TATE TRIENNIAL 2006 NEW BRITISHART

1 March – 14 May 2006 Teacher and Student Notes By Angie MacDonald

Supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Media partner Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art

Introduction to the Exhibition About the Teacher and Students Notes This exhibition, the third Tate Triennial show of contemporary art, The aim of this pack is to provide an introduction to the exhibition, presents work by thirty-six artists working in Britain today. The exhibition information about key works on display, and suggestions of themes includes painting, photography, installation, sculpture, video, sound, and issues to consider and discuss. It also suggests ways of looking text, drawing and live works. at contemporary art and links to the wider Tate collection. The key work Artists included in this exhibition: Pablo Bronstein, , cards can be used to help focus work in small groups in the exhibition, Gerard Byrne, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Lali Chetwynd, Cosey Fanni and to prepare or follow up with in the classroom. Tutti, Enrico David, Peter Doig, Kaye Donachie, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Resources Luke Fowler, Michael Fullerton, Ryan Gander, , , Mark Leckey, Linder, Lucy McKenzie, Daria Martin, Simon Within the exhibition the ‘plaza’ serves as an information point Martin, Alan Michael, Jonathan Monk, Scott Myles, Christopher Orr, providing reading material, video interviews and documentation The Otolith Group, Djordje Ozbolt, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph, Olivia of the performances. There is an audio guide available to all visitors Plender, Muzi Quawson, Eva Rothschild, Tino Sehgal, , which features commentary from key artists on display. The catalogue Rebecca Warren, Nicole Wermers and . is available at the entrance to the exhibition, price £19.99. The Tate shop has a selection of books, journals, catalogues, postcards The exhibition is in the Upper Galleries, Lightbox space, Rooms 1 and and related materials. 16 in the displays, Duveen Galleries and there is an installation in the exhibition shop. A key aspect of the exhibition is the staging of live Websites works. The architect Celine Condorelli and artist Pablo Bronstein have The Tate Triennial website gives access to five artist interviews and collaborated to make a special theatre structure situated in the North audio clips. Visit www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/triennial/ Duveen Galleries. Described as a ‘communal plaza’ this structure serves as an information point and a performance area. www.tate.org.uk/learning contains Schools Online for teachers and group leaders. You can download teacher resource notes for most What is the Tate Triennial? major exhibitions including past Triennial and packs. Held every three years, each Triennial exhibition has its own character and curatorial perspective. The Triennial explores the various Further Reading relationships between historic and modern British art. The first Tate Anderson, Laurie, Performance: Live Art Since the 1960s, 2004, Triennial, Intelligence, was held in 2000 and the second, Days Like Thames & Hudson Ltd. These, in 2003. Bishop, Claire, Installation Art: a Critical History, 2005, Tate Publishing This time, Tate invited Beatrix Ruf, Director of Kunsthalle Zürich, to Buck, Louisa, Moving Targets 2, A User’s Guide to British Art Now, bring an international perspective to the show. The selection is based 2000 Tate Publishing on artists who explore the recasting or reusing of cultural materials. Button, Virginia, New Revised Edition, The Turner Prize, 2005, Artists today work with all types of cultural material and often in Tate Publishing multidisciplinary modes. Ruf has invited several generations including Goldberg, Roselee, Performance Art from Futurism to the Present, artists such as Peter Doig, Douglas Gordon and Liam Gillick who have 2001, Thames & Hudson Ltd. participated in previous Triennials. More established artists such as Heathfield, Adrian (editor), Live: Art & Performance, 2004, Ian Hamilton Finlay and John Stezaker are included alongside artists Tate Publishing such as Muzi Quawson and Ryan Gander. Kaye, Nick (editor), Site Specific Art: Performance, Place & This exhibition provides an excellent opportunity for students to Documentation, 2000, Routledge consider the work of contemporary British artists and to explore Kent, Sarah, Shark Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British the role of art in today’s world. Art in the 90s, 1994, The exhibition also provides an excellent context for the Turner Prize Ruf, Beatrix (editor), Tate Triennial: New British Art, exhibition catalogue (which takes place every year in the autumn at ) and will 2006, Tate Publishing help your students to understand the debate and controversy that Stallabrass, Julian, Art Incorporated: The Story of Contemporary Art, always surround this event. Whereas the Turner Prize is limited to 2004, Oxford University Press four nominated artists, this exhibition offers a much wider view of contemporary practice. It includes past nominees (such as Angela Taylor, Brandon, Art Today, 2004, Laurence King Publishing Bulloch, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon and Peter Doig) and some Weintraub, Linda, Making Contemporary Art: How Today’s Artists of the younger artists will no doubt be nominated in the future. Think and Work, 2003, Thames & Hudson Ltd.

