Art Writing 421- Chapter
- katieiwatk
- Dec 13, 2023
- 3 min read
Carolina Caycedo Chapter, Cardiff
Artes Mundi Exhibition
09/12/2023
Step 1 - Exit uber. Check if a phone or other important item has been left. If it had been, I’d wish to be that item and travel elsewhere.
Step 2 - Enter the building. Keep bags and peers close, weave through crowds of loud, sugar energised kids in dance and sports attire. Question if this is a place to view arts or generalised child supervision.
Step 3- Queue for food. Express frustration about the limitation of student finance and the extortionate prices for fancy named bread and cheese. All while wondering where this exhibition could possibly start between the crowds.
Step 4- Eat. Revisit the over pricing, bread and cheese should never total £8.00. (1)
Step 6- Walk in. Make eye contact with a staff member reluctant to break her staring contest with her phone.
Step 7- Take a copy of the exhibition write up. But not be able to read within the dark rooms.
Step 8- Notice the bird sculpture hanging in front of you. I will remember this as a cool looking photo on my phone. It was sort of off putting as it watched over you, Feel watched and uncomfortable.
Step 9- Walk right. Observe the pointing gesture of a small grey, square sculpture with a face made from round discs. If you don't sit and watch the video, you should probably look that way as instructed.
Step 10- Barely enter the room on your right. Make awkward eye contact with people filming. Be more concerned about stepping into someone's overly long video of the video, than viewing it yourself. Question if these people are going to watch that video back.. Like those concert videos we all have taken up storage. Await the oddly specific non-teeth smile and a head nod to know you can pass. Enter the room. Sit (it's a long video).
Step 11- Sit closer to your friends than you have before, it's a small bench.
With subtitles to read, now is a good time to discuss “what the heck” this is about, and comment on “how old do you think the performers are?”
Step 12- When conversation drops you may opt to pay attention. The cut scene images and sounds seem like a film trailer where dramatic moments begin without context why or what's happening. I was waiting for the classic “to be continued” text to show up, it didn't.
Step 13- Retrace steps to the door, feel relief then dread as you spot another door.
Step 14- Repeat step 11 BUT with a change to the final question.. Ask and explore “ what are those glowing sculptures”. Futuristic, mechanical looking creatures. If you stand in front of the green one it will SCREAM at you.
Step 15- Leave! Congregate back with people you know. Discuss.
Step 16- Realise this is an art competition with intentions of supporting artists. (2)
Many artists struggle financially. Wonder how much of this prize money would actually go on living expenses in addition to their creative practice. (3)
Step 17- Return home via an overcrowded train. Nap for half the journey, then type an overly honest art review in the style of the white pube the next day, informal and critical. (4)
1 -
“Prices rose faster than increases in student loans in the 2022 to 2023 academic year, leaving students in England with less money to cover their living costs.”
“Some students struggled to afford their bills or food shopping. Careful budgeting was not enough to keep costs down for many students, who had to find other ways to make ends meet.”
“Prices rose faster than increases in student loans in the 2022 to 2023 academic year, leaving students in England with less money to cover their living costs.”
“Some students struggled to afford their bills or food shopping. Careful budgeting was not enough to keep costs down for many students, who had to find other ways to make ends meet.”
2-
“When founded in 2002, the Artes Mundi Prize was first developed with the intention that it would allow, at an important stage in their career, established artists the freedom to develop a substantial body of new work or afford them the time to reflect on and consider new ideas. Subsequently, these have become some of the many ways in which individuals use the support the award creates to develop their practice.”
3-
“Paying Artists aims to secure fair payment for artists who exhibit in publicly-funded galleries.”
4-
“And with reviews, we thought them boring, tangled and essayistic, equivocal, innocuous, and tired. We also thought that using stars to quantify art (or food, films, whatever) was a reckless system.”
“Simply and quickly, we decided to take matters into our own hands: to write what we wanted to read;; to start an art criticism website..”
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