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.
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,
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.
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.
[...]