Visiting the Exhibition Admission to the exhibition is free. But all groups must book in advance The exhibition contains some work of a sexually explicit with Education Bookings on 020 7887 3959. If you would like to use nature which you may find inappropriate for your group. the Schools Area to have lunch or use locker spaces please book these It is not recommended for children under 16. when you call (there is limited space available). As all exhibitions at Tate can be busy, you cannot lecture, but you can discuss works in a conversational manner to groups of no more than six students at a time. If possible, brief your students before they enter the exhibition, and if you have a large group, we suggest that you divide into smaller groups and follow the suggestions in this pack. Ways of Looking

One way to explore the exhibition would be to have a general look Subject and Meaning and then to focus on a few key works, such as the ones included • Is the artwork about a subject, issue or theme? in this pack. However, to start off, you could ask students the • Is it about real life? following questions: • Could the work have a symbolic, moral or political meaning? • Is there a story or narrative within the work? Ice-breaker Questions • How does the work make you think about time? • What are your first impressions of the exhibition? • Does it make you consider aspects of life or art in a new way? • What do these artists seem to be interested in? (you could make a list) • Does the work have a title? Does this affect the way you see it? • Do they share any common interests and concerns? • What information is available in the gallery (eg wall text or caption)? • What sorts of materials and processes do they work with? Does this information change the way you see it? • These artists draw on a vast range of sources. Can you identify some of them? Art in Context • How do these artists transform or change the gallery spaces? • Who is the artist? Do you think background on the artist can inform us about what it might be about? Personal Responses • Was the artwork made for a particular location or event? • What are your first reactions to the work? • Does the artwork link to other works made by the artist? • What is the first word that came into your head when you saw it? • How does the artwork link to work by other contemporary artists? • What do you notice first? • Does it connect to any art of the past? • Does it remind you of anything? • What does the artwork tell us about the ideas and values of • What do you think the artist wants to communicate? today’s world? • How does it link or comment on contemporary social, cultural Looking at the Artwork and political issues such as consumerism, globalisation and • What materials and processes has the artist used to make the multi-culturalism? artwork? • Does the work make use of modern materials and technology • What is it? (is it a film, photograph, drawing, sculpture, installation, or perhaps it reinvents age-old processes? performance etc?) • Where is it? Describe the space. Does it link with other artworks in the exhibition? • How big is the artwork? What effect does scale have on the artwork and our relationship to it? • Is it time-based? If so, describe what happened and how long it took. Is it repeated? Questions relating to Contemporary Art

Contemporary art can raise many questions, below are just a few: Mixed Media Many artists today work in a range of media encompassing painting, sculpture and photography as well as live work and installation. They For some people, contemporary art is synonymous with Conceptual art. question and challenge the museum as an appropriate space for art, Conceptual artists do not set out to make a painting or a sculpture and choosing to intervene or place their art in unusual places. What then fit their ideas to that existing form. Instead they give the ideas constitutes art today and where does the ‘artwork’ begin and end? priority over the traditional media. Do you think any of the Triennial artists are influenced by Conceptual art? What about Painting? For many years there has been a debate about the place of painting in contemporary art. With new media and technologies, collaborative In current art practice there is a distinct tendency to re-use or re-cast practice, installations and the freedom to make work out of any cultural materials. Artists make reference to art history, film, music, materials at all, has painting died? It is interesting to note that at architecture and design as well as to theoretical ideas. Why do least six of the artists in this exhibition make paintings. contemporary artists choose to rework old ideas? Can they say anything new or different? Can anything be authentic today or is it all about Shock and Sensation sampling and revisiting the work of other artists? Does the shock and sensation which fuels media coverage of contemporary art help to bring it to the wider public? The ‘shock’ Craft and Skill element seems to take two forms: dislike of the subject matter on Do artists have to make their work with their own hands, or is it enough display (for example, pornography) and dismay at the unconventional that they have the ideas and direct the work? Is it important that a piece materials that can be used (for example a brick wall or pictures bought of art suggests skill in its process of making? What are the other criteria from a flea market). But is it possible to shock anymore? Do you think for looking at and considering art? Is one more important than another? this exhibition is controversial? Does it include work that you would not consider to be art? Why not follow the reviews and press coverage. Key Themes in the Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art

