CONTEMPORARYARTREVIEW Narcissus, site specific installation, 2017 A work by Francine LeClercq Installation • Painting • Mixed media • Drawing • Performance • Public Art • Drawing • Video art • Fine Art Photography Special Edition Biennial Edition ABY MACKIE BRIGITTE DIETZ CLARE HAXBY PHIL TOY PAULA BLOWER VAL WECERKA SOFIA PLATER NICOLE BENNER FRANCINE LECLERCQ
28 Be that as it may, this catalog or any portion there of may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission from Peripheral ARTeries and featured artists. Peripheral eries
Peripheral eries CONTEMPORARYARTREVIEW Lives and works in New York City, USA Lives and works in Bristol, United Kingdom Lives and works in Heidelberg, Germany Lives and works in Atlanta, GA, USA Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain Lives and works in Boston, Massachussets, USA Lives and works in London, United Kingdom Lives and works in Reigate, United Kingdom lives and works in Vienna, Austria 3 Contents 132 TREVI Special thanks to: Isabel Becker, Julia Überreiter, Deborah Esses, Xavier Blondeau, Margaret Noble, Nathalie Borowski, Marco Visch, Xavier Blondeau, J.D. Doria, Matthias Callay, Luiza Zimerman, Kristina Sereikaite, Scott D'Arcy, Kalli Kalde, Carla Forte, Mathieu Goussin, Dorothee Zombronner, Olga Karyakina, Robert Hamilton, Carrie Alter, Jessica Bingham, Fabian Freese, Elodie Abergel, Ellen van der Schaaf, Courtney Henderson, Ben Hollis, Riley Arthur, Ido Friedman, Nicole Ennemoser, Scott Vogel, Tal Regev, Sarah Hill, Olivia Punnet and Simon Raab Special Issue Citizenshop/ship, 2017 Installation Exploring the multidimensional means of citizenship (Nele Vos) 192 Monique Rutten Wall based mixed media and paintings Opening ChinART Museumkwartier http://www.morutten.com Shai Jossef Jungle 160 148
"There is no white picture. And there is no old picture. It is always a question of current experience and current perception." Often consisting of multiples works grouped around a specific theme, my work deals with the questions relating to the perception of art, the arrangement of the work in space, the elements of the work, whether concrete, sensory, intellectual and semantic, and the synchrony between the work, its context and the receiver. The installation [3:2] consists of more than 800 cells measuring 3 x 2 inches in reference to the photographic 3:2 aspect ratio now adopted for the LCD screens of our digital devices such as cameras, i-phones and the likes. A coat of thermochromic ink is applied to the cells, causing a nuance such that they may be perceived as an opaque black monochrome, a blur or revealing the underlying image depending on temperature and location, the proximity of bodies and heat exchange. It is an experiment whereby art is the moment of a mutual dependency fermented by an active participation of the senses. Francine LeClercq Lives and works in New York City, USA I Am Your Labyrinth, Installation
SPECIAL ISSUE 6 Hello Francine and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid background and after having graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Interior Architecture you nurtured your education with a Master's Degree in Fine Arts, that you received from the School of Decorative Arts, in Strasbourg: how did these experiences influence the way you currently conceive your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the notion of beauty? Hello and thank you for having me. I expressed interest for drawing and painting at a very early age and was encouraged to develop my skills through intensive training in private studios and at the Municipal Art School of Belfort. Soon after my graduation, I received full scholarship for the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. My answer to the exam committee for why I wanted to enroll in the Interior architecture department was that “I needed to solve problems.” I donʼt recall having had drafting or construction courses and later found myselft quite unequiped when I did have to do my first professional internship in an architecture office, but what I learned was the ability to expose problems. I soon realized that if I were to go beyond an utilitarian discipline like architecture, I could create questions without having to offer a permanent solution. This notion of permanence, or rather its antonyms such as variability, instability, alterability and fluidity are the core of my work as they imply a constant remise en cause. And this brings me to my (current) conception of beauty, constantly debating Augustineʼs question of “whether things are beautiful because they give delight, or wether they give delight because they are beautiful”, or simply put, between the effect or the origin of beauty. Having had a classical education, I canʼt deny my appreciation for harmonious proportions Francine LeClercq Lives and works in New York City, USA Peripheral ARTeries meets Artist Francine LeClercq's work grounds in the process of painting and the “idea” of painting, with a deeper focus on a complementary dialogue between materiality, content, the exhibition space, and the encounter with the viewer. Adressing the viewers to a multilayered visual experience, her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, successfully attempts to trigger the viewers' perceptual parameters walking them through the liminal area in which perceptual reality and the realm of imagination find a consistent point of convergence. One of the most impressive aspects of LeClercq's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of inquiring into the notions of displacement, sequences, viscosity, morphological and semantic registers, curatorial and historical elements: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
Francine LeClercq Photography: Debbie Rasiel
Crossing I, 24 x 24 in., Acrylic/urethane on canvas Sharples/Dyson Collection
9 SPECIAL ISSUE Francine LeClercq eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral sometimes expressed in mathematical ratios i. e. the Golden Section or the canonical sculpture, but these place beauty as something purely objective and I must concede to the emotional effect of beauty, often associated with pleasure. A perfect balance is when I neither attribute beauty exclusively to the object or the subject, but to the relation between them and even more also to the situation and environment in which they are both linked. The question is, can we still speak of the aesthetic experience in terms of beauty- that is a set of established criteria to judge a work? What I find more attractive, is not beauty per se, but the parameters that define it. My interest lies in exposing the system and values of aesthetic judgement not for what it says but for what it doesnʼt. Your works convey a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://francineleclercq.blogspot.