Degree show | ashvandyck

This Comment Has Been Deleted

This project began as a purely design based piece with a series of posters but quickly spiraled out of control.

I first became interested in the comments left by readers to articles and reviews of art, exhibitions and artists on the Guardian's Art and Design site.

Forming the majority of my studio work for my final year of uni, and my Degree Show this work consists of a screen print series, a couple of exhibitions, survey based research, a lot of reading, mixed media pieces, art gallery interventions and all this will be tied together into a series of booklets and zines.

I am interested by the tone and content of much of the commentary, there are many people who feel that if you are not a painter in the vein of Turner, Vermeer or peers of theirs, then you are not an artist. There is a prevailing anger among many readers that modern and conceptual art is all a load of crap and the artists charlatans and frauds that are somehow getting away with something.

My 3 year old could do better, the Emperor's new clothes, what a load of rubbish and so on are some of the more regular themes in the comments section.

The language used in a lot of artist statements and gallery interpretations leaves some people confounded, and rightly so..in my research I have learned that a number of bigger galleries are themselves ready to change this in order to be more accessible to more people.

It is this insiderism and elitism that I refer to when I talk about art and galleries not being accessible to a lot of people, particulary marginalised communities, they feel put off by this and of course this translates to a feeling of not belonging.

I wanted to take a look at this in a participatory way and have begun a project for a free range gallery and exhibition where artists will leave work for people to freely find, tag and add it to a map and hopefully become part of a community of people participating in art for enjoyment and to share rather than for the highly sought after commodity it has become.

The comments I have used in the printed works have been left as they are, no editing to grammar or spelling at all.

Click the gallery for larger images and more information on exhibitions and other work.

Degree show installation

For my degree show I diaplayed a wall plastered with screen prints of the comments I collected along with a series of books and zines I made with research materials.

Degree show

I made a series of books and zines featuring screenprints and some hand stitched and each one conveying a slightly different abstracted element of the project, sadly a few were taken during the exhibition.

inside pages of fabric book

I out the comments into a programme that abstracted them into a pixelated set of lines and dots, then edited this in illustrator and screen printed them onto book cloth and other fabrics and made a series of books with them.

Zine

Detail of one of the zines I made

screen printed fabric book

Zine

Zine detail

Zine pages

One of the zines I exhibited alongside the screenprint wall that featured abstractions in text of the commentary.

Bookmarks

made bookmarks from screen prints and letterpress

book

small book detail

Faux Show

I made a series of sculptural pieces that reflected the comments and made an exhibition for the purpose of photographing it for a "fake" exhibition guide.

Picasso

protest

Many of the comments have a protest sign feel to them so for "Faux Show" I made some

History

Taking the piss

one of a series of screen prints on fabric

Books and Zines

Some of the booklets and research zines I made for the degree show and final year uni work

Degree show

This article is incredibly interesting and relevant to the project, highly worth a read. It talks about the importance of conceptual art.	screen print on garbage bag
Art Gallery here is a free range gallery and exhibition project that I am trying, I want to see how many artists are up for sharing their work for art's sake, it's a free roaming nomadic project that can be participated in by anyone in the world at any time and the idea is to take art back in to the streets and bus stations, window ledges and arches, coffee shops and doorways and leave it there for peopple to find, art is for everyone and it should be shared. link below to participate map	Poster for upcoming exhibition of print work
interventioning in the Bluecoat	So this one was serendipitous to say the least. My glamorous assistant and myself went to Liverpool to visit all the galleries and do some small interventions, really we were just in galleries wearing the t-shirts and the bags with the comments on them, it was interesting to clock responses, some thought we were mad and looked away, others looked and read the text, no one spoke to us though. This comment is about this piece of work & it gave me a great level of context for this project.
the comment and the work it references, finally in the same room.. that's something.	interventioning in the Bluecoat
one of the prints where I was trying to repsond to the comment with the printing, making it with nice colours in order to make it "beautiful", which is all relative anyway.	Another one, fascinating the time and thought put into these sometimes, people really are desparate to have their say and this online comments section is really one of the only places that gets to happen.
One of the first comments to catch my attention, it shows that even if someone dislikes a work of art or an artist they will take the time to let the worl know in such a dramatic way. They could have said " I don't like that artists" or not said anything at all but the fact they have gone to so much trouble means they do have an opinion, incidentally the artists to whom this refers is anything but anodyne, the work is extremely complex and well thought out.. but that's just my opinion!	a mixed media piece in response to the comment "most modern art is pants, imho"
Sketch of one of the mixed media pieces for the mini installation to be photographed and presented as an exhibition catalogue. "I dyed my hair green and nailed my ballbag to an old fridge, am I a work of art?"	an example of the dialogue that goes on below the line, as they say
	The expectation and assumption that art is onbly proper if it is a painting is, in my opinion misguided, art is a way to reflect and explain the world around us and ourselves, people get very angry at the percieved scam going on in art.
I printed this one on a page featuring an article on Antony van Dyck.. a descendent of mine.. I thought it was pretty funny at the time.
there are a series of the prints done onto pages of the Guardian, art and review pages mostly and these will all be collated into a book.	I like the contrast of these words and the images of the newspaper from whence they came, well the online version of it anyway
	there are a lot of interesting articlesd out there about online comentary, in this context I think it is important as there is no where else really for people to ahave a rant and vent about all the art they hate and why the artists are all idiots.
landscapes, proper art	fortunately I have a backlog of Guardian art and design review sections to print onto
	angry words
part of the idea with this was also to see if the statements themselves held up independently of the conversations they were a part of and I think, certainly in this collection they do, I think.
wearing these in the art galleries was an interesting experience, it felt a bit like I shouldn't be doing it at times	the line, as we know.. is fine.

This article is incredibly interesting and relevant to the project, highly worth a read. It talks about the importance of conceptual art.

screen print on garbage bag

Poster for upcoming exhibition of print work

interventioning in the Bluecoat

the comment and the work it references, finally in the same room.. that's something.

interventioning in the Bluecoat

one of the prints where I was trying to repsond to the comment with the printing, making it with nice colours in order to make it "beautiful", which is all relative anyway.

Another one, fascinating the time and thought put into these sometimes, people really are desparate to have their say and this online comments section is really one of the only places that gets to happen.

a mixed media piece in response to the comment "most modern art is pants, imho"

Sketch of one of the mixed media pieces for the mini installation to be photographed and presented as an exhibition catalogue. "I dyed my hair green and nailed my ballbag to an old fridge, am I a work of art?"

an example of the dialogue that goes on below the line, as they say

The expectation and assumption that art is onbly proper if it is a painting is, in my opinion misguided, art is a way to reflect and explain the world around us and ourselves, people get very angry at the percieved scam going on in art.

I printed this one on a page featuring an article on Antony van Dyck.. a descendent of mine.. I thought it was pretty funny at the time.

there are a series of the prints done onto pages of the Guardian, art and review pages mostly and these will all be collated into a book.

I like the contrast of these words and the images of the newspaper from whence they came, well the online version of it anyway

there are a lot of interesting articlesd out there about online comentary, in this context I think it is important as there is no where else really for people to ahave a rant and vent about all the art they hate and why the artists are all idiots.

landscapes, proper art

fortunately I have a backlog of Guardian art and design review sections to print onto

angry words

part of the idea with this was also to see if the statements themselves held up independently of the conversations they were a part of and I think, certainly in this collection they do, I think.

wearing these in the art galleries was an interesting experience, it felt a bit like I shouldn't be doing it at times

the line, as we know.. is fine.