Went on our Vis Com trip to Newcastle last Thursday and Friday, which was great fun. Set off from college at 9:45 and got into Newcastle at around lunchtime, when we left our bags at the hotel in which we were staying just outside of the city centre. Had a walk into the centre to get some lunch, and managed to walk a massive circle around the centre for the first 30 minutes, completely lost :s Then we went to the Baltic art gallery to have a look at the exhibitions they had on there. On the ground floor was an exhibition by David Shrigley, there was a woman in the room stopping us from taking photos so I recorded the exhibits in note form.
Shrigley, a Glasgow based artist, is best known for his animated work but included sculpture in his exhibition which consisted of 9 pieces in a room. The first being the back metal gate "DO NOT LINGER AT THE GATE" incorporated into the metal bars, which led you into the exhibition. On the wall was a list of the exhibits;
Do not linger at the gate (painted steel)
Dead rat (taxidermy)
Jesus will appear again as judge of the world and the dead will be raised (bronze)
Horseshoe made from a meteorite (meteorite, iron ore)
Gravestone (gravestone, gold leaf)
Bone clock (plastic bone, electric clock movement)
Thing (polyester and fibreglass sphere with steel legs)
Cheers (expanding foam, rubber waders)
Sleep (animation, looped)
Lightswitch (animation, looped)
The exhibition was very varied in content, and extremely interesting to look at/think about. There was no blurb by each piece describing what it was and what it stood for, so it was completely up to the viewer to think about. I really loved Shrigley's style and variation, from a dead rat on the floor to a 2 minute animation of a hand flicking a lightswitch, I thought it was superr.
My favourite exhibition by far was that of the work of Yoshitomo Nara and graf, a series of paintings, illustrations and models set in 3 small wooden huts, joined together by a wooden boardwalk and all made from recycled materials. The Baltic staff in this room were far less strict about photography so here are my favourite parts..
One of a series of graphite drawings of characters in a line on one wall, this was one of my favourite as the drawing style is so haphazard, with scribblings and eraser marks left to add more texture. I thought they were cute, but some had small amounts of text relating to deeper issues.
Inside one of the wooden huts, a tiny creature sat on a tiny chair.
Each of the huts had quirky lighting and wooden beams in the ceiling, as they were each made of recycled materials from Leeds they were all completely different.
On the Friday, we had a free day to do whatever we wanted to. It was a nice day weather wise so we decided to get on the metro and go to South Shields. The beach was beautiful, we wandered through the deserted mini theme park, and ate chips by the beach. It was sooo good! I used my diana+ camera as I thought that the colours would come out more vividly and exciting than using my digital camera and altering them on Photoshop. When I get my film back from the camera shop I'll post them up on here.