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, are your works conceived and created gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes? Though I have provided images that at first glance seem to fall into the category of installations, as you have pointed out, my artistic production also entails singular paintings, objects, and architecture. And while the works share visual similarities, I canʼt speak of a formula or a “one size fits all” approach, but of instead of methodology where specific procedures solve different problems within the scope of a particular discipline. To give an example with painting, it is the very material constructs essential to the becoming of the work (the stretcher, canvas and paint) that directly dictate their own creation, whether in the “catalytic” works, where, under gravity and repetitive rotations, paint drips frame the edges of the canvas, or in the “DNA” series, through incision in the canvas, leaving the paint in a kind of suspended viscid state. In all cases, my creative process is always an interplay between conscious and unconscious, from investigations within the accumulation of intellectual ressources out of which ideas emerge, to a sudden intuitive feeling of “obviousness” derrived by a culmination of associations that will in turn, have to be validated in the later construction of the work. For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected [3:2], an interesting installation that our readers have already started to got to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into the notion of art as the moment of mutual dependency fermented by an active participation of the senses is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of [3:2] would you tell us your sources of inspiration? And how did you select your subjects? The title of this work, [3:2], reffers to the standard ratio found in camera and mobile devices LCD screens, effectively (in a sense) the new format of our perception. The small rectangular cells, liberated from the wall by impercievable cylinder spacers, are coated with a layer of thermochromic paint forming an opaque film. Filling the galleryʼs walls, the scenario evokes the image of a vaporized display of memories scattered about like gas particles in suspense. The paint has the quality of becoming transparent with the increase in temperature passed through touch as spectators are encouraged to place their hands on the cells, revealing a myriad of old photographs belonging to the galleryʼs past. Utterly dependant upon the visitor, the pieces can open like an album of universal memories, or remains absolutely
SPECIAL ISSUE 10 abstract and unapproachable. Citing the exact measure of our portable mirrors and opposing analogue photographs to them, the works via the concept of traditional painting, expose the ephemeral nature of the novel perception. Furthermore, it asks to challenge the role of the artist as an image maker by transferring it to the viewers. Hence the galleryʼs classic role as a match making box between the subject and the object, the see-er and the see-ee, employed to facilitate a tête-à-tête with this contemporary condition and restore, however temporarily an atmosphere of sensation or the sensible. Over these years you been exhibited in galleries and museums in Europe, Asia and the United States an you also has had the privilege to see your work selected by eminent curators such as Peter Blum, James Cuno and Lynne Warren. One agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries From the “DNA” series Detail of 8 blacks, 4 x 10 in., Acrylic/rethane on Canvas
11 SPECIAL ISSUE of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. Your works address the viewers to challenge their perceptual parameters and allow an open reading, with a wide variety of associative possibilities. The power of visual arts in the contemporary age is enormous: at the same time, the role of the viewerʼs disposition and attitude is equally important. Both our minds and our bodies need to actively participate in the experience of contemplating a piece of art: it demands your total attention and a particular kind of effort—itʼs almost a commitment. What do you think about the role of the viewer? Are you particularly interested if you try to achieve to trigger the viewers' perception as starting Francine LeClercq eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral
SPECIAL ISSUE 12 point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations? Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? The viewer is primarily a conscious subject without whom, existence/ any existence has no meaning simply because the relational field for the thing to be sensed doesnʼt exist, a space that opens or is impinged upon the presence of the viewer; in this respect whether in my paintings or installations I always strive to locate the viewer not as an outsider but as an encoded other whose role and thingness is constantly shifting, in other words as mediums go, the spectator is very much a material component of the work. I am always fascinated how the work changes in the presence of one or a number of people. With one individual the work is relatively fixed, as the number increases, it is much more diffused like the swimming decors of Matisse- but I donʼt mean that in a general sense, the decision to place a work on view requires a birdʼs eye view of the situation that is being set up, a conceptual knowledge of the totality of the work that supersedes everything else, the question is how this knowledge is imparted, or at what critical moment the viewer finds itself in the presence of the work, and more importantly at what point do they merge and become one; in other words, by internalizing the viewing subject, the work seizes to be a ʻlook atʼ and opens itself to its engulfing exterioritymetaphorically speaking, if there is a narrative quality to grasp the internal logic, then the work is a door from where the perceiving subject steps out and perceives itself being perceived. We like the way Delft Blue Eyes challenges an inner cultural debate between heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day: despite the reminders to traditional figurative approach, your works is marked out with a stimulating contemporary sensitiveness. Do you think that there's still a contrast between Tradition and Contemporariness? Or there's an interstitial area agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
13 SPECIAL ISSUE Francine LeClercq eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine [3:2] installation Installation view
Installation: Mise en [s]cène Last supper: Installation view with IP camera
SPECIAL ISSUE 16 where these apparently opposite elements could produce a proficient synergy? If history is an indication, there is nothing more traditional than the will to progress- which is to say despite its connotations, the longevity of tradition is dependent on the tensions between a long held belief and emerging concepts that constitute a new era- to which it must adapt and evolve. With Delft Blue Eyes, we (myself agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Object: Delft Blue Eyes (in collaboration with Ali Soltani) contact lens proposal
17 SPECIAL ISSUE and my partner Ali Soltani) had to work with the collections of Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, an institution dedicated to historical works and crafts belonging to Dutch culture. The competition called for a contemporary object or work corresponding to a particular collection selected by the participants, so the notions of present and past (or a former present) and with it the manifest issue of a particular culture belonging to its respective Francine LeClercq eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral Object: Delft Blue Eyes (in collaboration with Ali Soltani) Plaques from a column, De Grieksche A, after Adrianus Kocx, c. 1690 Rijksmuseum collection
