Progress of the Casting Project

These past few weeks I finished up casting into the body part molds and have now started de-molding which means my studio at Art Space finally looks like a proper sculptors space.

The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, 1550 by Enea Vico 1523–1567

The process contains several steps beginning with covering the mold with a release wax then casting a face coat of the Jesmonite resin, reinforce it with fiberglass and build up layers until a thickness of about 3-4 mm. Leaving it to cure for a few days I then de-mold the pieces, heat them up and remove the wax residue. After this they are ready to be assembled into the full figures, which I started on this last few days.

More London Exhibitions

Marina Abramovic seemed to be everywhere these days and to my delight her Lisson Gallery exhibition contained several of her earlier work from the 1970's. A personal favorite of mine is the "Light/Dark" video where she and her former collaborator Ulay take turn in slapping each other at an increasing speed until Abramovic ducks, avoids the slap thus ending the circle.

At the White Cube Mason's Yard, I got completely engulfed in Christian Marclay's new video piece "The Clock" that oddly both heighten my awareness of time while at the same time completely losing my sense of it as a linear occurence. The video encompasses thousands of film segments that contains a clock, edited together to a 24 hour long piece where the clocks on screen in fact shows the actual time.

In the Louise Bourgeois - Fabric Works exhibition at Hauser & Wirth one of her mother spider was hoovering over the art crowd in the night.

Before leaving town I also took the chance to see my fellow Swede but now UK based Karin Kihberg and Reuben Henry's exhibition at Danielle Arnaud. Previously I had only seen their video "Inbindable Volume (2010)" on a monitor and it was great to see it as intended - projected and I am looking forward to when we at Galleri Box in Gothenburg, Sweden (where I am a boardmember) will exhibit it this spring. In fact you will also be able to see their work in April right here in Portsmouth at the aspex gallery where they will have a solo Exhibition as 1st Prize winners of the Emergency 4. 

Karin Kihberg and Reuben Henry "Inbindable Volume 2010"

Shanghai-London

This past week I spend a few days in London trying to catch a few of all the exhibitions that are up because of the Frieze Art Fair as well as taking the opportunity to meet with friends that were in town for the same reason.

Hu Yun & Biljana Ciric "Stairways to heaven?" 

Meeting up with Shanghai based curator Biljana Ciric (who brought the first ever solo show of Yoko Ono to China in 2008) and artist Hu Yun, I naturally enquired about the Ai Weiwei Sunflower seed installation at Tate Modern since they had been at the preview. One of the first things Biljana mentioned was the incredible sound that was made  when people were walking on the seeds, crushing them and how they eventually would be turned into dust.

Unfortunately I did not see it before the exhibition was closed for entry (for health-safety reasons) and can now only be viewed from the bridge or from about one meter away. The museum gurards did sporadicly offer one seed for a closer inspection to the audience who carefully and admiringly passed this "chosen one" around and  back to the guard who placed it back with the billion others. It was actually quite a symbolic act, but probably not the kind Ai Weiwei intended. 

Admittedly the experience of the piece would have been completely different if I had been able to walk through the sea of seeds but nevertheless the impact of the vast amount of handmade seeds was still striking. There is also an interesting documentary showing the amazing process of how the seeds were made in  Jingdezhen basically employing the whole town for the production.

Artist Hu Yun is by the way currently an Artist-in-Residence at Gasworks in which he is conducting a practice based research in the chinese drawing archives at the Museum of Natural History in London. An interesting project and I am very curious to see what he will create with this material. Someone to watch.

Lecture discussing my art practice at University of Portsmouth

The lecture I gave at the University of Portsmouth varied slightly from the one at aspex gallery in that I focused more on the relation between my past work to the project I am working on while in Portsmouth. It was nice to see that several of the "body parts casting" volunteers came and I hope that they left with a better insight to what it is that I am trying to achieve with this piece.

During the question session there was some interesting points brought up that spurred further discussion especially regarding the global movement of "cultural workers" and sustainability something that directly relates to the digital web based part of this project.

The students that were curious about how to embark on their careers & lives as artists once they have graduated and wanted to know more about possible residencies I recommended the Unidee-residency in Italy.

