A Closer Look at the 'Fragility' Spheres

My post of 17 August 2012 gave 'An Initial Glimpse' into the work I've been doing on the 'Fragility' spheres.
The first four spheres have test-fired well so I now feel the time is right to continue the process. I have grouped the four spheres together and the plan is to make several more and make an installation. All the spheres will be either white or black or a combination of the two. They will be of varying sizes.
My primary concern is to let the material and the process speak and for me to be simply there as an aid:
- making the process visible. I use the coiling technique which is a technique used in ceramics, but ceramicists tend to smooth out the coils; I want the process to remain visible. The spheres are made up of one continuous coil spiralling upwards - again, normally ceramicists use a process  of cutting the coils to size and then placing one coil on top of another: cut to size, place, cut to size, place, and so on. I want this spiralling of one coil to remain visible too;
- inviting imperfections - cracks, uneven textures, small fractures, etc. - to reflect 'fragility', but more importantly to leave visible the way in which the type of clay I'm using behaves;
- the sphere, the spiral, expansion and contraction, growth and decay, all of which are universal.

Some images of the intitial four:

And some close-ups, highlighting the texture and cracks:

These spheres are originally inspired by my consciousness of the fragility of life. These thoughts coalesced with my discovering and enjoying the delicacy of this new clay I was using, a delicacy that infers fragility. 
I initially intended to make this 'theme' a prominent element in the presentation of this piece (this is what I have tended to do in the past), but it occurred to me as I woke this morning that this would make the presence of me as the artist too manifest. The spheres must speak for themselves; the viewer must be allowed to/invited to connect with these spheres in their own individual way. So I shall keep the 'philosophizing' to myself (unless otherwise invited, of course!). Making these spheres is a deeply meditative process though, a process I very much enjoy, so the thinking is very much an integral part of the work.
My plans for exhibiting this piece are beginning to come together. I have always taken delight in the way objects/sculptures that are grouped together function very differently from one object/sculpture on its own. These - very quiet, peaceful - spheres speak so much louder when they're grouped together.
As I have said before, I intend to make a large installation with these and then show them in a way that sits  more comfortably with how I feel art should be shown: the prime motive being not the usual commercial one but endeavouring to bring something new, a new exhibition experience to the viewer. I'm also examining the feasibility of the concept of not having these spheres for sale in the usual way, but inviting viewers to take one away as a memory of their experience of the show - the experience being what I want to stay with people rather than the buying of an object/a commodity. This would be one of the spheres that speaks to them most, with which they find a particular connection.
The idea that a connection is then created between these people, invisible, existing at a non-physical level. This could be taken further, with some of these people coming together after a year or so to share with each other the 'further life' of their sphere - how they, friends, family have enjoyed it, incidents around it, etc. - and they could bring friends and family who might also like to have one of the spheres. (This would mean I would have been making more in the meantime.) And so the connection continues to grow in depth and in scope, and another kind of sculpture would be beginning to be created, one that functions at a human/social level.
I also like the idea that the spheres themselves are building a life of their own, separate from me directly. This, of course, is the case with all art objects, indeed with all objects, with everything physical on the planet: nothing remains exactly as it is, everything is constantly evolving; we're just not always conscious of that fact.

Form & Formless and Gutai

Following on from my previous post, some of the thoughts I have had over the past few months in relation to my enquiry into form - first addressed back in November 2011 - and for which my second encounter with 'These Associations' in the Turbine Hall last Saturday is proving to be something of a catalyst for imparting them now. I'm using images of some of the work I did in the Autumn of 2011 as the beginnings of my Gutai-inspired explorations, and I shall explain my work process and related thinking in the second part of this post:

- At what point in the creative process does a lump of clay become form (I have used 'a form' in the past, from the Germanic een vorm/ein Form), when does formless become form?
The French philosopher Georges Bataille spoke of l'informe
http://aphelis.net/georges-bataille-linforme-formless-1929/ 
and some further explorations of this concept provide a more concrete illustration 
http://radicalart.info/informe/index.html
The list of words designating forms of formlessness includes nouns that appropriately define what is depicted in the first two/three images below - and perhaps, to some, in the last two images.

Formless?

Formless / form?

Form?

Form is arising from formless as 'recognisable' structures/patterns emerge. And what are these 'recognisable' structures/patterns? I wonder - and I will expand on this further in a subsequent post - whether it has primordially to do with universal geometry (this hasn't quite fully jelled in my mind yet).

And now for an explanation of my work process for my initial Gutai-inspired work:

As I've said before, what inspired me about the Gutai approach was (and very much/increasingly continues to be) the idea of investigating the possibilities of calling the material to life; finding a way to confront and unite with the material, with one's own spiritual dynamics; combining human creative ability with the characteristics of the material; bringing the material to life; working with the material in a way that is completely appropriate to it; the artist serving the material - the artist's 'ego' is not or minimally visible (not giving one's work titles or provide interpretations) which allows for the material and the creative process to be the main elements in creation, the artist is secondary to that.; and finally embracing the beauty of the process, both the work process and the process of material and artistic ageing, of decay ultimately.