SPECIAL ISSUE 18 epoch, defined the basis of the work- that is the insertion of something in time which is an uninterrupted continuum within the full breadth of unfolding historicity. Perceived in this way history is no longer a compilation of linear succession of distant events, and instead an instantaneous landscape of intensities marked by the peculiarities of a given time that could be interchangeably linked. We took the image of 17th Century Delftware plaques which was the high agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Installation: I Am Your Labyrinth (1:6 scale model top)
19 SPECIAL ISSUE Francine LeClercq eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine craft of the period and grafted it onto nonprescriptive contact lenses. Both are products that have flourished because of high demand and thus emblematic of their respective culture- on the one hand a product of the Dutch Golden Age characterized by its distinctly tactile quality attained through the manual manipulation of firing and glazing earthenware- and on the other hand the intricacies of an impalpable digital age represented by a technological veil on the iris Panoptes, Installation proposal for the Eastern State Penitentiary of Philadelphia
that like a chameleon as it were has become one with the object it is fixated on. Thus in the implicit fragility of a crossbred porcelain gaze as the site of perceptual happenstance, a reference was made to Marcel Duchampʼs notion of non retinal art and the Readymades both with respect to chance encounters and choice, and more importantly by the realization that the navigational path of modernity to progress doesnʼt have to be one way, nor straight. What is at stake is the notion of progress itself. I Am Your Labyrinth provides the viewers with an intense, immersive experience and as you have remarked in your artist's statement, your work focusses on a complementary dialogue between materiality, content, the exhibition space, and the encounter with the viewer: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience and how you see the relationship between environment and your work? It seems to me that with the advent of the internet, the domain of public sphere is shifting or I should say expanding from the exclusively collective spaces of streets and urban squares to the stealth realm of domestic life where it 20 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries No picture available [081122] 48 x 64 in. Digital keying paint and thermochromic ink on canvas SPECIAL ISSUE
reincarnates as the virtual space of networks and the world wide web receding into a labyrinthine pixilation of some kind of media screen. On the other hand the casual urbanite is entrapped within a maze of partitioned institutions each catering to a different purpose with relative sufficiency, but the notions of the institution and the public remain at large and whether or not our relationship with art in this artificial construct is tenable. In this sense the reappearance of Ariadne as the eternal liberator that could offer us a way out, served as a narrative geared towards a critic of how we see and experience art and the whole machinery of its production. As the gallery space was being shared with another artist the construction of a 1:6 scale model of the gallery space not only compensated for the remaining area for the fully site specific installation, it effectively served as a gyrating crux through which the white cube imploded and expanded out, and blurred the normative distinctions between the perceptual and conceptual space. Similarly by incorporating the administrative aspects of the gallery and its reliance on infrastructure in organizing an event such as the invitation cards which were numbered and the mailing stamps that depicted my images of Ariadne, an attempt was made to reach beyond 21 Francine LeClercq agazine Contemporary Art eries Peripheral SPECIAL ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUE 22 the confines of the gallery space and reframe our notions of perception through an installation at large. Despite to clear references to perceptual reality your visual vocabulary, as reveals the interesting Mise en [s]cène, has a very ambivalent quality. How do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing out within your works? How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? If you consider the notion of mise-en scène in set design, it consists of the staging of actors on a scene where its formal qualities is founded on a narrative that follows the telling of a story, a theatrical or cinematic likelihood that is mounted in front of a seating audience some distance away. What it shares with other arts is that it posits itself to be seen, designed to captivate the attention of a viewer, it relies in more or lesser degrees on some credence that is conveyed by content, structure, or both. What interests me however is the cross section of this business of viewing, that (emotional) field that holds the two parts, the viewer and the viewed glued to each other. To speak of the real, some years ago I saw a film by Abbas Kiarostami called Shirin in which the camera is turned to the viewers watching some epic Persian love story. We, the real viewers see the movie directly but we perceive the love story obliquely, guessing, through the contorted faces of its audience. I said real because at the end that is all there is, the question isnʼt so much what we are looking at, rather how we are seeing it which I take to be the mise-en scène in my work. The Mise en [S]cène that you refer to, in its literal translation: To put on view- with a bracketed “S” before cène- (French for Il Cenacolo /The Last Supper of Leonardo daVinci), is an installation consisting of six panels that roughly add up to the same size of the original mural which literally flaked off and agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
23 SPECIAL ISSUE Francine LeClercq eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral Installation: I Am Your Labyrinth (Announcement cards)
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE 24 Installation: I Am Your Labyrinth (Announcement postage stamps)
25 SPECIAL ISSUE is virtually non existent were it not because of the cosmetic mascara of its restorers. You could argue that thing on view is 500 years of kitsch making that draws its credibility from 15 minutes of allotted time given to thousands of visitors that line up to view it. My installation was about this condition of an absence that is summoned by the spectator as a full presence to fill a void as though in a séance. With respect to the above, if there is an element of representation or narrative in my work, I would say as far as I am concerned, it is tangential rather than figurative or illusionistic, this is as much true in my installations as in my paintings which are mostly the outcome of their material construct. Narcissus inquires into the notions of gaze and perception: we daresay that this stimulating work is about the experiment to make visible volatile phenomena: would you say that the way you provide the transient with sense of permanence allows you to create materiality of the immaterial? I would say perception has a materiality that is felt through a force which like a soul, is in itself unseen but acts through subjective and objective factors. As an artist I have to be sensitive to how I set up a field of attraction. Placement, trajectories and speeds of movement and approach are the