(Courtesy: Ed Ruscha; John Baldessari.)I took one day off. No reading on Visual Culture and no shooting on Absence/Presence. I went to Tate Modern to see Pure Beauty by John Baldessari, which David Campany strongly recommended. The whole show is highly conceptual with clever usage of texts, image appropriation, and strong montage and juxtapositions. He does not take un-necessary photos but just utilise what he can find and then create his own signifiers. The signifier. This is the idea and tool of my photography. I should always find a concept, and then look for signifier to achieve my own photo, rather than take the camera and seek saccharine scenes randomly unless there is a good reason.
I visited the sculpture by Miroslaw Balka in turbine hall. Without reading any introduction, I walked around it and entered into this sublime cold iron box of darkness. The first perception is the gothic atmosphere, in which I felt overwhelmingly overshadowed by the thick darkness. It was amazing that in the darkness I could still saw subtle shades of other visitors. As I walked further, some more shadows came into presence out of nowhere like magic. It seemed everything was submerged by the darkness but it was not as more shadows just came around you walking into and out of the box. I like the atmosphere created by the coldness and darkness. You are not sure whether you would like to walk a step further, but you just adventure more. You think you can not see but you can see little by little more and more. Suddenly you turned back, wow, a fantastic scene of the entrance with tiny peoples’ silhouette against the sublime tall background of the grey turbine hall. I found this piece of sculpture amazing, refreshing my mind with darkness and the sudden presence of flickering sublime brightness, quite thought provoking.
By chance I watched a short film documenting Balka. Then I understand it originally is the symbolised Nazi holocaust. Thousands of Jewish were put into iron train box and carried to the camp for death. Balka is quite cool Arte Povera artist. I quite like his approach and his sensitive artistic mind documented in the film. Then I went to Hayward Gellery and finished my day with the loud Ed Ruscha show.
I visited the sculpture by Miroslaw Balka in turbine hall. Without reading any introduction, I walked around it and entered into this sublime cold iron box of darkness. The first perception is the gothic atmosphere, in which I felt overwhelmingly overshadowed by the thick darkness. It was amazing that in the darkness I could still saw subtle shades of other visitors. As I walked further, some more shadows came into presence out of nowhere like magic. It seemed everything was submerged by the darkness but it was not as more shadows just came around you walking into and out of the box. I like the atmosphere created by the coldness and darkness. You are not sure whether you would like to walk a step further, but you just adventure more. You think you can not see but you can see little by little more and more. Suddenly you turned back, wow, a fantastic scene of the entrance with tiny peoples’ silhouette against the sublime tall background of the grey turbine hall. I found this piece of sculpture amazing, refreshing my mind with darkness and the sudden presence of flickering sublime brightness, quite thought provoking.
By chance I watched a short film documenting Balka. Then I understand it originally is the symbolised Nazi holocaust. Thousands of Jewish were put into iron train box and carried to the camp for death. Balka is quite cool Arte Povera artist. I quite like his approach and his sensitive artistic mind documented in the film. Then I went to Hayward Gellery and finished my day with the loud Ed Ruscha show.
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