Jeanne D deux.

All of the elements of the Jeanne D'Arc sculpture are AK’s staples; granular mounds, holes, extrusions, applied pigment, accumulated understanding of the whole etc. These come with their received associations; body references, lingams, female genitalia, self made objects (shit), and a mythic/legendary title with religious relevance.

But that title, ‘The Dismemberment of Jeanne D’Arc’ appears to be a red herring. The real Jeanne D’Arc was not dismembered, and you can bet that Anish is under no illusions that she was, and he is not one to be flippant with his titles, so there must be some good reason.

Of Jeanne D’Arc we do know that she was burnt on a pyre and her ashes were disposed of in the sea to foil relic hunters. The C-Curve sculpture is located at Chattri, on the spot where funeral pyres burned the bodies of Sikh and Hindu fatalities of world war one, whose ashes were then disposed of at sea. (Muslim fatalities were sent to Woking for burial)

The source of these bodies was the makeshift hospital for Indian war wounded set up in the pavilion complex, the site of the Sky Mirror sculpture.

The surviving Indian soldiers migrated in large numbers to the slums that once stood on the present site of the Jeanne D’Arc installation. They went there for sex, scandalising the town and effectively turning the area into a red light district. Here we seem to have another correlation, Jeanne was most likely raped while imprisoned.

Three of the sites for Anish Kapoor’s sculptures during the festival share key roles in the Indian history of Brighton and through their aspects of sex and death offer a passing analogy with the fate of Jeanne D’Arc.

The Sky Mirror in Pavilion Gardens also has a formal relationship with the hole in the Jeanne D’Arc sculpture, in that the sculpture is a disc of sky brought down to earth, or a view into the heavens. The vagina hole of Jeanne D’Arc is also a projected circle, when you stand between her legs, you see a similarly sized disc that is a view into the ground, the depths exposed, fitting for the bodily theme.

There are four venues that house sculpture by Anish Kapoor during the festival, three are perhaps linked, what of the fourth?

Fabrica is a deconsecrated Methodist church. If there is a connection here with the subject of Jeanne it is not anything to do with the Indian heritage of Brighton. Perhaps it balances the cultural duality of AK himself, but I think it hints at a deeper, less visceral aspect of the Jeanne D’Arc story, one that centres on faith, religious dogma and the nature of questioning.

While Jeanne D’Arc was being tried she was asked whether she was in a state of grace. To answer 'yes' would have been heresy, as only god can know his will. To answer ‘no’ would have proven her guilt. To the amazement of theologians this 19 year old illiterate peasant answered “If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.”

What makes this relevant? Anish Kapoor like many artists, is dealing with universal questions and the essence of truth through his work, in fact you could say that all of his work arrives in its vicinity sooner or later. His chosen method of dealing with the ‘big’ subject is to continually contrast absolute simplicity with confusing complexity.
Jeanne illustrates nicely the partisan nature of questioning and how, like sub-atomic particles, question and answer can shift depending on what you wish for. Also like Jeanne, he has a knack for not giving compromising answers to questions where the futility of the answer is already established.

Of course there is a whole load more to it than this ~ and a lot less...
[Remember this is not science]

Narratives in the Frame. Blood & Ink

I was curious to see how Fabrica would pull off hosting an exhibition that potentially epitomises the inaccessible, exclusive face of the art establishment, without damaging its own reputation for placing the arts firmly and intelligently within everyone’s grasp.

When I heard that they were throwing Ovid, Murasaki Shikibu and a whole host of other classical sources into the mix, I had to remind myself that if anyone could avoid either bludgeoning its audience with academic authority, or dumbing down in disneyesque proportions, it would be Fabrica.

The respected literary elders have been invoked for a series of associated events called ‘Blood & Ink’ that have been organised by Jane Fordham the painter and Jackie Wills the poet.

Blood & Ink was initially conceived as a development on the working process of Anish Kapoor, in an attempt to understand his ‘fictions’ and how they work, to explore some of his explicit references and to broaden the field. Blood & Ink events are an opportunity to put yourself in the artists place, taking possession of a range of classic myth narratives and exploring them as your own personal source.

Each event is an informal reading with a subliminal trace of performance. They are not all exactly what you would call participatory, but somehow they seem to involve you personally in the interpretation of the narratives. These are far from dry retellings of old stories – each event so far has had a very particular atmosphere, a vitality stemming from the dynamic of the story, reader and listeners combined, they leave you energised and inspired.

Having been to several of these events I get the feeling that they will be responsible for quite a lot of new work from those who have attended.

Last Saturday, watching Ovid being read, coming alive once again after all these centuries, with the power to stop passers-by and quieten small children, to huddle together and be delighted by your own mental imagery, I realised what Fabrica does that is special, and what sets it apart from the majority of galleries.

Fabrica is artist led, it recognises that the arts are fundamentally participatory. The majority of Fabrica’s work is aimed at the artist in you. At Fabrica an exhibition such as AK’s Blood Relations is the focus for a host of process related activities such as ‘Blood & Ink’, that are arguably where the real creativity occurs. Such an approach makes contemporary art extremely personal, you have a stake in it, it is what happens when you engage, right now in the instant, your own individuality with your culture.

