3 October 2006 – 14 January 2007 Teacher and Student Notes By Jackie Steven

Produced with support from

Tomma Abts Phil Collins Mark Titchner 2006

Introduction to the Exhibition How to use this pack and structure your visit The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist under fifty for an The aim of this pack is to provide an introduction to the exhibition outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the and information about key works on display, as well as themes twelve months preceding 9 May 2006. The four nominees this and issues to consider and discuss. It also suggests ways of year are , Phil Collins, Mark Titchner and Rebecca looking at contemporary art and links to the wider collection. Warren. Work by the artists will be shown at Tate Britain from The key work cards can be used to help focus work in small 3 October 2006. The winner will be announced at Tate Britain groups in the exhibition, as well as preparation or follow up on 4 December during a live broadcast by Channel 4. work in the classroom. The Turner Prize was established in 1984 by the Tate’s Patrons Resources availbable in the gallery of New Art and, although controversial, it is widely recognised In the final room of the exhibition there is an Interpretation Room. as one of the most important awards for the visual arts in Europe. This is a seating area with a film on the artists, press clippings, Gordon’s ® gin is sponsoring the prize for the third year. They comments cards and books related to the artists. There is a increased the value of the Turner Prize from £20,000 to £40,000, free audio guide available to all visitors. It includes commentary with £25,000 being awarded to the winner and £5,000 each to from the artists, jury members and a ‘champion’ of the artist. the other shortlisted artists. The Turner Prize 2006 broadsheet is available at the entrance The members of the Turner Prize 2006 jury are: to the exhibition, price £2.99. The Tate shop has a selection of • Nicholas Serota books, journals, catalogues, postcards and related materials. Director, Tate, and Chairman of the Jury Websites • Lynn Barber Tate Online www.tate.org.uk Writer, Observer Turner Prize www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize • Margot Heller Director, South Gallery Tate Learning www.tate.org.uk/learning This site includes the Staff Room, a dedicated area for teachers • Matthew Higgs and group leaders, teacher resource notes for all major Director and Chief Curator, White Columns, New York Tate exhibitions including past Turner Prize exhibitions. • Andrew Renton http://tinyurl.com/hg4ph Information on Phil Collins Writer and Director of Curating at Goldsmiths College, www.greengrassi.com/abts.php Information on Tomma Abts There is a useful and informative section on the Turner Prize http://tinyurl.com/h3rze Information on Rebecca Warren and its history on the Tate website at www.tate.org.uk/ http://tinyurl.com/g337z Information on Mark Titchner britain/turnerprize Further Reading Visiting the Exhibition Buck, Louisa, Moving Targets 2, A User’s Guide to British Art Now, Free group exhibition tickets for UK schools are available in 2000, Tate Publishing advance only from Education Bookings on 020 7887 3959. There Button, Virginia, The Turner Prize Twenty Years, 1997, Tate Publishing are a limited number of free group tickets available so please book Button, Virginia, New revised Edition, The Turner Prize, well in advance. Otherwise, school groups are charged £5 per September 2005, Tate Publishing head. If you would like to use the Schools Area to have lunch or use locker spaces, please book these when you book your tickets Button, Virginia, & Esche, Charles, Intelligence, New British Art 2000, (there is limited space available). As all exhibitions at Tate Britain 2000, Tate Publishing can be busy, you cannot lecture in the exhibition space, but you Crary, Jonathan (editor), Installation Art in the New Millennium: can discuss works in a conversational manner with groups of no The Empire of the Senses, 2004, Thames & Hudson Ltd more than six students at a time. If possible, brief your students Farquharson, Alex & Schlieker, Andrea, British Art Show 6, 2005, before they enter the exhibition, and if you have a large group, Hayward Gallery Publishing we suggest that you divide into smaller groups and follow the Nesbitt, Judith & Watkins, Jonathan, Days Like These, Tate suggestions in this pack. Triennial Exhibition of Contemporary British Art, 2003, Tate Publishing Frequently asked questions