primary concerns which help me to decide on a certain arrangement, this is as much true for my paintings as it is in my installations which by necessity share curatorial and choreographic aspects. It is not without risks since the narrative component of curatorial work can easily be confused and be passed for design. With Narcissus, there was the additional element of a referent deeply invested in psychoanalysis that rests not in the content but in the subjectivity of the viewer which is never accessible. On the other hand, the striking aspect of Caravaggioʼs Narcissus insofar as it related to my preoccupation with painting, was Francine LeClercq eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 26 the latently modern posture of a kneeled figure looking down, utterly immersed, not too unlike a painter mesmerized by a pool of paint on the floor, and quite in contrast with the usual upright viewer in front of the painting. So a choreographic idea presented itself whereas a hybrid viewer/painter submerged in a pitted blackness of paint as it were (the walls were painted black below the standard 60 inches eye level) and guided by some invisible force-field would have to echo the physical genuflect of the mythical character and by diverting its gaze downwards, restore the horizontality of the paintingsʼ production which were done on the floor of my studio. British multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch onced stated "that works of arts often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Technology can be used to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been before, but especially to recontextualize what already exists: do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? In a world increasingly consummed by computer screens and instantaneous telecommunications, I believe the main difference in perception is the absence of the original sense of aisthesis or apprehension by all senses due to the annihilation of locality, temporality and physical presence. Though I am attaching great importance to spatial phenomena directly interwined with current time experience, very interesting perceptual typologies are emerging through technology. To give an example, I just participated in a guerilla project consisting in uploading an artwork that would automatically be seen by anyone logging on a dedicated site but only if you were to be present at a specific geolocation and for as long as another image was uploaded by someone else. Here notions of duration, presence, institution, and censorship were totally challenged. I have a sense that emerging concepts such as the increasing synchronicity between production, presentation and distribution, or the changing relationship between originals and copies among other, are going to influence the way artists work, from customizing originals, staging copies, or maybe, to just archiving the attempt to create. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Francine. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thank you for your thorough questions. As for this last one, future is not something that I can predict. The work may take a path on its own and the question is how I will evolve with it. Lately, I have been interested in “automatic object detection”, a image search tool on the internet. Images are represented as vectors preserving not only their visual information but also their semantic concepts. Playing around with one of my image (model of I am Your Labyrinth), I was able to see it matched with a filing cabinet and even bathroom fixtures! It is a little bit that dreaming where quite unexpected scenarios emerge and supply the subconscious. I donʼt quite know what form (if any) the work will take so I will leave it at that. In the meantimes, I am making objects… with my hands. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries An interview by Josh Ryder, curator Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]
Installation: Narcissus
SPECIAL ISSUE 28 Bristol based artist, Phil Toy's work explores the points of convergence of a variety of media, inviting viewers to question the artificially constructed categories of our unstable contemporary age. In his body of works that we will be discussing in the following pages, he utilises both traditional heritage and unconventional sensibility to trigger the viewer’s and reader’s perceptual parameters. The power of Toy’s noetic approach lies in his incessant exploration of the relationship between beliefs and science, rationality/irrationality, the juxtaposition of order/disorder. He combines technology with abstract ideas in strategic ways that challenge conventions and to generate new practical and theoretical perspectives. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Phil and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. We would like to start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training, and after having earned your BA in Fine Art from Polytechnic (UWE) you nurtured your education with a MA that you received from the University of West of England, in Bristol: how do these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? In particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making? Hello, thank you for your welcome and the opportunity of sharing my thoughts with Peripheral ARTeries. In relation to my formal studies in visual art these gave me the opportunity to not only learn practical skills but to engage in that most important dynamic of Phil Toy Lives and works in Bristol, United Kingdom Peripheral ARTeries meets 'Toy is interested in systems of knowledge and belief. His practice pivots on the tension between the authority of finite, packaged, received information and the power of intuition, creativity and enigma'. (Kay Campbell in catalogue, 'State of the Art'). 'The cabinet of curiosities was a peculiar and personal ordering of objects from science and the arts that was overwhelmed by the advent of that Enlightenment machine, the Museum. The connection back to mysticism and ritual is a persistent and visible element in Toy's work in which he focuses on the presence of irrational, conflicting beliefs in the context of our rational, scientific thought. (Piers Masterson, 'State of the Art'). An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator design by Dario Rutigliano, curator [email protected] agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries all images copyright Phil Toy
Phil Toy
Beethoven’s Bucket, from Things Beginning with ‘B’