The artists included in the Triennial are all very different and they Installation explore a variety of subjects and media. Exhibited together, their works Some of the works on display defy categorisation. Are they sculpture, share common themes. Some of these key themes are listed below. architecture, film, design, performance or painting? Many of the artists For more detailed discussion of individual works please refer to the are interested in the transformation of space. Installation is a term four key work cards. used to describe mixed media artwork that occupies an entire room or gallery space that the spectator can enter. Appropriation You could describe this whole exhibition as an installation combining Artists today work with all types of cultural material and often across a range of media as well as live works. Celine Condorelli and Pablo different media. Appropriation and repetition are recurrent themes in Bronstein’s adaptable theatre structure is in itself an exploration of this exhibition. These artists draw on a vast range of sources, creating the different ways people circulate within a space. complex and unlikely associations. They plunder art history, the world of design, fashion, film, television, music, theatre, politics, philosophy Found Materials and even pornography. They question ideas of authorship. When A common theme in the exhibition is the transformation of commonplace does an object or idea become a unique work of art? In our global objects, images and materials. The eclectic approach and marrying of postmodern world can anything be experienced first-hand anymore? unlikely elements produce works which can be strange, brash, funny These artists weave loosely connected references that leave us and even touching. These artists draw us into the world of objects, confused but intrigued. Are these eclectic works totally open-ended? their fictions and biographies. Everyday objects, places and spaces are Do we read their references as critique, glorification or indifference? changed, thereby their origins and economic, cultural and use value Live Work are questioned. What issues to do with mass production, collection and consumerism are raised? The staging of live work is a key aspect of this exhibition. What is a live art work? Early performance art of the 1960s focused on the artist’s body Technology and the artwork took the form of actions performed by the artist. Artists These artists explore and experiment with technology questioning presenting live works in the Tate Triennial 2006 also make painting, its relationship to an industrialised society. They play with the tension sculpture, video or installation work. This generation, looks back at the between the handcrafted object and the mass-produced product breadth of performance practices developed in the twentieth century. by combining industrial materials and are often combined with the They open up the tradition, taking ‘performance’ away from the idea of handmade. You will find materials as diverse as leather, wool, cellulose, the body. These one-off live events combine music, dance, sculpture, aluminium and stone. You will also find sophisticated digital technology, painting and actors with invented and historical material. and experimentation with sound, colour and light. Personal Memory Art History In different ways these artists explore the themes of recollection and The reworking of art historical material can be found within many of remembrance. Artists such as Linder, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Marc Camille the works on display. Of course art is inseparable from historical and Chaimowicz reflect on personal memories by revisiting their own work. cultural contexts, but some of these artists make overt reference to They challenge us to review our identities and how, in modern times, past art movements. For example: Daria Martin refers to the Russian even personal memories are modified by the visual world. As Clarrie Constructivists, Jonathan Monk refers to the Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt Wallis writes in the exhibition catalogue, ‘our recollections are increasingly and Rebecca Warren is influenced by the Impressionist painter Edgar supplemented, shaped, structured and recomposed by the internet, Degas and the fashion photographer Helmut Newton. Do you think it photography, film and video, and are open to revision and amendment’. is important for visitors to understand these references? How can their work help us to revise our understanding of twentieth century art? Everyday Life Artists are interested in everyday life and they embrace the idea that art Artist as Researcher is not separate from the world we live in. Indeed, some of the