With this in mind I set about working with very wet clay - ideally it would have been the condition in which it comes from the quarry - manipulating, handling, moving the clay to let it take 'form'. The idea was to continue to do this until something 'interesting' (recognisable) happened - a movement, a plane, a concave.

Initially I threw small handfuls of clay onto a board. This produced 'smudges', all pretty similar. I then began taking larger handfuls and placed these less forcefully onto the board - reducing the intervention/impact from the artist - but still nothing much was really happening.

The next step was to saturate the clay with water to achieve a very loose but still holding consistency and I set about kneading it, moving it around, throwing it, dropping it from a height, swirling it, ... and here I felt I was beginning to really connect with the material. I had never 'felt' the clay as profoundly as that before, !in all the years I've worked with clay! I basked in the physicality of moving such a large mass around - physically quite demanding. The sound of the wet clay being moved by my hands. The texture, the smell, the sound, the physical resistance, the physical interaction ... what a joy! 

The wetter the clay - of course - the more formless the clay and the more it obeys the laws of gravity - something else to work with.

I woke the following morning with the thought that my 'interference', my manipulating of the clay, should be kept to a minimum in order to let the clay live; let the clay do the creating and I simply initiate/facilitate - the artist serves the material.

I feel I need to point out that the initial intention was to use these wet-clay forms as 'foundation forms' from which to make 'a scultpure', and, as I recorded in my sketchbook, 'to find the interesting elements and use those as the basis for my form'. I saw them as 'the seed from which the sculpture would grow'. This dovetailed with my earlier exploration of what goes on underneath/behind [the positive/negative, which culminated in the piece entitled 'Abstract IV' as per my post of 30 March 2011]). I removed these 'interesting elements' and encased them in plaster. The discovery of the joy of exploring plaster as a material then took over, the evolution of which I shall describe in a subsequent post.

Ten months or so on, the evolution along the path of Gutai-inspired discovery has been such that I intend to revisit the wet-clay manipulations but retain them in their integrity. They will be the 'sculptures'.

'These Associations' by Tino Seghal - Part II

Following on from my post of 3 August last of the same title:
I saw this piece again yesterday as I was at Tate Modern for the Tino Seghal Curator's Talk and this time I experienced it very differently. No conversation with a participant this time; I was viewing the unfolding from above up on the bridge. So the piece became about movement and fluidity of form, created by the group of participants. This is form/shapes created BY CHANCE through individuals moving around, seemingly randomly.
This new experiencing of the piece came about, I think, because I was watching from above and not from the level on which the participants were moving around, where the onlooker becomes more physically integrated into the piece and the only physical level on which the 'conversations' take place.
The movement element of the piece seemed and now seems more interesting to me than the conversation element as, over time, I have come to feel that these 'conversations' one has with the participants have a somewhat contrived feel and perhaps a triviality and unauthenticity about them. Interestingly, in the talk, the Producer Asad Raza said the opposite; that the conversations are authentic because there is no former knowledge of each other and it is therefore just the conversation, without the usual interference from prior knowledge/prejudice of occupational background, social status, nationality, etc.
Today, after yesterday's talk and viewings before and after the talk, I feel the fluidity of movement is the most interesting aspect: I was fascinated by the way the fluid movement of the group illustrated form and formlessness very nicely: the formation of the group is random at first and then begins to take form as you begin to see a pattern/structure develop and then dissipates again.
I suppose this is a good illustration of how this piece - and all art for that matter - is perceived by the viewer according to their own personal perspective; things resonate because you have a certain interest, you come from a certain background/culture.
Another interesting aspect, which I hadn't homed in on back in August, is the 'social' interaction between the participants. Perhaps it wasn't there so much in the early stages of the work and things have evolved, participants have begun to interact differently as they have become more familiar with their role, or the choreographic directions have changed. I enjoyed watching the participants watch each other, pairs homing in on each other and then from a distance begin to move around in a kind of almost synchronized series of movements. I feel this reflected real-life social interaction far more so than the 'conversations'.

Some of the notes I took during the talk:
Most people's subsequent comments in the social media and other platforms are about the conversations: 95%, to the surprise of the curator and producer. Why? Because they zoom in on the personal perspective, latching on to things that resonate with them at the time. My own personal view: also something to do with the physical position of the viewer (as commented on above).
Asad Arad: '20th century art is about defining what art is and then finding what it is not'.

This last comment gives much food for thought: if 20th century art was indeed about finding what art was not and if that has been explored to the full, what is 21st century art? It has to move on from the 20th century, therefore, as an artist in the 21st century I have to find a path through the labyrinth and find a place for myself that fits with who I am as an artist and a person. That requires some further thought ...