Q When did the Turner Prize start? Q Has there always been a shortlist? A 2005 is the twenty-second year of the prize: the first Turner Prize A In the early days there were concerns about the shortlisting was awarded in 1984. process. In 1988 it was decided not to announce the shortlist publicly, and instead of an exhibition of work by shortlisted artists, the winner Q How did it begin? was offered a solo show the following year. In 1989 the jury published A The prize was founded by a group called the Patrons of New a list of seven ‘commended’ artists. The shortlist was reinstated in Art. They were formed in 1982 to help buy art for the Tate Gallery’s 1991, and restricted to three or four artists. collection and to encourage wider interest in contemporary art. Q Is there an age limit? Q Why did they call it ‘The Turner Prize’? A In 1991 it was decided to restrict the Prize to artists under fifty, A The Patrons wanted a name associated with great British art. so that younger artists just setting out weren’t pitted against artists They chose JMW Turner (1775–1851) partly because he had wanted at the height of their careers. to establish a prize for young artists. He also seemed appropriate because his work was controversial in his own day. Q Is there a limit to how often an artist can be shortlisted? A In 1987 it was ruled that any artist nominated for two years Q Who put up the prize money? wouldn’t be eligible for the following two years. This was changed A The first sponsor was Oliver Prenn, though he remained again in 1991. Since then there has been no limit to the number anonymous at the time. He was a founder member of the Patrons of times an artist can be shortlisted. of New Art. The prize money was £10,000 for the first three years. He was followed in 1987 by Drexel Burnham Lambert, an American Q What about the protest groups? investment company. They sponsored the prize until 1989. The prize A Since 1991, when the award ceremony was first broadcast live, was suspended for a year in 1990 when the company went bankrupt. various groups have staged protests. These have included a group From 1991 Channel 4 was the sponsor and the prize money was called Fanny Adams, protesting against male domination of the art raised to £20,000. Since 2004 Gordon’s ® gin have been sponsoring world, the K Foundation (formerly the pop band KLF) who awarded the Prize as part of a three-year sponsorship. They have increased £40,000 to Rachel Whiteread as the ‘worst shortlisted artist’ in 1993, the total prize money to £40,000, with £25,000 being awarded to and FAT (Fashion, Architecture and Taste) who objected to the the winner and £5,000 each to the other shortlisted artists. ‘cultural elitism’ of the art establishment. To find out more about the history of the Turner Prize visit: Q Who was the first winner? www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history A Malcolm Morley. To find out more about all the artists who have ever exhibited in the Q Why did some of the early shortlists include Turner Prize visit www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/artists people who weren’t artists? A At first the prize was awarded to ‘the person who, in the opinion of the jury, has made the greatest contribution to art in Britain in the previous twelve months’. This meant that critics and art administrators were eligible as well as artists. Issues and Themes in the Turner Prize 2006 Exhibition

How representative do you think the Turner Prize is of artwork Craft and Skill today? Many aspects may seem arbitrary – for example, the prize Do artists have to make their work with their own hands, or is it is now limited to artists under fifty years old. There have also enough that they create the ideas and direct the work to finished traditionally been more male artists than represented construction and installation? Mark Titchner combines hand-carved in the shortlists. For more information and discussion of issues wooden sculptures with more esoteric mechanical contraptions and and themes relating to the history of the Turner Prize, go to wonders if the time invested in their making gives them more www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize meaning. The handiwork that has gone into Rebecca Warren’s clay The artists included in this year’s shortlist are all very different, and bronze sculpture is impossible to overlook. She deliberately exploring a range of issues through painting, sculpture, video and cultivates a rough and temporary texture, and process is very installation art. Some of them are introduced below, while a more important. Tomma Abts’s paintings are clearly the result of a long and detailed discussion of a selection of individual works follow. intense process and she is inspired by the act of painting, making little or no references to outside sources. Other than craft and skill, The Awards Game what criteria is there for considering art? What is the aim of the prize? Is it about winning and losing? Or is it just the opportunity to get the nation talking about art? What impact What About Painting? do you think the prize has on the shortlisted artists? Do we actually For many years there has been a debate about the place of painting remember any of the winners? Or, do we remember the media in contemporary art. Since the invention of photography, critics have controversy? In this year’s exhibition, Phil Collins‘s installation Shady been quick to pronounce painting dead. With new media and Lane Productions exploits the media circus aspect of the Turner technologies, collaborative practice, installations and the freedom to Prize exhibition. Why not follow the reviews and press coverage make work out of any material, what relevance does painting have leading up to the awards in December? for contemporary art?

