Objects
Task: In a group of 5 visit 2 galleries and find artists who use objects in their work. Choose one artist and create a 20 second fil that is considered a response to that artist.
After my groups first gallery visit to Tate Modern, an artists who used objects and particularly resonated with me was Germaine Richier. Richier created 5 human sized figures to represent pieces in a game of chess. Rather than the elegant designs of traditional chess pieces, these are grotesque hybrid figures; the night has a horses head, while the bishop resembles a hunchbacked jester. Richier used distorted animal and partly human figures to reflect the anxieties and despair of post-war Europe. ‘It seems to me that in violent works there is just as much sensibility as in poetic ones’, she said. ‘There can be just as much wisdom in violence as gentleness’. All I could think about is how I wanted to set them up and play a real life game deformed and cursed chess. I can picture how the characters would move as if it were some vexed chess horror story. This is a perfect inspiration for this project.
For our second gallery visit we decide to check out White Cube gallery, who were showing an exhibition of Ibrahim Mahama, titled ‘ Lazarus’. This exhibition addressed the passage of time, the notion of obsolescence and the potential for regeneration. The gallery refrains from having any information boards about the work, which make me question a lot more than usual. The exhibition made me quite confused, to be honest, but after researching the artist it began to all make sense. The most intense room was a room full of old sewing machines, with multiple making a loud drilling sound at the same time. Mahama’s work represents life in destruction, symbolizing historical colonial domination in relation to Ghana.
We decided to go with Germaine Richier’s chess pieces as we liked the meaning behind them and thought we could interpret it effectively. For the final piece we decided to create a chess battle with each part being in a different animated style. As the animation went on the images would become more distorted and more like Richier’s pieces, less like traditional chess pieces.
The final piece
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVS1herjzoR/