works Many of these artists take on the role of researcher uncovering or in this exhibition question where a work of art begins and ends. These foregrounding forgotten or neglected histories. For example, much artists look to a vast range of sources and combine these with everyday of Olivia Plender’s work is the result of historical research. Her theatre experiences and subtle narratives as well as everyday life. It is as if they piece MONITOR is based on her research into early BBC TV arts are orchestrating or codifying different elements, combining layers of programming. Luke Fowler investigates various forms of counterculture, fact and fiction to take a fresh look at modern life. foregrounding neglected histories and bringing radical and experimental ideas and ideologies back into discussion. Narratives and Stories These artists layer, weave and conjure narratives, happenings and The Experience of Museums multiple spaces. Consider how Scott Myles layers text and images, The experience of museums and the limitations of looking are Peter Doig analyses his source material or Muzi Qwawson documents themes within this exhibition. The fact that live work is a key part communities. Look at how they create new stories by layering real and of the exhibition emphasises this point. Many of the selected artists fictional personalities. They reveal how narratives are reinterpreted over challenge us to think about how we look, move and interact within time and how societies and individuals fabricate their own characters gallery spaces. This theme is explored in Simon Martin’s Wednesday and stories. Afternoon 2005 filmed in the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum. See also Enrico David’s Triennial Outlet displayed in the The Limits of Painting exhibition shop and encounter Tino Sehgal’s actors who have been Artists today are constantly exploring ideas about representation in inserted into Room 16 in the guise of invigilators. innovative ways. Many of the artists in the show use consumer culture to inspire painting. But has painting survived? Is it a valid medium for an artist to use today? What can an artist paint and how, when seemingly everything has already been painted? Why do artists such as Peter Doig and Kaye Donachie choose to paint from photographs and found images? Consider the range of painting included in this exhibition from Michael Fullerton to Djordje Oxbolt or Christopher Orr.

Angela Bulloch For Discussion Disenchanted Forest Installation view 2005 • Describe your own experience of this installation as you look and Mixed media 8000 x 5600 cm listen from different points. What do you notice first? How do you move around the space? Do you find it disorientating? Installation at Hamburger Bahnhof, • The Surrealist artists saw the forest as a metaphor for the Collection Helga de Alvear, Madrid imagination. Bulloch says she found the idea of numbering trees peculiar. Why do you think she called this work Disenchanted Forest? Background Disenchanted Forest is a large installation that was first shown in • Bulloch says ‘I am interested in how things evolve, or shift their Berlin last year. At the centre of the work is a platform and ceiling that meaning when you move them into various different contexts’. are interconnected by luminescent string. Screenprinted posters and How many different things can you find here? Describe how Bulloch 1001 numbered metal disks hang in a line around the wall. The web of has changed the context and meaning of some of the things within string which links but obstructs floor with ceiling, combined with the this installation. changing lights and electronic music creates a disorientating effect. Activities Bulloch is best known for her mixed media sculptures and installations • Look at the DJ technique of remixing and sampling. Develop a project that often include elements that can be activated by the viewer or that combines music and art where students are encouraged to modified by the passing of time. She uses technology to create remix musical and art historical references to create their own work. installations that involve sound and light, as well as the touch and • Invite students to compose music for a particular site. Encourage movement of the viewer. Bulloch plays with the ways in which we students to undertake research, including sketches and drawings interpret different types of information; she explores themes of of the site, to explore its particular qualities and location. translation, encoding and systems of perception. This installation suggests both club culture and technological surveillance. • Ask students to make designs and drawings that would transform a space. Encourage them to experiment with two- and three- The 1001 disks refer to the numbering system that Berlin’s environmental dimensional designs. agency uses to manage its trees. The Austrian composer Florian Hecker composed the music for the installation. Hecker is known Links for his interest in -acoustic phenomena, which confuses Visit (after dark) the Pier on the river at Millbank outside Tate Britain the listener’s spatial perception. that features a specially commissioned lighting installation by Angela Disenchanted Forest combines a series of