Shock and Sensation Installation Do the elements of shock and sensation which fuel the media Much contemporary art defies simple categorisation and it is not coverage of the Turner Prize help or hinder the aim of bringing easy to pigeon-hole artworks simply as painting, film, or sculpture. contemporary art to the wider public? The ‘shock’ element seems Mixed media is a term used to indicate that several processes have to take two forms: dislike of the content or subject matter of the art been combined into one object, but often several objects are on display (eg pornography or the inside of the artist’s body) and combined into one environment. Installation is a term used to dismay at the materials used (perhaps dead animals or elephant describe artwork that occupies an entire space into which the dung). While the media have often been quick to claim confusion and spectator can usually enter. Rather than discrete artworks displayed outrage on behalf of the general public, this isn’t borne out by visitor in a neutral space, an installation has been coordinated into a comments. There are good reasons why an artist might want to meaningful environment as an artwork in itself. Installation is an surprise the viewer, by subverting a code of practice or by creating important aspect of the works in this show. Mark Titchner’s an unexpected environment to challenge assumptions and to installations of mixed media sculptures and images function very encourage new ideas. Mark Titchner re-presents popular phrases much as a coherent environment and as an event. Phil Collins’s out of context to open a space for new thought. Shady Lane Productions is an installation specific to the time, place and event status of the show. While Rebecca Warren’s sculptures Conceptual Art could be said to have a cumulative, immersive effect on the viewer, For some, contemporary art seems to be synonymous with could Tomma Abts’s precise exhibition of paintings be described conceptual art. Conceptual art is also used to label work that as an installation? challenges our assumptions about what art is or should be. Conceptual art investigates concepts and foregrounds ideas. The Art Historical and Cultural References artists in this exhibition explore a variety of concepts, and these are Art is inseparable from its history, so it is legitimate to consider Tomma presented to us through an inventive array of objects and processes Abts’s paintings both as the result of a contemporary, individual process suited to the expression of that idea. Phil Collins works within the and also to consider how they relate to the history of abstraction. format of low-budget television and documentary to investigate Many contemporary artists make explicit references to art historical issues of media representation and exploitation. Mark Titchner’s movements; to other artists; or to previous events such as exhibitions, installations include interactive sculptures and decorative text happenings and performances. Rebecca Warren makes explicit and reflecting the variety of ways in which meaning is made and witty reference to famous artists. Do you think that it is important for communicated. Rebecca Warren explores accepted notions about visitors to understand these references? Does this art historical creativity through her working process, conceptually questioning reference conflict with the everyday appeal of the work on display? her work’s own value. Mark Titchner’s work collages references from philosophy, pop lyrics, science, mystical belief and advertising. Phil Collins’s video work is inspired in part by the common experience of watching reality television. How important are the references that artworks make to shared experience? Tomma Abts Mino 2004 © The artist Photo: Jill and Peter Kraus Tomma Abts is nominated for her exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland and greengrassi, London

Tomma Abts For Discussion 1967 Born Kiel, • Describe your personal experience of Tomma Abts’s paintings. 1989–1995 Hochschule der Kunste Berlin How did you move around her exhibition? How did you look Lives and works in London at her paintings? What were your first impressions? Did these Mino 2004 change over time? Acrylic and oil paint on canvas • Louisa Buck, speaking on behalf of Abts for the audio guide for the © The artist Turner Prize exhibition, says that her paintings are ‘not of anything, Photo: Jill and Peter Kraus but they’re of themselves’. Discuss in relation to your favourite one. • Martin McGeown, also speaking on the audio guide, describes Background her paintings as abstract, while at the same time being descriptive. Since 1998, Tomma Abts has been working consistently as a Do you agree? What can you see in her work? painter, producing small abstract canvases that are 48 x 38cm in • Have you seen paintings similar to these before? In what context? size. At a time when artists regularly borrow from cultural forms Abts’s paintings are noted for their scale, the intricate process beyond painting, her work can be difficult to place. Her abstraction which she uses to paint them, and the unusual visual effects which may at first sight resemble some obscure modernist movement, she creates. In what way, if any, does her work stand out for you? but her process is not founded in appropriation. Abts approaches Activities each canvas without preconceptions, working first in acrylic to • Abts works with no predetermined result in mind, beginning with divide the canvas, then building up layer upon layer using oils, a layer of acrylic and then further layers of oil, until her canvas is until the image she wants is achieved and the painting becomes complete. After a close inspection of her work, experiment with ‘congruent with itself’. Abts’s intimate relationship with the painting a similar process. Set a consistent size of canvas and work in a process and with the space of the canvas rather enriches the similar way. Discuss the process and evaluate the experience. language of abstract panting. Adrian Searle, described her painting • Abts is not unusual in working on more than one canvas at once. as having an important ‘untimeliness’ (A Searle, Guardian, Incorporate this into your practice. 