When Contemporary Art is approached as a spectator sport, a catalogue of what the great are doing, we all become little more than train-spotters in our own culture, confined to the platform looking for the bookshop.

Strangely enough Ovid is there too.

Blood & Ink details

Imagined Monochrome

It is an interesting quandary to consider whether a sculpture is characterised by its physical presence, or its physical effect on your body (and perception). I wonder if AK’s increasing mention of the idea of nothingness, of the primal chaos, has led him to explore no-thing-ness through the omission of the lump of sculpture itself, while retaining the sensory stuff.
Tempting as it is to drag Schrödinger’s cat screaming from Plato’s cave to explain this thought, I’ll resist in favour of a plain description.

As the work is effectively ‘by appointment only’, chances are that if you haven’t booked your ticket, the closest that you will get to the work is going to be a verbal form, however for those who would like to reconstruct the experience with friends, the following may be of some help.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 masseuses – Indian head variety (preferably), dressed in white.
• Several ushers.
• 1 dark industrial basement (ex-print works is recommended)
  Containing: ~ 2 specially fabricated interconnecting rooms within the space.




• Room 1 (approx 10’x10’ x8’ high) painted neutral mid grey.


Contents:


• 2 doors, each in opposite walls opening outward from the room
  
• 2 low plinth-like seats, white with no padding – against doorless walls
  
• 2 flourescent lights – one behind each seat.
  
• 2 short text instructions (Wait Here, Do as instructed, What to expect, etc) painted on wall above seats in black.
  




• Room 2 (approx 10’x10’ x8’ high) painted white.

Contents:

• 2 doors, each in opposite walls, one closed, one leading from previous (grey) room.
  
• 1 massage table plus blanket (all white)
  
• 1 bright daylight-white luminaire in ceiling immediately above massage table (luminaire approx same dimensions as massage table).
  

RECIPE:

Upon arrival the subject is:

Received in lobby, checked against booking time and for medical conditions, then ushered downstairs into the basement.

Met in basement by masseuses, confirmed as fit, given instructions then put in grey room to adjust and wait.

Masseuses prepare, open interconnecting door and invite subject to de-shoe and lay upon massage table (fully clothed) face up.

Massage commences, during which a ‘monochrome’ condition is, or isn’t successfully imagined, depending on the subject, and prevailing conditions.

Subject leaves, sculpture leaves with them.

~•~

Clearly all of the concrete elements of this sculpture are common objects that can easily be encountered in a normal situation, however the sensory effects that mark this as an Anish Kapoor are more fugitive.

I have interviewed 3 people about their experiences during this process:

1. Patient A (Little Hans) Imagined nothing unexpected.


2. Patient B (Fräulein Elisabeth von R.) Had a visual sensation of colour consisting of two horizontal fields; a softly dappled green above and a rather muddy violet below.


3. Patient C (Fräulein Lucy R) Experienced a highly animated range of imagined colours almost immediately the massage began, these increased in intensity until the temples were massaged, at which point a fully polychrome dragon made its appearance across the entire visual field.

Anish Kapoor information

At Fabrica there are books and pamphlets about Anish Kapoor, his works and the themes he tackles in that work. These include the Tate's glossy guide to 'Marsyas', his sculpture that filled the Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern a few years ago. It shows and explains how it was constructed, with drawings and photo's of the maquettes, something I hadn't seen before. A major task made to look simple.

I also spotted in the gallery assistants information pack this photocopy of Descent Into Limbo (1992), a sculpture Anish made for Documenta IX. It was constructed from concrete and stucco but I like the distortion that multiple duplication adds to what was once probably quite a crisp image. Nothing beats photocopying.

Kensington Gardens, Brighton

In Sandpiper Books, copies of this AK book reduced by a fiver for the duration of the Festival. In the second hand shop next door but one, this pink dress, a tenner "because it is modern". 

Both excellent shops to browse, the very essence of Brighton.

From The Argus

I'm noticing how my vision is being affected by an Anish Kapoor filter. I see AK elements everywhere. The current cover of Latest Homes magazine, for instance, (it's in all the racks outside shops around Brighton) has a luxurious lump of red stretched across it proclaiming a new shade of sofa. The Argus, also in festival mode, seems to be having similar visions. Is it possible to create the thought of a colour in a whole city's consciousness? Click on the the heading to read the article.

C – Curve beneath O - moon

Last night the moon was full over Holt hill and the Chattri. A steady stream of people visited the C-Curve sculpture all night long. This is a magical spot on the downs overlooking Deep Bottom. The nearest track, Braypool Lane, in Donkey Bottom, is somewhere that you would rarely come across another person, even in the daylight.

Before C-Curve arrived, the Chattri was one of those secret places unknown even to most Brightonians. If they did know about it, they kept it quiet, because the Chattri is a bit special.

I wish I could have gone to see the full moon over the white marble and the mirrored curve, but I had to spend the night keeping 1000 names and blood relations company.

The security guards that watch the Chattri have told of their surprise at the numbers of people visiting, even at 4AM and the friendliness of those making the pilgrimage. Seems I needn’t worry about my secret spot after all.