Histeria Pacifist


His own passive resister. [his teria] where -teria signifies ones own but also hinting at the 'female evident hysteria' - undecidability by Derrida [quoted from Denise Riley's extract Does Sex Have A History from the periodical New Formations number 1 Spring 1987]


Histeria Pacifist. Plaster, sea pebbles, soil and cyclamens. 2012 
© Despina Rangou 


Extract from an email commenting on this work by my fellow artist Finty Jarvis currently studying Art Practise at Goldsmiths University of London.


Friday, 27th January 2012


Well. A few things I can comment on without knowing exactly your thought processes behind it.

- I find it hard to engage with it because it's a photograph. It's seems to me it's not a photograph of a piece of work. The photo is the work. For me, you are closer to a stylist on a fashion shoot than the creator of an
artwork.

- If I was for a moment to try and remove the work from the media it is bound by, and I imagined that it was "real" and existed in an actual space. I would guess that it is on the floor because of the sand and laws of gravity. Therefore I would be looking down on these small delicate objects. Because of the scale of the work, I would probably have to kneel down to be able to actually see / read it. I think that is an interesting thing you've done there, to force engagement with the work. Remember, some wont bother to kneel down... some will just carry on walking. I am also having problems imagining how it would fit in a physical space.

- It's just all a bit to pretty for me. Again. You have taken great care in the presentation of the work and it is vexing me. Especially with the flowers. I want to get down there and ruin the sand and push those stones apart (this could be a good thing - if it's intentional). I've said it once, and I'll say it again. You are being too safe. You are thinking design. You are communicating in a design language. It's extremely simple to read and beautiful to look at. The only thing I am left to question is the text, which, with the extent of your research and your knowledge on the subject - isn't very loaded.


I'm jarred. Because I know you can communicate more about the subject. But you are so stuck on making it look beautiful and condensing it into a two word text you lose the meaning. It becomes dense in content. It's as if you were making a comment on some sort of capitalist theory of communication.

All that being said. You made it for print. It was never a 3D artwork, it was always intended to be flat. And unfortunately that's all it appears to be at the moment - flat. 


[...]


In reply to:


Monday, 30th January 2012


Dear Finty,

Yes you are right. It is a piece of editorial artwork that is supposed to be 'flat' because of the power of gravity and simple physics, as you explained but I don't see why it wouldn't work in a space. The only aspect of it that you had problem grasping is the concept, and I admit this is due to the expelled context - possibly unintentional, partly intentional. You were absolutely right commenting on the fact that you would like to destroy it and I'm contend to say that it is intentional. The arrangement compulses a type of uncanny feeling since everything in nature is 'random' - placed there by some natural obstacles.

Histeria Pacifist (his own passive resister) is referring to a woman. The whole artwork screams female. Possibly the flowers, or the pebbles that require delicate attention to detail, the colours - earthy, bright, warm. The pebbles are arranged around the white stone to signify a subject - an identity, challenging the viewers consciousness. An intentional attack on your memory, as the pebbles are being arranged neatly, in your own words, 'styled' to depict this feminine subject and make the statement. They are not thrown onto the soil, as you would expect to find them in nature. [Histeria Pacifist] It is a call - it is as if this person is placing a message on the beach. She is quoting modern archaeology in a paleolithic form, inviting you to read her. 

Now in terms of what I would actually like to comment on, with this artwork, is the 'home'. Home as we know it is as a collection of memories, of one living within a space for a certain time span. Home could also be seen as the a place of birth. Therefore, using this depictions of home, I try to illustrate a womb - the unifying home. If you notice carefully, the cyclamens that are arranged neatly on top resemble the fallopian tubes and ovaries. The cyclamens since the early days are used as a depiction of a woman's body (a very quick google search like this justifies my point: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1zeDZQpXjvgC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=cyclamen+semiotic&source=bl&ots=mGDf9juWMx&sig=LBjy7pqj2yfuTrRAEs_DGGXdbzk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o4EmT5qNFov48QP4osjTAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) but they also suggest a type of 'farewell'. The white rock surrounded by the coloured, full of texture pebbles suggests a core or even something contradictory to the other stones. It is white and comes from nature. I've manipulated its use by adding the text on the rock and violating the rules of nature that want it pure, and in a way I passed on this idea of a biased subject. A being that was taken out of its 'home', moulded, 'stylised' (thanks for quoting the word) and put back, only this time it was arranged into a position that suggests this transformation.

Finally, I would like to comment on the fact that this piece of editorial work is, in a way, autobiographical and the way it relates to my 'home' could be more legible once you can associate it with my subject. In other words, it depicts the bitterness that I feel for my country, a place that keeps getting invaded by the wrong people and wrong ideologies. Histeria Pacifist comments on the fact that I have become distant and a passive resister to the reality of my home, engraving my truth on a piece of its own land.

Hope this will help you understand a bit more about my shallow work. Thank you for pointing out Magdalena Jetelova, her work How Much Should We Know is an excellent reference point. 

[...]

HISTERIA PACIFIST








'The Great Bursting Womb of Desire' David Gascoyne

Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms. 1933 in  Marble (blue) 
Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms. 1934 in Alabaster
'[J.D. Bernal] Writing in The Spectator in 1933 after her exhibition at Reid and Lefevre, he noted: 'These stones are inhabited with feelings, even if, in common  with the majority of 'advanced' carvers, Miss Hepworth has felt not only the block, but also its potential fruit to be always feminine....' 

This generative metaphor was deeply internalized by artists working under the influence of Surrealism. In a poem written in the early 1930s and dedicated to Max Ernst, the English poet David Gascoyne celebrated "the great bursting womb of desire." (...) 

No artistic movement since the nineteenth century has celebrated the idea of woman and her creativity as passionately as did Surrealism during the 1920s and 1930s. None has had as many female practitioners and none has evolved a more complex role for the woman artist in a modern movement. (...)'

Chadwick, W. (2007) Women, Art and Society. fourth ed. Thames and Hudson. London p 309

As mentioned by Chadwick, Hepworth's sculpture and her approach to abstract form is reminiscent to the female attributes. In her work Two Forms (1933) we can see a relatively more suggestive depiction of the female body than in Two Forms (1934). The sculpture is suggesting a relationship between the two objects, where the large piece is portraying the lower, genital part of the female body, possibly the womb and where the smaller piece could be the fruit of reproduction. The same observation could be applied to the second figure Two Forms (1934), where Hepworth is again depicting the eternal-circular reproduction system together with what might be the 'penetrating' organ of the male body. The justification of the term 'penetrating' derives from the forms' narrow angles that give the shape corners in a way that it informs the objects' depiction as a 'tool'. It is very interesting to note that Barbara Hepworth and her 'abstract vocabulary' has been influenced by Jean Arp, when Hepworth visited his studio in Paris in 1931. What is most notable about this two works is the composition in which they are both arranged, that suggests the effectiveness of Hepworth's work in the portrayal of femininity.

Images sourced from OoCities

Mouldmaking and casting








Some trials whilst undertaking a short course in mould-making and casting at CSM. We explored materials such as silicone and were introduced to the rapid-outdoor mould taken from clay. The materials used were mainly, plaster and jesmonite (a gypsum-based material in an acrylic resin) with the addition of bronze, stone, cementite (steel) and colour pigments. I tried to apply lettering to most of the work, which puzzled the tutor who suggested I should cut them with a slight angle next time so that it would allow the mixture to pour in evenly. It was a great experience and now, I feel ready to practise it further.