13 December 2005). • On the audio guide, Andrew Renton, one of the Turner Prize The consistent scale suggests an inevitability to the work, but her judges, raises the frequently asked question: ‘Is painting dead?’ process is long, laborious and rigorous. She begins with no source Discuss this. material, and no image in mind. Each painting can take months to complete and develops out of its own logic. Each one could Links have turned out differently. However, the consistent size creates A collection of ideas lie behind abstract art. Pioneers of abstract the impression of an installation when the canvases are exhibited painting, such as Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian, during the together. Their uniformity becomes somehow important. The first two decades of the twentieth century, saw abstraction as scale also encourages close proximity while viewing, and on the art of the future, able to convey spiritual rather than material close inspection, the quiet and unusual world of these images values. They looked to music as an example of an abstract art comes to view. form, which was able to move the senses, without reference to anything outside. You can view work by Kandinsky, Mondrian The shapes which look like delicate planks on the surface of Mino and Malevich online or at . Online, look at the work 2006 appear to be the last thing that was added to the ochre of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. An early theorist of abstraction ground. However, they are what remains of earlier layers of paint, as ‘art for art’s sake,’ he named his paintings after musical and earlier stages of painting, which can only be seen close-up. conventions. Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge Abts describes her finished paintings as a concentrate of the 1872–5 shows the Thames during an evening mist. The critic John paintings beneath. Each picture plane is alive with the marks and Ruskin accused Whistler of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s textures of previous layers. In many canvases there are shadows face’ and this painting was used as evidence in court, when where there ought not to be, creating an illusion of impossible Whistler sued Ruskin over the comment. objects in an unlikely space. There is a tense dialogue between the pictorial illusion of space in her paintings and the literal surface; Abts has illustrated this tension between the visual and the tactile by having one of her paintings cast in aluminium, emphasising the topographical depths of its surface. Using a German baby’s-first-name book, Abts names her paintings, rather than giving them a title. This releases them into the world as definitive objects with independent identities rather than as representations of a subject. Abts explains that the forms in her paintings don’t stand for anything else: ‘They represent themselves’. Phil Collins the return of the real/gercegin geri donusu 2005 (installation view) © The artist Photo: Courtesy the artist, Kerlin Gallery and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery Phil Collins is nominated for his exhibitions at Milton Keynes Gallery, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and his presentation in British Art Show 6

Phil Collins For Discussion 1970 Born Runcorn • Which aspect of Phil Collins’s exhibition were you most interested 1990–4 University of Manchester in? Why? Find out if your peers were equally interested, and if they 1998–2000 University of Ulster, Belfast were interested for the same reasons as you. Currently based in Glasgow • Collins often uses a familiar format from television. Discuss the the return of the real/gercegin geri donusu 2005 (installation view) role of television in your life. How does his work compare with Multi–channel colour video installation with sound, 60 min your experience of television? Have you ever been on TV? © The artist Would you want to go on TV? Photo: Courtesy the artist, Kerlin Gallery and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery • How do you feel about the people in Collins’s video work? Can you identify with them in any way? Is it important to identify with them? Background • Consider which aspects of Collins’s exhibition are ‘real’ and Phil Collins has said that ‘the camera is quite simply a way of which are not. meeting people’. But questions of exploitation and objectification • Were you surprised by anything that you saw in Collins’s exhibition? are also at the heart of the matter. Collins works as a catalyst Activities encouraging people to reveal their individuality and to make • Make a short film or audio work to explore