There is a space in the materiality section at Tate modern it sits in a corner or a corridor in-between work that challenges the force of material, that challenges weight and size and function. The work all questions material states and the possibilities and boundaries of the stuff of matter. Each work is cordoned off and protected …for us, from being altered, broken, tarnished, ruined, marked, soiled by our contact. This is understandable it is expected and we all to some extend know the rules of these spaces as we stand being a line and walk freely? Around objects and images that we understand and interact with through a distanced materiality. Not all things are there to be touched and the state of thinking that the works start to create nay not need that particular sense to activate our thoughts. I notice a group of high school children sitting around a sculpture with clipboards in their hands and they are drawing, they are copying the work they are near too. They have drawn the outline and are filling in the space the outline created. When each of them complete the drawing, they put the A4 paper to the back of their clipboards and move to the next object or painting to draw. Giuseppe Penone Breath 5 1978 In the space near the students I am suddenly aware of the solidified open mouth that Penone made in his clay. The direct and violent aural hook that anchored his body to the material. It is a hardened wrestle between human and matter between stuff and action. The wrestle is equally a conversation as though he was leaving his imprint, forcing his power but also becoming embedded in the material and letting it rush over him. I feel these actions even behind its cordon and without touching the sculpture. I walk away from it as though clay is in my mouth as though I have bitten it myself and that my body had laid into the material before it was cast and held in the state post action. I know the materials and have knowledge of making, have manipulated forms, poured plaster, made casts, turned objects on lathes, my reaction to the work I see is material through my knowledge of what it feels like what it can do and how the art work is the deciding point of his resolve for the artists and makers. However, what if you don’t know, what if you hold an A4 clipboard and blunt HB pencil, what did you encounter, what did you understand, what do your lines provide, a strange and hurried representation. As I move to the corner space I am provided with material questions, and see substances and forms in front of me that suggest what might be used to make the work I have seen, and suggest what these materials might mean. These materials are mainly behind Perspex and in this corner I am again cordoned off from an action and am voyeuristic about the possibilities of materials and their processes. A few floors above me Tate exchange is open, filled and busy with material attacks, interventions, creative dialogues and concentrated purposeful play. But here in this corner for those walking around, the audience and the viewers this corner nudges in the direction of making in a package clean and distanced form. I want to burst something, let something seep. I am aware of everything feeling sterile, beautiful and challenging but removed. This corner feels like a provocation and I want to lay my face onto the work, feel its temperature, and for it to be mine momentarily. I want all the groups upstairs in Tate exchange to run through the space with clay on their hands to shout and interact. No one else is in this corner with me and why would they be?
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Kimberley FosterKimberley's practice as an artist is pedagogical, it doesn’t just reference learning, it plays with, embodies and encourages learning at its core. The objects consider ideas of collaboration and authorship, discussions about touch and encounter, and bring into active consideration issues of learning within social and participatory practices. Archives
October 2018
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