explores the way that television changed the art world. Great, right? The only problem is that all the videos shown were recorded circa 1979. I guess it’s not a problem if a gallery wants to focus on the past; but the ICA feels out of touch, rather than offering a considered retrospective. Gallery visitors watch the videos as a novelty- often only watching each video for 15 seconds or so. And, to be honest, who cares about TV when art is facing its biggest challenges today from the Internet and modern technology. Though there is some engagement with these new technologies, it is limited to one of the most cynical pieces I’ve seen in some time. Called ‘Red Alert’ it is three apple branded screens side by side, all showing red. Just red.

The ICA’s new pride and joy, the studio, is meant to be the engine room of the gallery, igniting and encouraging debate. To understand the problems with the ICA and to an extent the problems with contemporary art in general you only need to have one look at it ; lying empty and bare, with 1970s press cuttings describing how radical and free thinking the establishment is. In essence, the gallery’s past success has prevented it from being radical today. Today, they cater mainly for tourists and old Guardian readers, pretty much as bourgeois as it gets.

see more at http://www.brendangeorgeko.com/

Yesterday the When I Grow Up project came to an end. It was a project that I had been working on all term, culminating in an exhibition at The Shop which over 100 people braved the cold to come and see. Throughout the exhibition people asked me ‘what gave you the idea’ or ‘what do you think of growing up,’ and I didn’t really have an answer. So I thought about it. And it starts at the American Cemetery.

On a really cold autumn day I decided to cycle to the Cambridge American Cemetery. Despite the fact that I had to cross several motorways, I thought the sense of achievement would be worth it, and so after 40 minutes of getting lost and almost joining the M11 by mistake I arrived. It was pretty amazing. I’d been to Dunkirk but years and years ago, and I’d forgotten the scale and symmetry of the military graveyards.

There was no-one else in the whole place (apart from a solitary gardener), and I walked through the graves thinking about how young everyone was when they died. My age. These Americans were so grown up they were fighting for their country, and there I was still being looked after, going back to my family in the holidays and living with my friends in term time.

What makes someone ‘grow up’? Fighting did it for the people in the cemetery. A soldier of just 20 had won the Medal of Honor and his name was embossed on the wall. It was so tranquil in the cemetery and suddenly I had an idea. To find out what growing up meant to people. Was it when their parents split up? Was it when they realised they had to get a job? Or when they split up with their first boy or girlfriend? After a few days I came up with the When I Grow Up kit, a way for people to record their memories, dreams, fears, drawings and ideas about growing up.

I sent it out to people in Cambridge who wanted to participate, and was lucky enough to be featured in Varsity which got the project more attention and more responses. Around 40 people returned their kits, most with intricate and detailed responses about how they had found growing up. Though originally I just wanted to make a magazine, the way people returned the kits were so detailed and different that it never would have done it justice. So I decided to have a one night exhibition.

Since tents are ‘my thing‘ and Anna is really good at putting them up I decided that an exhibition of four tents: one each for dreams, one for fears, one for memories and one for people’s own responses would be best. In a day and a half I managed to put them all up (with lots of help from Megan and Anna!) and then I added a fan for the dreams, a uv light for the fears, my mum reading out memories and pens for people to contribute themselves.

I also added a shop with t-shirts, bags and magazines to document the project (though some people looked like they’d never seen a shop in an exhibition and called me a ‘capitalist’..).

I also put a film in the exhibition featuring films about how 1950s children were supposed to grow up. In the 30 minute compilation there were tips about getting a date, getting a job, being confident and being quiet. Though a lot of the scenes were quite comical it showed how grappling with growing up is hardly a new phenomenon.

Over the course of 4 hours (7-11pm) people came and looked at other people’s responses to the question of growing up, and after looking at other people’s they decided for themselves what growing up was, and wrote it inside the final tent.

It was also nice as a lot of people came off the street to see what was happening, including a family and several teachers. The fact that there was so much space to talk in the middle of the room and dream tent gave the exhibition a real sense of community.

It was quite sad to take everything down after 11 (though it only took about 15 minutes, with the help of Maz, Lucy, Lowell and Anna) but I felt that I had really explored what it is to Grow Up. Originally I thought that it meant you had to “realize you weren’t special” or “realize that you have to compromise,” but what the project taught me is that ‘growing up’ isn’t a bad thing. It’s a normal thing. And ultimately, everyone has the same worries, concerns, dreams and fears about it. The whole point is that we take the good and the bad and go forward. With each other. Not looking too far past the horizon. Just like the people I’d seen in the cemetery had done. And then whatever happens, happens.