31 SPECIAL ISSUE Phil Toy eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral relating theory to practice. It is possible to have what appears to be a good idea only to find that when we take that idea into the studio or attempt to realise that idea through a particular chosen medium, the idea may not sustain, may need radical change or even to be abandoned, to be replaced by another. During my BA in Fine Art, I was fortunate in being able to learn a wide range of traditional art practices which required a great deal of time in, for example, colour mixing and colour study as well is learning about chemical properties of various oils, varnishes and pigments. I had an opportunity to learn sheet metal welding, steel welding, aluminium and bronze casting, making plaster moulds, working with clay and resins, and in the process, learned to work with all of the processes and machinery in relation to these activities. From this it can be seen that my BA education was very traditional. However, it provided a background of skill base which allowed me to concentrate on the conceptual elements of my practice and the generation and implementation of ideas. In other words, I did not need to allow the development of an idea to be constrained by lack of familiarity with materials or lack of skills. Also, I would say that, however exciting thinking and conceptual processes are, if we have a range of skills it is inevitable that they will feed into our conceptual range in quite a tactile manner. However, I acknowledge that there are many other skills relevant to contemporary art which are not especially rooted in the traditions of, say, painting and sculpture. Computer skills, video and film shooting and editing have their place in my practice. The good thing about doing my MA which I did through the vehicle of Research (in fact I transferred to the Ph.D. programme for a time during the study), was the opportunity to contextualise my practice, engage in discussions and identify those artists with whom I most associated my own practice. I like the expression, cultural substratum because it allows for us to consider one of the central ideas in my work. In addition to my passion for the visual arts and actually for writing as an activity, from early on I have held strong sociopolitical views about how we structure society. Particularly the issue of how we categorise the world. In the sociopolitical dimension, there are so many examples where negative categorisation attacks, I would say, the fabric of humanity and being human. Such examples may be to do with gender, race, religion and a whole other host of signifiers in relation to identity. The results of your artistic enquiry convey a coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. We would suggest to our readers that they visit http://www.philtoyartist.co.uk in order to get a synoptic view of your work. While walking our readers through your process, can you tell them something about the evolution of your style? Yes, partly the development of my style owes itself to the pragmatics of making art. I mean by this that the range of skills I developed enabled, and does enable, me to work across the categories of two and three dimensions. This characteristic of my work was evident very early during my Foundation Course prior to doing my BA degree. I would often start work on a wall and end up growing materials off the wall down onto the floor into three dimensions. Alternatively, I would start work on the floor in a sculptural or installation manner and progress towards and across a wall. I regard this interaction on the formal level of practice as critical to my work and its development. I have long suspected that the reason for this fascination with the interaction of two and three dimensions is that they symbolise or represent materiality and immateriality; I see
SPECIAL ISSUE 32 them as categories that are not mutually exclusive, where both have resonance and importance in how I see the world and my work in it. Coming back to this issue of categorisation, and my contention that categories are false, in fact, created in order to control people by those who would seek control, the role of beliefs and science or technology may be seen as fulfilling a similar control purpose. It seems to me though that through education, as well as scientific and technological development, we have a growing opportunity to question parameters and communicate instantly in ways that may bypass control systems. It seems to me that when I try to make plans for my life, quite often those plans do not work out; other things happen which may not be helpful, or which might be better for me. Fate, chance, serendipity, the happy accident or discovery, inspiration, whatever words I choose to use, my life operates in this realm as well as that which appears to be in a more objective world. In my work, Evolution, I used old computer monitors, emptied them out, created in them black spaces with black plexiglass in the front to replace the screens; within the stage sets are objects dimly lit, hovering in a dark void. These objects, such as a portrait of Zeus or a plaster ape (referring to our evolution) reinstate a reference to our primitive natures which, in my thinking, still underscores our increasingly computerised and online existences. I have attempted to develop my style as a reaction to these thoughts and ideas which revolve around the issue of categorisation, as planets might revolve around an energy source; with, sometimes, a planet heading off in a different direction only to find that it cannot help but return to its orbit. For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries, we have selected Hands of Belief, an extremely interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. When walking our readers through the genesis of Hands of Belief, would you shed light your usual process and set up? In particular, what role does chance play in your process? Thank you. With Hands of Belief, the core factors in my work can be seen at play, namely, my characteristic interest in the interaction between two and three dimensions, here in the context of a reflection on the role of religions. In this piece, there are six pairs of hands cast in hard micro- crystalline wax. To make the moulds for the hands, I invited people of six different major religious faiths - Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, to come to my studio. I used alginate to make the moulds of the hands. I have presented the hands, contained in specimen bags, in a circle against a dark disc painted on the wall. I give no identification of which hands belong to which people or their religions. The element of chance in this work, appears in the selection of the people to take part in the first place, in the sense that I had no criteria except that they should be of different religions. In some cases they were friends of a friend and I had never met them before they came to the studio. When viewers see this piece, in addition to narratives they may bring with them, they may comment on how beautiful a particular hand or pair of hands are. This is chance. At no time was it relevant to me that someone’s hands were categorised as beautiful or any other way. A further element of chance, is that the viewer has no way of knowing which hands relate to which religion and, in fact, have no definite evidence that these people were devout followers of their particular face or lapsed followers, or going through a temporary phase of religious identification. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
33 SPECIAL ISSUE I leave the viewers to speculate on associations and meanings. Ranging from acrylic and oil paint, resins, waxes, to film and photography, your approach is marked out with a stimulating multidisciplinary feature and reveals that you are a versatile artist capable of crossing from a medium to another. How do you select the Phil Toy eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral Hands of Belief
Royal Flush