an aspect of Collins’s their personal lives public. Whilst some critics see his work as exhibition which you found compelling. Use a mobile phone exploitative, others feel he treats his subjects with sensitivity and camera/video. How willing would you be to take part in such a generosity, fully acknowledging that the camera is an instrument project? Would you want to be in front of the camera or behind it? of fascination, manipulation, revelation and shame. Collins often Discuss the different responsibilities and issues associated with works within existing formats like low-budget documentary being in front of or behind the camera. Who would be the ‘audience’? television, to engage with issues such as the ethics of exploitation • Collins’s work exposes an exploitative aspect to television and and the discrepancy between reality and representation. media coverage. Discuss in relation to Shady Lane Productions. Collins first exhibited his two-screen video installation they shoot • Discuss the schedule for one week of television. Analyse what horses in 2005 at the Milton Keynes Gallery and it is now on kind of programmes are being offered, which ones you will be display at Tate Britain (Room 28). He is perhaps most famous for likely to watch and why. Set homework to watch and evaluate a this work, the result of a project in Ramallah, Palestine, where he programme in a documentary or reality format. auditioned a number of young people to participate in an eight- hour dance marathon. The results were captured in a continuous Links shot, against a backdrop resembling cheap reality shows, with only Consider the return of the real as a contemporary form of portraiture. two of the original nine participants going the distance. To watch Visit the Collection Displays at Tate Britain such as ‘Sargent and they shoot horses is to acknowledge our own fascination for video the Swagger Portrait’ (Room 17). The ostentatious, self-conscious images. While Collins works within the forms of low-budget TV, display of the aristocratic portrait was revived by Sargent during he also moves beyond expectations, notably by making no overt the late nineteenth century, and adopted by the aspiring middle reference to geographical location, which highlights the ways that classes. His very satisfied sitters are shown in poses, dress and social, political and economic circumstances are normally defining environments, which display their character and status. Do the features of news reportage and documentaries. As part of the reality and make-over shows which Collins explores through Milton Keynes exhibition, Collins also offered to develop visitors’ his work promise their participants the same experience? film for free, in exchange for the exclusive image rights to their Also visit Philip Wilson Steer’s Impressionist paintings (Room 16). photographs. While there is no suggestion of coercion here, there Some of his private scenes were criticised as indecent. Model is a frisson of exploitation. Similarly, the young Palestinians in they Seated Before a Mirror about 1894 shows a woman seemingly shoot horses earned eight days’ wages in one day for taking part absorbed in her own thoughts in front of a bedroom mirror, in the exhaustive marathon, a format Collins borrowed from the unaware of being watched. We also watch her reflection somewhat Great Depression years of America. voyeuristically. How different is this from watching reality TV? For the return of the real/gercegin geri donusu 2005 Collins Compare Collins with the video self-portraiture of Gilbert and invited Turkish people who felt that their lives had been ruined by George who, in 1969, declared themselves as ‘living sculptures’, appearing on talk shows and makeover shows to tell their stories making no separation between their everyday existence and art. at a press conference. He further hired a director of a Turkish reality show to conduct hour-long interviews with the participants. The ethics of exploitation are a prominent subject of this project, as is the participant’s desire to match their media representation with their personal reality. Installed as part of the Turner Prize exhibition, Collins will operate a fully functioning project office, Shady Lane Productions, to research and organise further projects exploring the influence that the camera has on its subject through television exposure, including a British episode of the return of the real. Mark Titchner Ergo Ergot 2006 © The artist Photo: Courtesy the artist and Vilma Gold, London Mark Titchner has been nominated for his solo exhibition at Arnolfini, Bristol and for his contribution to British Art Show 6

