This afternoon I took students to draw a sculpture installation at the town church, St Helier, Jersey. The responses, and absences, were less about the work and more about the space in which the exhibition is being shown. It instigated intense discussion surrounding the way in which art and design 'should be' presented to audiences.
My aim was to bring proportion, setting, perspective and scale to the attention of the artists. I wanted them to tackle drawing a group, rather than a solo figure, isolated by the life drawing room, which itself is a loaded space.
Odyssey, by Robert Koenig, is a growing collection of male and female figures carved into native wood through a touring exhibition. Created from a single trunk, each plinth is inscribed with the name of a specific location.
I am drawn to the work because it is a sustainable project, with no necessary conclusion. I enjoy looking at groups of objects and work made in series. It feels like an evolving body of work which is underpinned by consistent criteria and a clear autobiographical concept. One student commented on the appeal of the sculptures as each chisels or tool mark can be seen and traced with the finger. The physical evidence of labour is obvious, there is an indication of the time and skill required to make such a gathering.
The initial figures link to the place of the artist's heritage, to the Polish village of Dominikowice. Native lime trees reflect his ancestors a physical reference to Koenig's roots. The artist attempts to address "issues of migration, forced or involuntary" as well as "heritage, belonging and displacement".
Brought to our island by The Jersey Public Sculpture Trust and the Jersey Arts Trust, the exhibition sits well as it shares contemporary and historical relevance as well as a timely link to our Liberation celebrations.
Being naturally drawn to the physical qualities of the wood work I didn't contemplate the setting they have been placed in. The young artists on the other hand could not see past it. It was a major barrier which fascinated me further as the sculptor is not openly religious. Koenig makes reference to spirituality yet the work doe not nod exclusively to Catholisism or any other denomination. Previous sites have included art galleries, exterior spaces, art spaces as well as cathedrals and churches. It is interesting to consider how we easily insert a new reading into an art work through its installation.
A new figure made in Jersey, un-stained, recently worked assumes a religious context, the remaining become a crowd, a follwing, a gathering in their eyes. With this new reading, everything in a church assumes religious presence due to association.
In my non religious upbringing I view objects within churches as demonstrations of great craftsmanship and skill inserted into a religious buildings. Churches, and places of worship, are records of our culture and history through textile, sculpture, glasswork, metalwork, woodcarving, upholstry, stonemasonry, silverware regardless of the themes and decorations they depict. On the other hand, the contents can be seen as historical branding, loaded logos for religion and evidence of wealth distribution. For me this does not affect the quality and skill on offer for our senses.
What I honed in on was the tall slender figures, skimming the ceiling of a sloping entrance of a church whose vaulted arches were once designed to lead the eye up, towards the heavens, and to an unreachable creator. Here the gathering of extruded bodies are part of that space, human but no longer a congregation.
My interest in cultures of display, context and prior knowledge widens further. Through Koenig's sculptures we are opened up to a range of options for the way we react, read and interact with contemporary and historic objects.
A New Year's resolution is to write more on my CJA website blog spot, as well as on my own site. Not because I think it will be widely read, but because it is a good exercise in keeping my mind focussed and helping me to reflect. I moved house in the Autumn of 2009 and have had limited internet access since which explains the absence of my words.
A brief update on recent artistic...
It is indeed half term and the welcome gap in my plans to get my new studio set up in my spare room. A whole uninterrupted week of drawing and image making, or so I thought. Instead I have house guests which initially made my nose twitch and my mouth to crinkle at the corners and head towards my toes. I am renound for not being abel to hide my emotions from my face which give live broadcasts...
Accountability and Responsibility.
Plinths bring selected items of the human world to attention. They isolate from the everyday space providing spatial boundaries and raise objects to eye level or above confirming the scale and that of the observer. A plinth is a magical...
I'd be interested to hear more about your students' responses. Were they challenged by the space because it was a religious one, particularly, or because they felt the pieces sat uneasily in it? If the response was 'art shouldn't be in a church', then I would question the students' notion of what a church is: there is artistry deep in the stones of such buildings, after all. If the response was 'THIS art shouldn't be in THIS church', then that's a rather more sophisticated argument, and one pertaining to the relationship between a piece, its space, and the complex interactions that occur between person, piece and place.
...and I can't remember what the Town Church looks like inside. In fact, I may never have been in it anyway. Is it the one near... um... the Royal Square?
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Robert koenig
It's interesting about how we associate meaning with the context of the objects. I'll have to go and see this, I'll let you know what impression it has on me. Looking at the site you've linked, it's really interesting to see them in different environments and how this changes their meaning.