Good day for research

I’ve really tapped into a seam of amazing contextual referencing to my practice today…After reading the Phiadon book on Thomas Hirschhorn cover to cover in one day, I’ve cross referenced, researched and gained more insight into his work, and from several page returns, have been linked to other artists:

Jim Hodges – “the Good news”, This is a fantastically subtle work, Hodges has taken the New York Times and covered it in gold leaf. I like the double (if not triple) edge to this work. First impressions are, that this is a celebration of “the right news”, a liberal open minded newspaper, worthy of dipping in gold, and regarding as a winning trophy, the sheer gusto and ostentatious objectification of a daily newspaper, who happens to “speak for the artist”…on deeper probing, the name “the Good News”, is also a biblical reference – the bible…this is where my thinking starts to creep into negative realms, is Hodges goading the publication into a false sense of heightened status (surely no publication could be worthy of higher praise than “the bible”? – don’t get me started, of course I disagree!) – but the biblical reference also carries further, the sense that “thou shalt not worship false idols”, it’s not in the shape of an ox – but it could certainly be seen as a some blasphemous golden totem, certainly fitting with the right wing politics criticism of the paper in the US. It’s also interesting to think that this idolisation of the paper, the adorning it in gold leaf, has actually rendered the paper worthless – that is you can’t read it, you can not gain information or fact, or even liberal opinion from it – mute. If I could experience this work in the flesh, I would see if any relief would be visible from the ink through the gold leaf…this is quite a poignant note, the internet certainly can open up new areas of information, but it still does not afford me the “full picture”. I am finding it very difficult to find anything about this work (text wise)…so I will have to base my opinions on only a handful of small images, and few lines of text describing the dimensions and materials…so you can’t take my word for it!

Eleanor Brown – newpaper. Speaking of gold, I struck it here. On an internet page, http://www.artvehicle.com/ArtvehicleMailer/issue12/index.html under a Hirschhorn article, I see “newpaper” (not Newspaper) a newspaper that critiques newspapers in an artistic context (http://www.thenewpaper.co.uk/ I was amazed too!). It’s even got an article in it by Rainer Ganahl…this is too good to be true! I frantically try and find an online shop that sells it…but fail (well, a Canadian website has one for $2 + $10 pnp…so I avoid that). But, I do find their “hard to find” website, with a contact email of Eleanor, so I write a mail to her, asking if I can have a copy (lets hope I am not too late). I’ve sent her this blog address, and told her about my lines of inquiry and how my practice is shaping up for the MfA…so, I’ll let you know when she gets back to me (like the positive thinking there?)

To top off my serendipity, I find an interview with Thomas Hirschhorn and Rainer Ganahl – the two artists I’d set out to explore fully when exploring the area of special study – information within the media in a fine art context. (both display an overpowering sense of confusion, bias and power within their works)…This has been a great day for my research. Now all I have to do is put it into some thoughtful writing!

I pasted the press and journal onto the Full Stop, as Gabi bought it for the house section.