Mark Titchner narratively that we are susceptible to visions, emphasising the 1973 Born Luton, England unreliability of knowledge. 1992–5 Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design Lives and works in London For Discussion • Describe your first impression of Mark Titchner’s installations. Ergo Ergot 2006 What emotions, memories and sensations does his work provoke? Wood, steel, motors, electrical and mechanical components, In what ways, if any, is it familiar? In what ways, if any, is it strange? DVD loop, monitors and speakers • Titchner has said that rather than something you walk around, © The artist his artwork is something you have to step inside and interact with. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Vilma Gold, London In what ways have you interacted with his work? Background • Titchner’s work is regarded as ‘empowering’ and ‘affirmative’. There are a variety of messages to be found in Mark Titchner’s Discuss with regard to Ergo Ergot. work. He lifts phrases from pervasive cultural sources such as • Titchner chose Nic Bullen, a founding member of the group Napalm philosophy, advertising, politics, religion and song lyrics. Some Death, to champion his work on the audio guide. What Bullen most references are contemporary, but many are historical references admires about Titchner’s work is its ‘lack of fixed meaning’ and how which still have a currency today while others are outdated. He ’it opens up discussion, because if there’s no fixed meaning it can appropriates his reference points with a seemingly open mind, at least lead us to discuss and talk about an issue’. What issues removing phrases from their original context and provocatively do you find for debate in Titchner’s exhibition? recombining statements, across disciplines and history, to present Activities a world of ideas without a hierarchy of right or wrong, valid or • Consider the ways in which Titchner has used text in his work and defunct. He physically presents text in a variety of ways, sometimes experiment with found text. Discuss the importance of context. contemporary, while other forms evoke an obscure or fantasised • Titchner employs a wide range of processes in his work including past. His installations often combine different formats into an digital design, the assemblage of found objects and wood carving, environment where the viewer is required to interact with his work, with each process evoking different cultural reference points. and to take part in what he describes as ‘a dialogue about how Discuss which elements of Titchner’s work you find most exciting, you receive thought and ideas’. His work examines the different and which processes you would most like to try out. Where discourses of authority that structure society – religion, science, possible experiment with these formats – ultimately producing politics – and presents conflicting and outmoded ideas, through a group installation. contrasting structures and technologies, leaving it firmly up to the • Ergo Ergot makes many references to historical sources. Consider viewer to form their own conclusions. the amount of research that Titchner has done to produce this He is best known for installations of billboards, lightboxes and work. Individually, or as a whole group, debate an issue which is posters, such as I WE IT 2004, an installation of ten billboards in the important to you. Compile research on and around that issue to platform exhibition space at Gloucester Road tube station. For each form the basis of an artwork. billboard, he used a single phrase taken from the corporate vision Links statement of one of the top ten world brands. These otherwise Visit the Collection Displays at Tate Britain to see how other British utopian phrases are each prefixed with ‘we want’, which was taken artists raised the important issues of their day. The Pre-Raphaelites from the ten point plan of a revolutionary anti-capitalist group. He (formed 1848) combined stunning realism with symbolism, to invite brings these otherwise opposing voices together in his own vibrant the viewer to find deeper meanings that were often critical of graphic style, using a very simplified and square font, supported by spiritual decline and social inequality. Look at William Holman a dramatic and beautifully patterned background. In contrast to the Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience 1853 and it’s neighbour Ford loud graphics of these digitally created posters, Titchner also adds Madox Brown’s ‘Take Your Son, Sir’ c1851–92 (Room 14). They both text to sculptures which bring to mind a world of outdated scientific depict tense psychological scenes involving kept women. Through or occult demonstration machines. The time and effort invested the symbolism of a cat and a bird Hunt directs the viewer to think into carving zealous slogans into these mystifying objects, gives about the financial and moral trap which the woman finds herself them a devotional quality that his more corporate digital works in. In Brown’s work the central female figure holds out a newborn do not have. baby to us. The man she is showing it to can be seen in a mirror His most recent work, Ergo Ergot 2006, dramatises the complexities behind her head, however Brown’s composition also implicates the at the heart of human perception. A whirling kinetic sculpture viewer as we find ourselves face to face with the pleading woman. creates a dizzying effect on the viewer, who is subjected to a pulsating display of lurid Rorschach ink-blot patterns while information flickers hypnotically. The title conflates philosopher René Descartes’ famous statement ‘cogito ergo sum’ (‘I think, therefore I am’) with ergot, a poisonous hallucinogenic fungus which induces the sickness St Anthony’s Fire, leading to insanity and death. Ergo Ergot reminds the viewer, physically and Rebecca Warren Pauline 2006 © The artist, courtesy , London Rebecca Warren has been nominated for her exhibitions at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, and her contribution to Tate Triennial 2006