One of our discussion sessions with Michelangelo Pistoletto

It is the creation of the founding father of Arte Povera movement Michelangelo Pistoletto and takes place during four months at his Cittadellarte in Biella outside Milan. Cittadellarte aims to inspire and produce a responsible change in society through ideas and creative projects.

The shared workspace floor during the final presentation reception 

You live there with about 20 fellow cultural workers from everywhere in the world and everyday you are being supported with seminars, workshops and personal tutoring in regards to how to develop your proposed project.

The courtyard of Cittadellarte: the restaurant on ground floor and living quarters on top floors.

Body Casting Day

The Body Casting event at the University of Portsmouth took place on Thursday the 7th of October was a success preceding my expectations. Several of the participant had read The News article the day before that highlighted the project.

all casting images by Katayoun Dowlatshahi

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The event was broadcast live
by the media students.

I appreciate the many great volunteers that showed up offering their body parts  to be cast as well as sharing their personal stories with me about their lives in Portsmouth.


Later in my studio when I looked at each casting mold I remembered the story attached to each of them; of a life long lived or a life about to start, of aspirations and fond memories like chapters waiting to be bound into a novel and I am eager to start assembling the parts into one unified figure.

Has Britain Still Got Talent?

Last week I met up with my fellow Unidee-Cittadellarte alumni Jason Waite, who just finished his MA from Goldsmiths Art & Politics program where he focused on Art & Empathy. He is currently co-curating the 4th Young Artists’ Biennial in Bucharest that opens October 4th. 

Jason Waite at the Whitechapel talk.

We visited the Whitechapel Gallery Art Book Fair and attended the talk ' Has Britain Still Got Talent? ' that aimed to shed light on questions such as 'Did Britain reach an all-time art peak with the Young British Artists? What has the legacy of the YBAs been for young artists making work today? What defines young British artists of the 21st century?'

Barry Reigate, Patrica Ellis, Mat Colinshaw & Cedar Lewisohn   

In the panel was YBA Mat Colinshaw and the post-YBA Barry Reigate, curator Cedar Lewisohn mediated by Patrica Ellis. 


Not much new was said but everyone seemed to agree that in the wake of the YBA's it is challenging for young artists today to balance the commercial aspects and the private creative part of the art world. Barry Reigate emphasised on several occasions what he thought of as a wide spread anxiety for success among the pYBAs and compared the competitiveness to ' a hum that is always behind you that you have to deal with'.


Matt Colinshaw added that competition is also something that ' as it's best can inspire and challenge you to do better' and further pointed out that it is a different more global world today than it was when he was fresh out of school. Not only has the media that played a large role in for the YBA's changed now encompassing blogs and social networks. There is also not a clear defined ' British ' artist anymore since (maybe thanks to the success of the YBA's) the UK has had a huge influx of foreign artists choosing it for education or as a base for working.


On the account of recession and how it effects artist there seemed to be consensus among the panelists that it is to the benefit for less known or upcoming artist that create 'cheaper' and even suggesting that 'Fat is Flat ' in regards to when too much money is floating around. Barry Reigate touched on ideas that a booming economy might lead to 'apathy - everything is there, you can be anyone - anything - freedom is not always positive' and that today in this specific recession that is different from previous ones  'Uncertainty is the only certainty'. This stance coming from persons in the art world that obviously have reached a place where they are clearly not  starving seems like an odd mixture of  patronizing and romanticizing the lives of the less fortunate fellow artists resembling a sort of uncomfortable 'art world neo-colonialism'.


When curator Cedar Lewisohn was asked what advise he has for young artists today he pointed out that he was really 'not the person to ask' but added:


' Like your own work and make art for the future ' 


and suggested to the art audience not to give into or fall into the media hype or no hype of an art exhibition and to instead:


' Go see things without expectations, go see it - experience it ' 


Jason and I  decided to do precisely that and went to see the exhibition upon which the talk was based  ' Newspeak: British Art Now, at the Saatchi Gallery ' and in the same spirit I will not  link it nor give it a review. 


Go and see it yourself!

The live video streaming part of residency project

Mike Blackman in the studio working on the project

The second component of the project I am developing while in residency at ASP is  live streaming of footage of the sculptural installation. Collaborating with Art Space artist Mike Blackman who has been hard at work developing the framework and software for this.  The University of Portsmouth has been supportive by lending us various  hardware and it seemed like we had a "break-trough" in the project yesterday so stay tuned for more.