A few blogs back I wrote about the BALTIC centre and mentioned that I was going to head back to the contemporary art gallery I visited when it had more exhibitions, and I did, but it only really had one big installation but again it was a very interesting one.
It was an installation by Jenny Holzer who is an artist known to use words as art, the piece mainly focused on using heavily censored U.S. government documents. After being released to the public, she as only allowed to show certain words of the documents as the rest had been heavily censored, she also displayed other things such as autopsy reports, incident accounts from both civilian and soldier perspectives, all displayed on LED signs very slowly. This part of the exhibit, although being the main part wasn’t as compelling as the idea of it was, as although it was sort of like a wake up call and made me very aware that war is a very real thing (which sounds strange I know,) I think it was a bit unnecessarily vast as the piece proved it’s point very quickly but seemed to need to remind you of it too frequently. Also, the speed the LEDs displayed the information was deliberately slow, almost at breathing speed, it was a frustrating way to display it which was probably the point of it but still. On a similar theme, she had another display called the Lustmord Tables, which consisted of a table of ordered bones, some with metal bands engraved with text that is sometimes deliberately covered up, again this piece was pretty shocking and added a more physical representation of showing the realities of violence and conflict as the bones are intended to represent the atrocities of the wars in former Yugoslavia, which included the systematic rape of women and girls, this was definitely the most thought provoking piece of the installation but again just felt she was reiterating her point too much. Finally, my favourite part of the exhibition was based apparently on an older piece of her’s called Truisms and also collects some other pieces of her writing, which are a series of rapid one liners all lined up one on top of the other, in various colours, scrolling across the LED display all at different speeds with conflicting messages, I enjoyed this because some of the one liners were often relateable, awful truths, bite sized philosophy, just very compelling pieces of texts suggesting contemplative engagement , I could of looked at it all day but we had to leave! Anyway here is a link to her Truisms if you want to read them: Jenny Holzer: Truisms
Me and friends outside the BALTIC, notice one of Jenny Holzer’s one-liners on the side of the building
On the same visit I also went to the Laing art gallery to see an exhibit called From Bowie To Beatles: The 60s exposed, and although it wasn’t as deep and compelling as the displays at the BALTIC, I still very much enjoyed it. It consisted of photographs of big artists from the 60s and some other items relating to them like magazine and album covers, and as just a big music fan in general it was very interesting, but the thing I was interested in the most was the photos of The Beatles, not sure if I mentioned before but I’m a massive Beatles fan (albeit not been one for very long but still a big fan nonetheless,) and the fact this band went from nothing to being the biggest band in the world and one of the most influential bands in modern music to then breaking up in just the space of a decade is incredibly fascinating and also very tragic in my opinion, by the time we got to the end of the exhibit and some of the last photos of them as a group were being displayed I was feeling very sad! Overall it was a nice little insight into the crazy world of 60s music, and it’s pretty amazing how it can all be told just in photographs!
So there you go, very artsy times for me as of recent, I’m not going to cross go to an art gallery off my list though because I feel I want to visit as many as I can, and feed my art craving mind until I vomit creativity! Anyway I will leave you with that lovely image, until next time (which should be soon!)
Wes Out!
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I’ll come to art galleries! I like learning and absorbing
xxx