references and materials to Bulloch. Fluorescent tubing embedded into the floor of the pontoon create a strange theatrical set up. The string, which is over a kilometre is computer programmed to provide changing light effects in the long, is a direct reference to Marcel Duchamp’s installation Sixteen structure at night. Miles of String shown at the 1942 Surrealist exhibition in New York. Link to Surrealist artist Max Ernst’s paintings Forest and Dove 1927 Duchamp’s idea was to guide visitors through the exhibition from and The Entire City 1934. Ernst was interested in the symbolism of painting to painting. the forest which he described as terrifying and enchanting. Link to Angela Bulloch was born in Canada in 1966. She studied at Goldsmith contemporary artist Mariele Neudecker who has explored the College, University of London from 1985–88. In 1989 she won the theme of the forest in her ‘tank’ works. Whitechapel Artists Award and in 1994 she completed a residency Bulloch’s screenprints make reference to Op art such as Bridget Riley, with the ARCUS-project in Japan. She has exhibited widely and in Adolf Luther and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. 1997 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. She lives and works in London and Berlin. Link to artists such as Rodney Graham, Ricky Swallow, Wolfgang Tillmans and Julian Opie who all explore ideas about remix combining musical and visual references in their work. Consider also artists/ musicians past and present who have explored and developed so-called sound art. For example, Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Bruce Nauman, David Cunningham, Mark Leckey and Christian Marclay. Further information on Tate works and a glossary of terms can be found at www.tate.org.uk/collection

Marc Camille Chaimowicz For Discussion Here and There... 1979 • What do you think about an artist revisiting an earlier work? Installation at Galerie Nachst St. Stephan, Vienna Is it important that we know about the earlier work? Courtesy Cabinet, London • Why do you think this work is called Here and There...? • What is real and what is projected in this installation? Background What is two-dimensional and what is three-dimensional? This installation includes an arrangement of Marcel Breuer’s Isokon • Chaimovicz has never separated art from life, preferring to combine furniture and a static slide show of the artist as a young man examining the domestic with the public and fine art with design and craft. What his reflection in the mirror. Also included are a sequence of coloured type of space do you think an artist should work in? Should this transparencies of interiors and black and white images of the artist be different to an exhibition space? engaged in everyday activities. A real vase of flowers and a silver • Do you think this installation could be described as a portrait of pendulum cast shadows on the wall interrupting the projected images. Chaimowicz? What aspects of his persona are we presented with? In Here and There... is based on an earlier installation Chaimowicz made what ways is it different to a video diary or family photograph album? in the 1970s. In the original he presented an alter ego of himself, a kind • Chaimowicz is reflecting on how he remembers himself 30 years ago. of reflection on his own persona as an artist. The original installation The work explores memory and partial recall. How do you remember included materials such as a disco ball, glitter and light suggesting a yourself in times past and are your memories affected by your own nightclub scene. For this show, Chaimowicz quite literally appropriates personal photographs or films? himself by revisiting this earlier work and reinventing it. Chaimowicz also revisits his earlier work in the performance Partial Activities Eclipse... that will be staged during the exhibition. In this piece, first • Compare and contrast different contexts for identity such as personal, staged at the Tate Gallery in 1981, a young man, playing the part of social, artistic and political. Challenge students to make a short film, an artist, offers reminiscences whilst slides are projected behind him. photographic sequence or audio recording about their own identity. As he speaks the man paces a figure-of-eight pattern on the floor. • Chaimowicz’s installation has been described as ‘glimpses of past life’. Chaimowicz has always worked with a variety of media including Invite students to make their own installations based on old and new painting, sculpture and design. During the 1970s his studio became photographs or films to recall memories and events. the site for performance, installation, sculpture, furniture and fabrics. • Look at the history of performance art. Develop live work (perhaps as He was interested in creating a total environment where artistic a group) that combines real action with two- and three-dimensional practice was not separated from the everyday world. The live work visual material and objects. and installation in this exhibition reexamine this theme. Chaimowicz explores and confuses ideas about past and present, about real Links and fabricated, about live and restaged performance. Compare and contrast with other artists in this