An enticing new exhibition at London's Tate Britain explores the birth and evolution of conceptual art in the UK
At
the start of the 1960s, emerging British artists such as Bruce McLean
and Richard Long began resisting traditional art thinking by creating
works in which the focus was placed on concept and ideation, as opposed
to form or beauty. This critical shift is newly explored in an
insightful new show at London's Tate Britain, titled: Conceptual Art in Britain 1964–1979. Comprised
of experimental photographs, prints and large-scale installations, the
exhibit charts the birth of the movement and its key purveyors, five of
whom we have highlighted below.
Keith Arnatt, Art as an Act of Retraction (detail), 1971Transferred from Tate Archive 2010 © Keith Arnatt Estate / DACS, LondonKeith Arnatt: Photography as Art
Keith Arnatt played a
crucial role in distinguishing photography as a form of art in itself.
He once wrote that, “Making a distinction between, or opposing artists
and photographers is, it strikes me, like making a distinction between,
or opposing, food and sausages – surely odd.” Arnatt’s first
photographic performance project, Self Burial (Television Interference Project)
was created for a German television channel over a nine-day period
during which the usual broadcast was inexplicably interrupted and showed
a two-second still photograph of the artist in which he was getting
further and deeper into a dug hole each day. Arnatt was using the tools
of photography and humour to tackle a serious and controversial topic of
the time: the dematerialisation of the art object.
Richard Long, A Line Made by Walking, 1967© Richard Long / DACS, LondonRichard Long: Leader of Land Art
Bristol-born Richard
Long studied art at Central Saint Martins in London from 1966 under the
tutelage of English abstract sculptor Anthony Caro. A year into his
studies Long decided to hitchhike home to Bristol. It was during this
fortuitous journey that he stopped in Wiltshire and walked up and down
an area of grass capturing the resulting mark on the ground in a
photograph he titled A Line Made by Walking. It was this simple
act that began a lifelong commitment to what became known as Land Art,
an art movement that Long has been closely associated with ever since.
He transformed the simple act of walking into a sophisticated body of
work that is shaped by an unexpected philosophical and conceptual
monumentality. Speaking of his art Long commented, “My work has become a
simple metaphor of life. A figure walking down his road, making his
mark. It is an affirmation of my human scale and senses.”
John Hilliard, Camera Recording its Own Condition (7 Apertures, 10 Speeds, 2 Mirrors), 1971Presented by Colin St John Wilson 1980, © John Hilliard
John Hilliard: Camera Paradox“I
have sought to conduct a critical interrogation of photography as a
representational medium, but also to disclose and celebrate its
specificity,” wrote artist John Hilliard who initially began his career
as a sculptor only using photography to record his works. From the 1960s
Hilliard was making site-specific installations made and constructed
from ephemeral materials which led him to the realisation that even when
the camera is simply used for neutral documentation there was an
intrinsic bias in representation that he found philosophically
problematic. This dilemma is perfectly encapsulated in the work entitled
Camera Recording its Own Condition (1971), which features a
grid of 70 images where the artist placed his camera in front of a
mirror with each image different from the other by alternating film
speed, exposure time and aperture size. The work is a celebration of
conceptual genius in which the lines between subject, object and medium
are paradoxically blurred.
Bruce McLean, Pose Work for Plinths 3, 1981© Bruce McLean. Courtesy Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin
Bruce McLean: Renegade ArtistScottish
artist Bruce McLean was taught by Anthony Caro and Phillip King whilst
studying art at London's Central Saint Martins. He abandoned their
formalist tendencies and defiantly rejected the traditional studio-based
production methods to make art that was impossibly controversial and
difficult for museums or collectors to acquire and display in the normal
way. In Pose Work for Plinths I (1971) McLean positions
himself in varying poses on three plinths in a monochromatic
photographic grid. The images are intended to be a humorous pastiche of
Henry Moore's celebrated reclining figures yet here the artist finds
himself awkwardly draped, squashed and squeezed around three different
sized white plinths.
Margaret Harrison, Homeworkers, 1977© Margaret F. HarrisonMargaret Harrison: The Female Gaze Artist
Margaret Harrison explores issues of gender politics in her work. In
1971, she started a series of delicate drawings which depicted
cartoon-esque women suggestively posing with oversized fruit or domestic
objects, which Harrison suggested "questioned the idea of having a
fixed sexuality". That same year police closed an exhibition of her work
which included a piece that showed Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner as a
naked bunny girl. In
Homeworkers (1977) she used collage to
incorporate gloves, brooches, buttons and safety pins as part of a
critique of women's labour rights.
Conceptual Art in Britain 1964 – 1979is on display at Tate Britain from April 12 – August 29, 2016.
I can't give comments to this.. It's really really out of that.. incredible...
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