Whilst I always understood that Jacob’s Ladder would be a labour of love for both myself, as BasementArtsProject: the commissioning organisation, and for sculptor Keith Ackerman, I knew that it would definitely take longer than the one-hundred days of the Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019. But we never imagined the three year odyssey that it would become thanks to the C***d pandemic lockdowns.
Read MoreFor the last few months I have been in discussion with artist Paul Digby about his latest sculpture project ‘Looking To The Future: Emily’, and talking about BasementArtsProject’s position as co-creator on it.
Read MoreWhen we lose a sense of purpose we lose our sense of the future, and that is where hopelessness slips into the void and feeds our deepest fears. That is the point at which the sun sets never to rise again.
Read MoreDuring the Lockdown I received an update from the studio of Yol, and just before I left another video update arrived in which he appeared to be trapped inside the Coronaverse. I shall leave you with his emergency transmission.
Read MoreAt the studio in which I have spent the last four days, I pack up my things for the final time and prepare to head for the Torhaus. Today is the opening of the exhibition ‘Meine Welt Auf Corona’ and as soon as it is done I have to head back to the station so that I can catch my train home.
Read MoreToday is essentially a free day. With the exhibition now fully installed and all of the tech stuff working properly, I can spend the day taking in some art elsewhere. I have arranged to meet Sylvia and Christiane at the Dusseldorf U building.
Read MoreMoving out of lockdown, the world is opening up, a chasm to be filled by STEM courses at Universities where the arts are systematically destroyed in an attempt to keep the economy going.
Read MoreThursday 22nd October
Today I am meeting Viennese artists Christiana Spatt and Maria Hanl at the Torhaus. Maria’s work is a film piece and has already been installed, Christiane is a painter and photographer and her work is the final piece in the Corona jigsaw.
Read MoreYesterday in a special edition of the Lockdown Journal, we updated you on the status of the ‘Compressed Time Frames’ exhibition by ArtCouple, and today I bring you some material by Abdullah Adekola, poet and founder of the Black led and Leeds based poetry collective ‘Say It. With Your Chest’. We hope to be working with Adekola in the very near future, watch this space.
Read MoreThe city streets do not seem to be very busy with cars. There is a hire system for electric scooters, they are everywhere and people just leave them parked at the edge of the pavement. Bikes are also popular. Dortmund feels like a city with an environmental conscience.
Read MoreMan is not rational; only what encompasses him is intelligent
Read MoreToday, I depart for the Industrial Rhineland of Westphalia, specifically the city of Dortmund for an exhibition entitled ‘Meine Welt Auf Corona’ (My World After Corona).
Read MoreThe question is how to achieve those elusive steps to improvement, how to train your vision on a new horizon and attempt to take people with you on that journey.
Read MorePaul Digby’s final entry for the journal on his latest work ‘Shopping’
Read MoreIn the scene pictured, here, the ”Feeders” take parcels from the metal or cardboard containers (pictured on both side of the print) onto the belt at a constant pace, starting the operations.
Read MoreMany of our discussions in previous weeks have been about the intervening 10 years as much as they have involved what this project will entail. Our discussions have also revolved around situationist ideas and strategies, phenomenological understandings of environment and our engagement with people as artists and individuals.
Read Morethere is something really fascinating about revisiting, reworking and stripping back. Sanding down the floor of the studio, peeling back layers of varnish and paint that had become caked on the floor was both an incredibly satisfying feeling - like cleaning a dirty kitchen and then seeing it sparkle
Read More. . . the fact that there is much art out there that most of us will never be able to experience firsthand does not mean that there is no point in trying to experience or understand it.
Read MoreIn the midst of lockdown I felt like I should have been reading, disappearing in to worlds, escaping, but I needed to be present too. So I found that I could get lost in box sets, subtitled box sets, the best of both worlds present but not, reading and listening consumed as a whole.
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