exhibition such as Marc Camille Chaimowicz was born in 1947. He studied at Linder, Daria Martin, Gerard Byrne and Olivia Plender who all create School of Art and the in London. During the 1970s live work. he worked primarily within the areas of performance and installation. Link to other contemporary artists who are interested in memory In the early 1980s he focused on a major bookwork Café du Rêve that and personal identity. For example, Cosey Fanni Tutti or Linder was co-published in London and Paris. He currently teaches at Reading included in this exhibition. Link also to Darren Almond’s installation University and the École des Beaux Arts in Dijon. He is represented by If I Had You 2003 (included in the Turner Prize 2005) or Kutlug Cabinet Gallery, London. Ataman’s video Twelve 2003 (included in the Turner Prize 2004). Chaimowicz is one of the older generation of artists in this exhibition Consider Chaimowicz’s work in relation to the history of portraiture. included because his innovatory practice continues to be relevant Explore historical portraits at Tate Britain and contrast his work with to contemporary British art. traditional painted portraits. Further information on Tate works and a glossary of terms can be found at www.tate.org.uk/collection

Kaye Donachie For Discussion Epiphany 2002 • Look closely at this small painting. What is the focal point? How does Oil on linen 36 x 46 cm Donachie create a sense of distance? Which parts are painted in the most detail? Can you see any brushwork? Courtesy , London • What ‘type’ of people are depicted in Epiphany? What is a commune Background or cult? Discuss examples of rebellious and revolutionary groups. In this small painting a group of people are lounging around a What is a utopian community? Why do you think Donachie is so woodland rock pool. The figures have long hair and are wearing casual interested in these people? clothes. Most of the figures look at us although Donachie does not • Donachie’s paintings are based on found images from film and include great detail. Donachie uses an overall tone of sickly greenish photographic footage. Discuss the pros and cons of a painter using yellow and the only hint of colour is seen in the greens and blues of the images from other sources. woodland in the background. The effect is a blurred or bleached ghostly • Donachie believes that painting is an appropriate medium through image. which to probe beliefs and all their paradoxes. Do you agree? What Like much of Donachie’s work Epiphany is based on found images of other mediums might be more/less appropriate? rebellious and revolutionary groups. Donachie uses this source material • Why do you think this painting is called Epiphany? Do you think the to investigate group dynamics and power structures. She is fascinated mood of the painting is pessimistic, optimistic or neither? by the codes of cults, communes and other non-conformist and youthful groups. She has collated a range of material that documents collectives, Activities from the Manson family and Friedrichshof Commune to Kommune 1 • Painting from found images. Develop project work based on found and the sanatorium at Monte Veritá in Switzerland. images such as photographs, magazines, CD covers and film stills. Epiphany is one of three paintings based on a rare film documenting Encourage students to analyse and distil these images (photocopying, the Manson family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson in 1960s collaging and re-photographing them) to create their own paintings. California. However, Donachie is not concerned with documenting or • Use film and historical biography as a starting point for a project. portraying this hippie-era community. She is more interested in Encourage students to develop paintings and/or cartoon illustrations conveying a mood as she distils and analyses her images. She made a documenting an individual or community they have researched. number of drawings and watercolours before the oil paintings. She also makes reference to Paul Cézanne’s painting Large Bathers 1899–1906 Links where a group of women are shown in a forest glade. The positioning Look at other contemporary artists who choose to work within the of the figures in Epiphany echoes the nudes in Cézanne’s painting. medium of paint. For example, Gillian Carnegie, 2005 Turner Prize Donachie is interested in the idea of fragmented narratives and she nominee, or Michael Fullerton, Christopher Orr or Peter Doig who believes her paintings can review and redeem images from the margins are included in this exhibition. of history. In Epiphany she combines references to an infamous cult Link to Paul Cézanne’s Bathers 1900–06 in the National Gallery (visit group with art history to evoke a strange mood of nostalgia – as if www.nationalgallery.org.uk). Look at the tradition of painting nude we are viewing a faded dream. figures in the landscape from Titian and Nicolas Poussin to Henri Kaye Donachie was born in in 1970. She studied at the Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Link also to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s University of Central England, Birmingham, the Hochschule der Kunst, Bathers at Moritzburg 1909/26 in the Tate Collection. Berlin and the , London. She had her first solo Donachie’s distinctive use of colour and brushwork has been exhibition in 2004 and she was recently included in Ideal Worlds, compared to the JMW Turner’s oil studies for landscapes and Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany. Donachie is currently represented Francisco de Goya’s late ‘black’ paintings. by Maureen Paley, Interim Art. She lives and works in London. Further information on Tate works and a glossary of terms can be found at www.tate.org.uk/collection

