03/09/14 - Saatchi and V&A

Saatchi Gallery

At the Saatchi, we saw a selection of art from Africa and Latin America and of the few that stood out to me, I found Boris Nzebo's 'Auburge du Boulot Noir' (2013) the most nauseating possibly due to the colors used in her acrylic paintings. The end artwork was unwieldy and almost trippy, but I was drawn to his cartoonish and almost caricature style where only blocks of color and thick black lines were used. Again, I believe I was probably only drawn to this as I've learnt to associate any form of line drawing with my friend from school. Even whilst looking and observing Nzebo's other pieces, I made note of what I was reminded of and they were as follows: secondary school, a-level art lessons, Lisa. Again, this is an example of a clear attachment I hold to certain places and people.

Another piece of artwork I liked was Xavier Mascaro's 'Departures' (2011-12). The piece as a whole was rather intimidating with it's main material being metal but once I stepped in to take a closer look, focusing in on areas I knew people would look past, I found that the most elegant and dainty parts of the piece were were string was tied to the masts, attaching the cloth sails. With the gallery space being silent, there was something quite eerie and beautiful about not just the boats in general but also the smaller, finer details. Whilst the artist may not have had any of these intentions, I enjoyed thinking about the juxtaposition between the hard, bronze and iron framework and soft, white string and the small discovery has only further fuelled my interest in the antithesis between industrial structures and those that are flimsier and more whimsical.

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V&A Museum

The V&A was not as helpful in solidifying any ideas but it was nice to be prompted to think about other definitions of 'structure'. Society as a structure is fragile where rules are easily broken and protests campaign for change. Structure is usually used as a term for something 3D and very much permanent (such as architecture for instance). Alternatively it came be used as a verb- 'to structure a sentence'- however this generally connotes a formula or rule that should be followed. The exhibition 'Disobedient Objects' encouraged me to think about structure as something fragile and malleable- something that is changeable when there is effort.