To begin the Site-Specific module, as a class we visited The Usher gallery and The Collection museum in Lincoln. This was to be our Site and after a quick history of the building, a few rules and signatures; we were let loose.
As i wandered through the gallery, desperately aiming to reach some sort of philosophical understanding of the works before me, I was taken aback by one piece. It shocked me, because at first glance I thought what I was seeing was a portrait of some poor, disfigured man in sorrow. But, as I got closer I noticed that my reaction was possibly intended, that my shock and feelings of sympathy and sadness was the aim of the piece. Among further inspection I discovered the piece was of Picasso, not by Picasso but of him. It was actually a piece by Robert Doisneau and he named it “Picasso and the loaves”. Although it’s very interesting that a famous and accomplished artist photographed by a Parisian Street photographer was hanging on the wall of The Usher, that’s not what train of thought my mind went on.
http://mentalmuseum.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/picassos-bread-hands/
I began to think of restrictions, like this poor man who couldn’t use his hands because they were no longer hands, but loaves of bread. I began to think of all artwork we could look at but not touch, I thought of the code of conduct we were asked to sign before venturing out into the gallery and all the rules and regulations we had been briefed on prior to the visit.
When we returned from the gallery, we were asked to express our feelings/questions/thoughts of our visit on paper with different materials. With restrictions and incapability on my mind, i produced this…
No specific idea or question is racing through my mind just yet, but it’s a start.
Works Cited
Doisneau, R. (2005) Picasso’s Bread Hands. [online] The Mental Museum. Available from: http://mentalmuseum.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/picassos-bread-hands/ [Accessed 5 February 2014].