John Stezaker For Discussion Mask VII 2005 • What is strange about this image? Do you find it fascinating, 21 x 17.5 cm disturbing or both? Courtesy the artist and The Approach, London • Describe how Stezaker has combined two images to make another. • Now look at other works that Stezaker has made. These series have Background been described as magical. Would you agree? Mask VII is a collage combining a postcard of a waterfall with an image • Stezaker transforms ordinary images. Many artists working today of a man in a suit and tie. The postcard deliberately obscures the face of take materials that are all around us, using it to make work that is the man. Mask VII is part of an ongoing series where Stezaker quite unique. Can you find other artists in the exhibition who use postcard scenes of romantic pastoral landscapes to partially conceal these techniques? portraits of 1950s film stars. • The Surrealist artists were interested in the effects of the chance Since the 1970s Stezaker has worked with found images and collage. encounter of disparate material and they adopted the phrase He is fascinated by the power of images and he uses collage to ‘beautiful as the chance encounter of an umbrella and a sewing deconstruct and reassemble, creating works that are strange and machine on a dissecting table’. They were also interested in the intriguing. In another series City 2000–2004, also included in this idea of the ‘uncanny’. Do you think Mask VII could be described exhibition, Stezaker inverts images of cityscapes. as uncanny? The Cubist painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, first invented • Through a process of transformation, subtle alterations and collage or papier collé, in 1912. Since then, it has been used by many juxtapositions of everyday images, Stezaker questions the way we artists to explore and play with the illusion of space within two- perceive the world. Is he suggesting that the meanings of images dimensional images. The use of found objects, which has become a is not always as fixed as we think? hallmark of contemporary British Art, was first introduced by the artist Marcel Duchamp who placed ‘readymade’ stools, shovels, bottle racks, Activities bicycle wheels and urinals in an art space. Duchamp was questioning • Make your own series of ‘masks’, cutting and slicing two different the point at which meaning is placed on an object; he was also images to make a new one. challenging the whole idea of artist as maker. • Experiment with different types of photomontages by using collage By manipulating real images taken from film, art history books, and digital imaging. magazines, catalogues, encyclopaedias and postcards, Stezaker • What happens when an ordinary image or object is transformed? transforms unremarkable and ordinary images into something Invite students to make their own extraordinary collections of found compelling. Here the ‘mask’ tantalises and teases us to imagine the images/objects. face behind. At the same time, the landscape starts to take on the features of this unknown star in a peculiar and grotesque morphology. Links John Stezaker was born in Worcester in 1949. He studied at the Link to other artists in the exhibition who analyse, collect and Slade School of Art 1967–1973. He was included in The New Art at the deconstruct found material. See, for example, Djordje Ozbolt’s in 1972 and in 1983 he had his first solo show at the expressive paintings or Luke Fowler’s use of archive material to in London. He has since exhibited widely. He lives and explore the history of the English composer Cornelius Cardew. works in London. Look at the history of collage. Compare and contrast Pablo Picasso’s Stezaker’s influence has been far-reaching and a recent resurgence Cubist papier collé, Hannah Hoch’s Surreal photomontages or of collage by has led to a renewed interest in his art. Joseph Cornell’s playful assemblages. He is included within this exhibition as part of a more established Look at the Surrealist images of Man Ray, Georgio de Chirico, generation whose influence is key to contemporary practice. Paul Delvaux or René Magritte. See for example, de Chirico’s The Uncertainty of the Poet 1913 in the Tate Collection. Stezaker was influenced by the International Situationist and the writings of Guy Debord. Situationists wanted to break down the division between artists and consumers and make cultural production a part of everyday life. Link to other artists such as Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman who are often described as the ‘Appropriationists’ for their manipulation of found imagery. Further information on Tate works and a glossary of terms can be found at www.tate.org.uk/collection