I realise that one day I will have to get a job and earn money. Recently after telling a friend that money was an essential component of a job they replied: “but life isn’t about money, life is about living, about falling in love and doing something you love; even if you get a job where you just make ends meet you can still be happy.” After hearing her say this, though, it had the effect of dispelling my unrealistic dream of becoming a conceptual artist. Suffering for your art and not having any respect or money is something that doesn’t really appeal to me; especially at a time when the government won’t be able to look after everyone in the future. So I thought that I could become an advertiser. As Pippa, a Saatchi & Saatchi intern says, advertising is a “creativity fuelled rollercoaster.” That sounds like fun, right?

Some of the most beautiful pieces of art I have ever seen have been ads: the incredible beauty of the HSBC Guillin Fishermen ad for example, or the imagery of the Vodafone Mayfly ad. The genius of the simplicity of the image yet the power of the message in some advertising is just staggering. And so; I have decided that I would like to be a part of it.

I’ve never seen proper prairies. When I was younger I used to dream about them a lot: the endless expanse of fields, the rolling hills. I would just be running, the long grass up to my knees. I’d lie down amongst all the grass and just look up, the blue of the sky becoming one with me and the clouds flying freely. When you’re running in the prairies nothing matters anymore: schoolwork, the future, the present, the past. Everything is just one: everything becomes one. Questions of meaning and fears don’t belong in the prairies.

Sometimes I can get that same feeling with art: you experience an atmosphere or a sound or a feeling when looking at something. When I went to see the Ed Ruscha exhibition on a cold wintery Friday night in London, when the gallery was almost empty, I could stare into Ruscha’s perfect world and feel completely at peace. There was this piece at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London by Bill Fontana, a sound artist, which was the ambient recording of a giant bell of a Buddhist Temple and a video of the bell when it was not ringing (Silent echoes). Using vibration sensors Fontana showed how

“when a bell rings it is only the sound of the bell listening to the sound of the bell. Or to put it another way it is the sound of yourself ringing. This is the moment of enlightenment.”

(‘The Three Pillars of Zen’ by Phillip Kapleau)

I could have sat there for hours, enthralled by the reflections of life and time. Through one concept Fontana managed to capture a truth and an atmosphere that I have never experienced in my life through a book or on a page. In that one moment I felt exactly like I used to when I was running through the prairies in my mind; that everthing was ok, that nothing matters, and that there may not be any real truth but there is no point worrying about it. But then why bother looking for answers? Someone said to me the other day: you didn’t seriously come here looking for answers did you? I guess maybe they were right.

When I grow up, I want to be Sophie Calle. Though it might be tempting to laugh at some of her concepts when told them by someone else, the execution and presentation of some of the most theoretically absurd and pretentious ideas are perfectly balanced. Starting with a hundred and two interpretations of a ‘dear jane’ letter from a man she was having an affair with the exhibition flits from accounts of smiles to random New Yorkers to documentation about lending a bed to someone in San Fransisco. What was so unsual about this particular Sophie Calle exhibition is that there was a film installation. BUT SOPHIE CALLE ONLY USES TEXT AND PHOTOS. At the very end; in the last room, the artist’s unmistakably arty voice can be heard admitting to anyone who will listen that she worked on a project for 15 years and never had an idea. Though she could have just stuck some pretentious text to the millions of ATM machine images she was gifted by a bank (showing the interaction between man and machine- whatever) she showed how she had attempted to come up with a concept for the images, but nothing had come to her. Instead, she presented the images in silver frames and they simply spoke for themselves. The whole exhibition was really intriguing and interesting. Calle’s work shows that there is merit in the journey and method, not just the destination or project. She got 24 people to occupy her bed for 8 days. What’s the point? There isn’t one. What was the result? Millions of beautiful images and words showing just a tiny fragment of humanity. That’s it. And you should see it too. Until 3rd January

