yesterday we went to dan flavin: a retrospective at the hayward gallery. it’s wonderful. an array of colour and light. dan flavin uses flouresecent lights to create his installations. they have a mesmerising effect. beautiful colours. richard and sue went the day before us and have written a good review. it’s the redemption of the flourescent light tube… there is also a soundscape that has been created and you can borrow an ipod nano to listen to the tracks on the way round. i loved tracks 2 and 6 (mp3s about 5mb each). all 6 are available to download from the hayward gallery web site as mp3s.
i have started a second photo album art pics 2 (the other one is getting rather full) and added a few photos to it, i have also added them into flickr (if you want them at a larger size). however there are hardly any photos there. the reason for this is simple. after taking a couple i got told i wasn’t allowed to take photographs. this has really annoyed me. it costs £7.50 a ticket to get in (ok i admit i got complimentary tickets). part of the experience of going to an art gallery for me is that i want to take a few photogrpahs to share with other people and tell them about it. i will then probably blog about it. and it’s a pretty safe bet that other people will read about it and look at the pics and on that basis go to the exhibition. all round good for the gallery and the artist. so what’s with the system of control?! i can accept that banning flash photography and tripods is a good idea – it’s distracting, but beyond that artists and galleries should get over themselves and catch up with the spirit of the age which is about open source rather than control. am i missing something?
the thing that is particularly frustrating is that the bright lights so lend themselves to photos. even my little digital camera took wonderful pictures.
Technorati Tags: danflavin, opensource, haywardgallery
Agree… I appreciated the photos you posted. I doubt I’ll see this exhibition and viewing your view is probably the best I’ll get (unless the exhibition comes to Glasgow).
They should view it as free promotion… especially considering they are giving away the soundscape.
Cheers,
Thomas
Depends if it’s run on the economy of gift or not.
I recently wrote an article touching on this. It sprang from a fascinating piece I’d read entitled ‘End of the Original’ about the problems of making cash out of digital art, due to the fact that no ‘original’ exists. The same issues arose in the early days of photography.
Article here
Excellent piece exemplifying the problem here at http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/
Tip: View the source 😉
Durr, sorry – link didn’t work.
Try this: http://thecomplexchrist.typepad.com/the_complex_christ/2005/12/end_of_the_orig.html
I’m presuming you may have see this
http://www.laughfc.co.uk/zimages/schoolboys.gif
as a Chelsea fan it’ll raise a smile – don’t miss teh final wink!
thanks gordon – yes hysterical!
Tip from the top: the exhibition (which is well worth going to) is half-price on Mondays. So it’s only half as frustrating that you can’t take pictures.
Brian
the problem is, how do you allow the bloggers who aren’t using flash, while preventing the people who can’t turn off their flash damaging the art [it’s about degradation of some art media due to intense light not distraction], and preventing the people who are pirating an image for commercial purposes? since you can’t tell these people apart beforehand it’s simpler to just ban photography.
and artists and galleries make money out of selling licensed images.
Jonny, you missed the trick that if you show your Oyster Card you can get a 50% discount! It is not advertised though, you have to ask for it when you buy your ticket!
a few thoughts:
what if you took poor photos (not that yours are)and it didnt show the art in a good light (no pun intended)and it put people off. doesnt the artist have to retain some control over their work (and reproductions of it)- is control always a bad thing?
how would you feel about people using your photos or photos from grace? especially if used to illustrate something you didnt intend or agree with?
some people also argue that you should be able to get videos/dvds of art films/installations (eg viola etc) but then the work is not viewed in the intended context/environment and something is lost.
why do we want to photograph everything? isn’t a light installation something to be experienced rather than captured in a photo?
saying that i do like your photos
if you like the flavin exhibition you might want to check out james turrell who does amazing spiritual light installations/spaces. he has currently got a show at ysp with 3 rooms (chapels?)that are simply stunning
andrew people do come and take pictures of grace. and we don’t control what they do with them… they are also available on the web via smallfire etc. the real problem is that people taking photos can be intrusive not the end use. i want to photograph things because it’s a way of capturing a moment/a memory and a way of sharing with others. sure i’m happy for the experience on its own terms but i still wnat to photograph it. i still don’t see the logic in banning it – sorry…
what/where is ysp?
ysp is yorkshire sculpture park between sheffield and leeds