35 SPECIAL ISSUE medium to express the idea that you explore? In particular, when do you recognise that one of the mediums has exhausted its expressive potential? I have mentioned my consideration of the relationship of two and three dimension. In my studies, I have questioned the point at which something ceases to be two-dimensional and becomes three- dimensional. In fact, when doing my MA, I posed this very question and spent a good deal of research taking objects and images apart and re-assembling them to observe what would happen. If I am posing a question, then I might use a medium that will allow an exploration of that question. But, I also allow my mind to come up with a direction for the choice of medium, without me deliberately or wilfully trying to make that decision. I am aware that my mind is busy working all the time, whatever task I may be carrying out, or even if I am asleep. It seems to me that thinking of solutions to issues and visualising a direction forward quite often occur during a state of mind somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, usually as I wake in the mornings. At other times I might switch off from the business of making art, close my eyes and allow my mind to drift as much as possible. Using these mechanisms of relaxed awareness I find it is possible to see solutions and images towards realising an idea. Another factor I have noticed in my choice of medium, is that while it is true that my practice often moves between two and three dimensions, when I go through a period of, for example, filming or taking photographs and making paintings, it is certain that I will return to making three-dimensional sculpture and installations. I have noticed this persistent pattern throughout my work, as though there is a constant dialogue taking place where, by choosing different mediums, I am seeking to express my areas of concern. Coming back to the issue of chance, for example, one of my pieces, called Glass Chance, came about when I was listening to the music of John Cage a lot and ended up spinning bottles and recording their positions in relation to a compass, then plotting them onto a black area marked on the wall. I think I chose glass and clear plastic Phil Toy eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine Royal Flush (detail)
SPECIAL ISSUE 36 bottles for two reasons: The first being a playful comment on the game of spin the bottle that some people used to play as a party game in some cultures; the second reason being the aesthetic and expressive possibility of the transparency and reflective nature of these objects which deny solidity. Another example, taken from my work, Things Beginning with ‘B’ titled, Beethoven's Bucket has a a small brass portrait of Beethoven on the centre of a Beethoven vinyl record. This came about because both objects happened to be in my studio. All I had to do was bring them together to disrupt the categories, uniting them by nothing other than the letter ‘B’. Another reason for using a particular medium, is the aesthetic range that it may offer. With photography, for example, it is unusual for me to print a photograph simply as an image from a photograph I have taken. Usually, I will print out an image and then put that image straight back in the printer and print one of my other photographs over the top of it or partially over the top of it, again to blur and question boundaries with regard to that which we see. The various media that I work with all offer different qualities and potentials. I can say that there is a sense in which all of my twodimensional work, whether that involves the seductive sensuality of oil paint with its quality of being able to be used thinly or impasto, or photography or sketches, they all seem to serve as study for further work. I seldom regard two-dimensional work that I have made as finished, rather that I have stopped working on it because I can take it no further at that time. I am more comfortable with the idea of a piece being finished and complete in my threedimensional work, albeit noting that quite often that work will have a two-dimensional aspect and/or offer surface qualities that could be seen as two-dimensional. So, we come back to the concepts of the materiality (material object) and immateriality (two-dimensional, transparency, light) in relation to which recent developments in computer use and technology have offered new possibilities. The other factor that I take into account with regard to a particular medium being exhausted, agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Evolution
37 SPECIAL ISSUE is an accumulating sense that I am pushing too hard and change must occur either to the idea itself or to the materials and media that I am using. In these situations, also, I try to remember something that is actually quite difficult to remember, which is that art can be playful, experimental and fun. These attributes do not necessarily detract from serious content or meanings in works of art. We like the way your works, such as Royal Flush use universal imagery, recontextualising it and addressing the viewers to a wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, Phil Toy eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral
SPECIAL ISSUE 38 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries We Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
39 SPECIAL ISSUE you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations. When discussing the role of randomness in your process, would you tell us how important it is to you that the spectatorship re-think the concepts you are conveying in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? Some take a view that a work of art does not exist without the viewer to complete it. That is not my position but I would say that no work of art can dictate the response a viewer might have and it is inevitable that viewers will bring their own experiences and narratives to the occasion of looking at art. Movie makers may well use various techniques to bring about predictable emotional responses from the audience and there are decades of sophisticated filmmaking and study that may be drawn upon in this field. However, my intention is rather more open-ended. With regard to Royal Flush which consists of playing cards making up the winning poker hand of Royal Flush there are a number of layers of meaning available. I made the work specifically for the context of exhibiting in a disused public toilet which was built in the Edwardian era in 1907. There is a play on the word flush (we might say we're going to flush the toilet, that we will flush something or someone away), the arrangement of the cards is that of a cross, and I have superimposed images of people from various social strata onto the cards. An individual viewer’s psychology, faced with this particular work, will work in much the same way as happens when we read a book or watch a film. Specifically, I mean that an individual will tend to identify with one or more characters rather more than others and through this way bring their own experience in addition to other perceptual aspects of the experience, which could include their knowledge of art or their attitudes towards art and society. Phil Toy eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 40 Through discussion with people who have seen my work, I am aware of some of the feedback and points of view they may have, but when I am making the piece I am using concepts that are, as is the case with Royal Flush, targeted to raise issues, and yes, it is important to me that my work raises questions for the viewer rather than simply offering works that may be expressively of aesthetic appeal. A central idea that connects all of