The Turbine Hall is by some distance the largest indoor space devoted to art in the world. Seeing artists’ attempts to overcome the ‘obstacle’ of 3,400 square metres of floor space has been mostly a joy over the past ten years, with Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is the most daring and conceptual thus far. With a giant steel box he has sought to turn the bright expanse of the Turbine Hall in on itself, drawing his audience into a black hole in which they are supposed to lose themselves to the dark.
Except, he hasn’t quite succeeded. The structure, from the outside, is a monstrosity, possibly to make you appreciate all the more the subsequent loss of sight. It is also silly how the box seems to have been put in the wrong way round; the audience must walk all the way to the end of the hall, to one or other side of the box, before turning back on themselves to go in. Then, once inside, it is still possible to make out the figures of everyone else present; there is simply too much light allowed in by the lack of an entrance curtain (and, we presume, Health and Safety).
All of these factors combine to compromise the illusion of infinity to great effect, with Balka’s work full of failed allusions to, among others, Plato’s cave and some of the ‘darker’ events in Polish history. Instead, if you would rather a better approximation of how long a piece of string is, try to think back to the exact moment you fell asleep last night. Everyone knows the sensation of awakening. The reverse, however, is more intangible.

Words: Charlie Chichester, Pictures: Guardian

Walking into the Ed Ruscha exhibition at the Hayward I felt an odd sense  of calm. It might have just been because me and Hunter had gone at a time when the gallery was virtually deserted- 8.30 on a friday evening – but there was definitely something about the air that perfectly framed the vivid, bold typography and images that made up the exhibition. Images like ‘Give him anything and he’ll sign it,’ which was of a bird with a pencil for a beak and a rubber for a tail are put together with a simple charm, but also hold a darker image about contemporary America. Other favourites included the ‘Back of Hollywood’, which did exactly as the title describes, with the warm red of the sky cut into by black silhouetted outlines. Ruscha’s bold and striking colours in ‘Not a bad world is it?’ accompanied with his trademark font gives off a warmth not usually seen on a white gallery wall. Walking out into the winter darkness after the exhibition Hunter summed it up perfectly: ‘ I’m not overwhelmed, or underwhmed. Maybe just whelmed.’ Recommended, but go when it’s dark. Olly

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I have little criticism for Ed Ruscha, even though he did break away from an Abstract Expressionist style which he was taught (a style which I find myself still very fond of). His paintings are said to incorporate elements of typography while still retaining aesthetic qualities of the predominant style drummed into him during his education. Breaking free from the unplanned, gestural brushstrokes of the Abstract Expressionists, Ruscha instead chose to carefully predetermine the visual outcome of all his images. With influences ranging from film and the cinema to the array of visual imagery surrounding him in everyday metropolitan life, he rendered very graphic paintings that employed an organised and carefully planned underlying structure.

I walked through the exhibition marvelling primarily at the way the seemingly solid and permanent walls seemed to have been shifted weightlessly into a new formation. The very first painting – namely ’1935′ was in fact one of my favourites. Completed whilst still in an Abstract Expressionist education, the top two of the three divided sections of a rectangle were home to a build up of layers of different coloured paint. The shapes – their sizes and execution – were remeniscent of Rothko’s rectangular works, yet underlying this motif were the numerals: ’1935,’ beautifully hand painted.The contrast in this piece, and indeed many others during his early period, between the typography and expressionistic surfaces is stark and engaging

Another piece which I loved was his ‘Standard Station,’ because of its plunging perspective and detailed paintwork. I’m guilty for still being allured by very accurate representations, and yet this petrol station was (due to the perspective) by no means truthfully representational. Its graphic qualities are achieved through flat colour, straight lines and again this same underlying geometric grid which Ruscha so commonly finds himself working with. The show was entertaining and intriguing, yet some of the later works, which frequently consisted of only a word or phrase atop a colour gradient, I found repetitive. Monumental and hard-hitting though they may be by themselves, their clustered quantity somewhat softened their impact. Hunter

Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting – Until Sunday 10 January 2010

I yesterday visited the cosy Elms Lesters Painting Rooms for yet another inspirational exhibition, this time showcasing the extraordinary work of Boris Tellegen (Delta) and James Marshall (Dalek). Tellegen’s work, in my opinion, blew Marshalls out of the water, with its wider range of materials and motifs being put into play. Marshall’s work consisted entirely of multicoloured geometric motifs, which, however interesting, seemed repetitive and unimaginative. Shown below, the flat plans of colour are thoughtfully juxtaposed, yet no real variety in the work resulted in a dwindling interest for me.

Tellegen’s work on the other hand included an expansive use of materials and careful exploration into different mediums by which to convey his aesthetic. For me there was no doubt that the work was a result of a much longer thought path, and a more thoughtfully executed and time consuming method of creating works.

The best pieces in the exhibition were no doubt the layered wooden hanging sculptures:

Reviewed by Hunter Thomson

Olly – http://olly.tv | Hunter – http://hunterthomson.eu