Rebecca Warren For Discussion 1965 Born London • Describe your own experience of Rebecca Warren’s sculptures. 1989–92 Goldsmiths College, University of London How do they make you feel? Do you find them amusing, disturbing, 1992–3 Chelsea College of Art shocking? Do you agree with your peers? Lives and works in London • Warren emphasises process in her work, often by leaving Pauline 2006 sculptures apparently ‘unfinished’. How might they look If they Bronze were ‘finished’ and how might this change their meaning? © The artist • Discuss the processes that Warren has used. How familiar are you Courtesy Maureen Paley, London with the techniques that she has used? Have you previously seen artworks made from bronze, clay or collected objects? In what Background context have you seen these? Rebecca Warren is perhaps best known for her sculptural • Warren’s vitrines contain collected bits-and-pieces from her studio. installations of large female figures. They are roughly handled, What do you think her studio is like? Are these bits-and-pieces in unfired clay, with an acceptance of the amorphous properties valuable? Do they tell a story? of the medium. Their surface is alive with an energetic process • What does Warren’s work remind you of? Through her figure of modelling, giving them a crude energy which is perfectly suited sculptures, she often makes references to other famous artworks to the large, strident, rude and irreverent female superheroes she or to comics. Do you recognise any references? creates. Warren’s figures present an exaggerated femininity – an Activities amalgam of boobs and buttocks, wearing amazing shoes, striking • You could use clay/plasticine to experiment with surface texture confident and confrontational poses. If the figures have heads at and with processes of modelling and reworking. Use plaster or all, they are not of the same scale as the more fetishized body parts, plaster bandage to experiment with casting from clay/plasticine. but this does not diminish their presence. In many cases, the plinths • Consider the body imagery that Warren uses. Do you identify with are part of the sculptures themselves. They do not elevate the it? Investigate what sources it comes from and what references are models above the space of the viewer and their wheels accentuate being made in her work. As a group evaluate the body imagery the active vigour of the figures, so that the viewer can imagine these that has been collected. Is it positive, negative or something else? disproportioned figures whizzing comically around the gallery. • Create or assemble your own collection of everyday bits-and- Warren’s emphasis on process not only leaves her models with an pieces and display them. Consider the choices made of what to energetic individuality of their own, but also strategically positions display – valuable items, symbolic items, personal or impersonal Warren within a predominantly masculine sculptural tradition. She items or rubbish. Experiment with display cabinets around is humourous in her response to the female body and her school/college. What kind of explanatory information could you sculptures make reference to many cultural forms, both highbrow supply? How happy do you feel having your contributions scrutinised? and lowbrow. She brings exaggerated femininity into collision with the work of old masters, such as Degas and Boccioni, eloquently Links challenging the tradition while creating something completely new. Visit the ‘Victorian Spectacle’ room (Room 15) in the Collection For example, her sculpture Croccioni 2000 re-presents the striding Displays at Tate Britain to see two examples of full size bronze pose of a famous bronze sculpture by Boccioni in clay as a shapely figure sculpture. Hamo Thornycroft’s bronze Teucer 1881 depicts a pair of nude female legs wearing high heels. heroic Greek archer from Homer’s story of the Trojan War, while Frederic Leighton’s The Sluggard 1885 shows a man with very More recently, Warren has created a series of figure sculptures in similar idealised classical anatomy, this time in a languid and less bronze where the process of casting from an original clay model formal pose. The classical style and theme of these sculptures is a has been placed at the centre of her work. When a clay figure is typical subject for bronze. When Rodin exhibited a full size standing returned from the foundry, it is usually distorted and damaged bronze figure, which still included many of the modelling marks from the casting process. Rather than discard these, Warren has from its original clay form,and even some of the casting marks, he reworked them and sent them for re-casting in bronze. This was accused of having cast from life. How do Warren’s cast and exploration of the formal relationship between clay and bronze recast bronzes fit into this history of bronze figurative sculpture? has resulted in hybrid and mutating forms which open up the relative values of clay and bronze. Warren’s exploration of process Damien Hirst’s recent bronze sculpture The Virgin Mother 2005 unravels the mythology of the artist as a creative genius. Central is 35ft tall and weighs thirteen and a half tons. The pose is based to this mythology are the artist’s studio and methods of exhibition on Degas‘ Little Dancer about 1880–1881 but the figure is divided display, two further sites which Warren brings into dialogue, in half from head to toe, revealing the skeleton and internal through a series of delicately ill-constructed vitrines containing organs on one side. detritus from her studio.