your works is the exploration of the relationship between beliefs and science. Do you think that there is an irremediable dichotomy between the irrational and the rational or do you think that there is a liminal area where an unexpected point of covergence is possible? The divergence, or separation, between art and science is a relatively new phenomenon in terms of our history. Historically, our academic forebears sought global expressions of all things, seeking a theory of everything. It seems to me that the last vestiges of that endeavour died in the 20th century which got rid of the meta-narratives, that we can see now, were so destructive. I think that art is widely seen as an activity to do with intuition, instinct and impulsivity, while science is seen as objective, detached, evidence-based with theories and conclusions that can be rigorously tested through methodologies employed. Whereas there is a link between science and repetition of methodology and product, a work of art may draw its value from its uniqueness. Historically, I think many people have sought, through both art and science, greater meaning of the world, wishing for science to explain the universe and why we are here, and wanting art to fill spiritual vacuums, offer a sense of awe and lift us emotionally. Shopping malls and new online realities now offer further options. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
41 SPECIAL ISSUE Phil Toy eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral Anthropomorphism & the Future (detail)
Anthropomorphism and The Future
43 SPECIAL ISSUE In terms of our evolution, most of it has been physical and visceral living close to the land. It is no accident, I would suggest, that many people, when they take a holiday, do so in the countryside or near water, perhaps acknowledging our roots and our connection to them. That I might understand the science behind the occurrence of landscapes or watercourses or wave action does not disrupt my ancient relationship with the natural world. That this notion is being challenged by alternative, constructed existences online is still new. It is noteworthy that some of the important innovations in relation to art, like the advent of the printing press, discovery of photography and computer functioning, have not removed the desire of many people to want what they see as original tangible works of art. Following the separation between art and science in education there are now considerable overlaps with science and art foundations funding joint explorations of the world around us. One way of looking at this issue of rational and irrational is to see them as part of a continuum rather than as a dichotomy. To use a metaphor, they could be seen as two ends of the same stick, but a stick of infinite flexibility so that the two ends may meet at times allowing a flow of energy through an endless circle. That is to say, the rational and irrational live side-by-side, interweaving in ways that may be unpredictable. I have known a number of scientists who have told me that they have often seen scientific progress and discoveries made by chance. In other words a scientist may be studying one concentrated aspect of life only to discover, by accident, an occurrence in their work of considerable importance and application to our lives. Most artists, I would suggest, and I certainly include myself, accept the irrationality of the decisions that we make and reserve the importance of not trying to explain everything, which, I think, limits creativity. Irrationality is, I think, a mark of our humanity. However rational I may appear to be, I cannot always explain why I do certain things. As you have remarked once, it is what we believe that creates our identity. What we believe may not be true. How do you view the concepts of the real, the authentic and the imagined playing out within your works? This is a very interesting question that you ask and, in my view, one of the most pressing of our era. For much of our human history, certain truths have been held up notably in the field of formal beliefs like religions. The world was explained in terms of belief. Throughout the centuries, and currently, the destruction and damage to human life created by conflicting beliefs is immeasurable. At the other end of the scale, so to speak, I might buy an object thinking it to be original, only to find out that it is fake. I might set up an imaginary internal world in anticipation of an important encounter only to find that when the encounter comes it bears little relationship to the imaginary one I created. Through my work I seek to question the role of the real in order to refocus attention towards a world that is a plurality of perceptions and beliefs which create different realities. If shared experience creates reality, given the diverse ways in which we live, I have to conclude that the idea of one reality is impossible. In the course of my work, in, for example Evolution, I have suggested through the use of primitive objects within the computer monitors, that there is a contested area regarding the history of materiality and the role of science through computers. (With this Phil Toy eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 44 work, Evolution, children, and many adults, on seeing it, thought they were looking at screen images and sought to change them by tapping on the keyboards). It is possible to easily construct images and present them as examples of real events or situations. I made a short film called, A Trip to the Mountains in which it appears that someone is climbing a mountain, while people below watch anxiously. At the end of the film, I reveal that in fact I was not filming real events but images from magazines, so creating a second-hand reality. Perhaps the thing that is actually authentic in this is that I make it clear what is happening in the pieces I make so that people are not deceived into thinking they are something which they are not. Seeing We Wandered Lonely as a Crowd and especially Anthropomorphism and The Future, we are forced to rethink the intimate aspect of the materiality of an artwork itself, since just a few years ago it was a tactile materialisation of an idea. We are sort of convinced that new media will bridge the apparent dichotomy between art and technology, and we dare to say that Art and technology are going to assimilate each other. What's your point about this? In particular, what is your opinion about technology affecting the consumption of art? Yes, I am actually reminded of debates that have taken place around the general issue of the assimilation of two states and whether or not possible assimilation ends up, in fact, producing a situation of, rather than assimilation taking place, the differences between the two states become emphasised. With We Wandered Lonely as a Crowd, I have photographed a computer circuit board and inserted text into it, juxtaposing the technologically indifferent circuit board with a poetic comment on the human condition. If it is correct that technology can be dehumanising, then its development may pose a threat to our humanness and this is suggested in this work. Anthropomorphism and The Future, which uses a crystal ball as a reference to trying to see the future, invites reflection, I think, on wishful thinking and trying to predict the future and how it will affect things. I come back to the point that a process of