The award goes to....

Friday 26th October saw the opening night of the Midas Award Show 2012 at the Newlyn Art Gallery. Amongst many familiar faces, including UCF staff and alumni, Rosanna Catterall received the award for her work All Balls —> to the Departure Lounge (2012). I really enjoyed Rosanna’s degree show and was hugely impressed to see the work re-exhibited with such success. While the rest of the show is strong and all work worthy of attention, it was clear on the day that Rosanna had adapted best to the new space and made the most of the resources available during setup, not least the incredible technicians at N.A.G. If you haven’t seen the exhibition already you have until the 27th of November. 

  1. Date Posted Icon 29th October 2012
Midas Award 2012 - Newlyn Art Gallery It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally here. Today is day two for installation and the show is really coming together. If you make it to the exhibition you can expect to see A.V technology pulled in all directions, pseudo-historical vulgarity, bears, a cinematic hideaway and my most testing structure to date. 

Midas Award 2012 - Newlyn Art Gallery

It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally here. Today is day two for installation and the show is really coming together. If you make it to the exhibition you can expect to see A.V technology pulled in all directions, pseudo-historical vulgarity, bears, a cinematic hideaway and my most testing structure to date. 

  1. Camera: CASIO COMPUTER CO.,LTD. EX-H30
  2. Aperture: f/3
  3. Exposure: 1/100th
  4. Focal Length: 4mm
  1. Date Posted Icon 24th October 2012
artnet: Tacheles Closed After decades of bureaucratic wrangling, Berlin’s famous debt-ridden Tacheles arts squat has been cleared.  A large warehouse in Berlin’s bohemian Mitte district, it was occupied by artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and has since been a hub of alternative culture. The building has a tumultuous history. It first opened as an elegant shopping arcade in 1909, but prisoners of war were said to have been held in the attic for interrogation purposes during World War II. Damn, such a cool place. Squat culture is hurting everywhere.

artnet:

Tacheles Closed

After decades of bureaucratic wrangling, Berlin’s famous debt-ridden Tacheles arts squat has been cleared. 

A large warehouse in Berlin’s bohemian Mitte district, it was occupied by artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and has since been a hub of alternative culture.

The building has a tumultuous history. It first opened as an elegant shopping arcade in 1909, but prisoners of war were said to have been held in the attic for interrogation purposes during World War II.

Damn, such a cool place. Squat culture is hurting everywhere.

  1. Date Posted Icon 9th September 2012
  2. Reblogged Icon Reblogged From artnet
  3. Notes Icon Notes: 19

This is how Nothing May Come Of This (2012) was undone.

I enjoy making work that doesn’t out stay it’s welcome. The most obvious benefit is logistical; I can travel light and not worry about bumps and knocks in transit. The more important effect is that work which doesn’t linger doesn’t fatigue. I’ve felt in the past that my relationship with the objects I make follows a steady downward slope. There is an initial joy in making real something that you have been thinking about, but that has always been short lived. The flaws and missed opportunities become more pronounced over time, familiarity breeds contempt. Developing a practice around impermanent structures removes the need to care for a growing collection of things and grounds my work in the act of achieving a structure rather than sustaining a commodity.

Also, it’s satisfying to knock things over. 

  1. Date Posted Icon 31st August 2012
Learned, Inherited, Imitated (2012) shares it’s name with my dissertation because it does the same thing.The text is an altered Dan Flavin quote, ‘it is what it is’ becomes ‘it was what it is’. Framed alongside the quote are a collection of deflated balloons inside other deflated balloons; this is a kind of colour mixing I experimented with during my degree. Making this work was the same as formatting my dissertation; reference the work of 60’s Minimalism and present my own work to be assessed under the same criteria.  Read an edited version of my dissertation here.

Learned, Inherited, Imitated (2012) shares it’s name with my dissertation because it does the same thing.The text is an altered Dan Flavin quote, ‘it is what it is’ becomes ‘it was what it is’. Framed alongside the quote are a collection of deflated balloons inside other deflated balloons; this is a kind of colour mixing I experimented with during my degree. Making this work was the same as formatting my dissertation; reference the work of 60’s Minimalism and present my own work to be assessed under the same criteria. 

Read an edited version of my dissertation here.

  1. Camera: CASIO COMPUTER CO.,LTD. EX-H30
  2. Aperture: f/3
  3. Exposure: 1/15th
  4. Focal Length: 4mm
  1. Date Posted Icon 25th August 2012
I brought a plan, two thousand cocktail sticks and a title to Pause. The title was the only part that proved sufficient. During the six hours it took to build the work it collapsed twice, each collapse put an end to the plan proceeding it and informed the plan that would follow. It doesn’t look like I thought it would as I put down the first stick, it looked exactly like I thought it would as I put down the last. I brought a plan, two thousand cocktail sticks and a title to Pause. The title was the only part that proved sufficient. During the six hours it took to build the work it collapsed twice, each collapse put an end to the plan proceeding it and informed the plan that would follow. It doesn’t look like I thought it would as I put down the first stick, it looked exactly like I thought it would as I put down the last.

I brought a plan, two thousand cocktail sticks and a title to Pause. The title was the only part that proved sufficient. During the six hours it took to build the work it collapsed twice, each collapse put an end to the plan proceeding it and informed the plan that would follow. It doesn’t look like I thought it would as I put down the first stick, it looked exactly like I thought it would as I put down the last.

  1. Date Posted Icon 23rd August 2012
  2. Notes Icon Notes: 1
An interesting review of Pause by Anna McNay.
  1. Date Posted Icon 14th August 2012
A quick overview of Pause. A quick overview of Pause. A quick overview of Pause. A quick overview of Pause.

A quick overview of Pause.

  1. Date Posted Icon 12th August 2012
  2. Notes Icon Notes: 2
www.normanbuchan.com

My newly published website.

  1. Date Posted Icon 27th July 2012

Thanks to Sophie Ingram for this footage which really illustrates the precarious balance that made Balloons, Bricks, Glass such an enjoyable work to make.

  1. Date Posted Icon 24th July 2012