Visited Tate Modern today, found the new installation The Unilever Series aka 'Sunflower Seeds' fascinating - the sheer scale of the operation that was put into place to achieve such a reflective piece of art was definitely inspiring. Initially the piece reminded me of the Japanese Banzai gardens in which the gravel is intricately raked to obtain the smoothest finish possible, but I soon realised that the work was far more symbolic. In this sense Ai Weiwei (artist/sculptor) employees the use of traditional Chinese porcelain crafting methods to create each individual 'seed'; with the help of no less than 1600 workers over 100 million seeds have been handmade and painted. To accompany the piece itself there was a short documentary illustrating the project from start to finish (i.e from the mining of the clay/porcelain, through painting and eventually the installation in the Turbine Hall, above). This was really insightful as it highlighted the social impact the piece had, quite literally upon everyone involved. One woman commented that she had earned £1000 (2000/3000 RMB) and that had it not been for the work she would of been bankrupt.
I felt this was an extremely ingenious way of using art to tackle a social issue which would have otherwise been left unheard of and in doing so confirmed that art is very much influenced context!
GARY HUME - Private talk 18.30 @ The Prince's Drawing Foundation
Thinking I was merely keeping a friend company I visited The Prince's Foundation where Gary Hume was giving a talk about some of his work. Despite turning up a touch late the talk was rather interesting, Hume discussed his techniques some of which were really rigorous and others the complete opposite. It was slightly surreal listening to a famous artist talk so informally and bluntly about his work often commenting 'if its **** then I start again'. His speech highlighted that self reflection can be as important as peer and staff assessment and not to take 'life too seriously'.
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