assimilation between art and technology, whilst likely to a degree (witness the fast development now of an ability to produce real holograms) given the acceleration in technological developments and new media, I suspect that the pattern that has prevailed will continue. By this, I mean that major technological developments of the past have not stopped the production of original paintings, sculptures, installation work, performance art, landscape art; the list goes on. What appears to have happened, is that there has been a considerable blurring of boundaries across all these art forms including technological and in particular computer generated dissemination. The initial rush of excitement about the possibilities for computer-generated art seemed to dwindle somewhat, possibly because the excitement remained on the computer monitor and could not be bought and owned, or, recognising the driver that is consumerism and money, used for status and investment purposes. Many artists have tried to subvert the ownership of art by using artforms that are not so easy to possess tangibly. Walking into a desert and making a circle of stones, or creating astonishing light shows, cannot be owned, but of course, they can be if they are recorded in photographs or moving image which can be distributed and valued. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
Phil Toy eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 45 SPECIAL ISSUE Online galleries and sales of works of art are now prolific. There is no pretence in this scenario where works of art are products, objects to be bought and sold like any other. Glass Chance
Georgian Findings (Ten Commandments)
Phil Toy eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine 24 SPECIAL ISSUE Multidisciplinary artist, Angela Bulloch once remarked, “that works of art often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur”. Technology can be used to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been seen before, but especially to re-contextualise what already exists. Do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? Yes, the context within which the artist works and within which art is received is fundamental to its interpretation. Quite often the art being produced by a given society is dictated by who is in power controlling the money that commissions the work in the first place. In the past, much of the art produced was of a religious nature reflecting the power of the churches and their wealth. There was a shift to kings and queens and wealthy individuals commissioning bold portraits indicating their self-aggrandisement. It is no accident that the United States applauded Jackson Pollock for his macho, rugged, expressive individualism while totalitarian states produced Social Realism in denial of individual expression. In Western countries it has been either private or state sponsorship that funds the art that succeeds into the limelight. This continues but an important development, it seems to me, across the arts is that any individual can hang a movie online, publish their own book or poetry or art images or produce footage of themselves or other artists in performance as well as using digital manipulation to produce images primarily designed to stay on a computer monitor. This is an important and liberating experience. Art has long been the bastion of a wealthy, white privileged elite, and while this has been eroded in recent decades, I would suggest that the majority of people feel alienated from the art world and would not care to step into a white cube art gallery. Yet art is now readily available across social media. Instagram is a main avenue and many artists post their work here as well as through other media. Something that is slightly ironic is that while art in all its forms can be disseminated across the globe easily, this, somehow sits side-by-side with the preciousness of art and its value as commodity. In this sense, there appears to be two art worlds - perhaps there are several - serving different audiences and meeting different needs. Many artists probably spend as much time on computers, managing images and profiles, carrying out research and writing up proposals, as we do making art. Your works are often pervaded with a combination between socio-political criticism and humour, as in the interesting, Georgian Findings (Ten Commandments). Mexican artist, Gabriel Orozco once stated, "The artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you're in. It depends on the political system you are living under”. Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio’s Inspiration of St Matthew to Joep van Lieshout’s works, could be considered political. What is your opinion on the role of art in the contemporary age? Moreover, what role does humour play in your process? With Georgian Findings, I was invited by the curator to look at original documentation from 1775 consisting of a newspaper, a last will and testament and an indenture agreement; this indenture legally bound a young girl to work essentially as a servant in a wealthy household until she reached majority or was married. Looking at the documents, and thinking of the sociopolitical structure of society, it was the closely woven power of the church with
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE 46 government that seemed to loom over all. When I thought of the Christian faith’s Ten Commandments, the hypocrisy that was evident caused me to think of writing my own Ten Commandments, and, as you rightly point out, there is humour mixed with sociopolitical criticism. My humour, I would say, tends towards satire and I can say that my interest in satire certainly goes back to my A-level studies in English Literature when I studied 18thcentury satirists like Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. Interestingly, they both died about ten years before the date of the documents I was asked to look at in preparation for making Georgian Findings. This, I think, is a good example of how links and associations are made, whilst rationally stated, perhaps having irrational value. Earlier in our discussion we talked about Royal Flush, the piece using the concept of royalty displayed in gambling cards overlaid by me with portraits of people of mixed social rank. I think, again, the underlying humour here is in the realm of satire as a vehicle for sociopolitical commentary. I certainly agree with you that everything is political; every aspect of our lives can be seen as political whether it is the context for the making of art or the context of an individual seeking to have their individuality recognised. There are many different roles that art can have in our contemporary age, many of them little different from previous ages. The structures and institutions of our age are adept at assimilating anything and everything that artists produce, in order to subject it to the will of the art market and promote the world of art culture within which a large number of people make a living and develop careers. The role of art then, whether I like it or not, assists in fuelling a large part of our economy. Additionally, art has a decorative role; works of art can be found decorating
Phil Toy eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine 47 SPECIAL ISSUE Anthropomorphism & The Future (detail)
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE 48 Bodies (From Things Beginning with ‘B’)