Monthly Archives: April 2017

Microscopy

Forms inspired by the work of Anthony van Leeuwenhoek were sketched with the idea of creating them in steel and bronze:

These appealed to me as a series of works and I decided to produce three of them using steel and other media.

Pollen

The pollen grains (2 or 3) would be displayed in front of a grid made out to ceramic.

What do I want to achieve? What do I hope to produce?

I want to:

• explore less representational sculpture
• explore new media / mix media more
• work bigger
• create sculptures which intrigue / evoke a similar sense of discovery I remember experiencing when visiting Buxton Micrarium when I was a child.

References:

Micrariumenterprises.co.uk. (2017). The Micrarium Story. [online] Available at: http://www.micrariumenterprises.co.uk/page41.html [Accessed 14 Apr. 2017].

Anthony van Leeuwenhoek

Leeuwenhoek was born on 24 October 1632 in Delft, Holland. His parents were fairly well off tradespeople and he did receive schooling at a local school and then whilst living with his uncle (an attorney), but he was never destined for university.

At 16 he was sent to Amsterdam to become a draper where he rose through the business to become the book-keeper and cashier there. 6 years later he returned to his home town to set up his own draper and haberdasher business. Over time he added to his job roles in the town also taking on those of ‘sheriff’s chamberlain’, ‘qualified surveyor’ and ‘wine-gauger’ (assaying all wines and spirits entering the town and calibrating the vessels they came in).

At some point (possibly 1668) he began to create his own microscopes by grinding his own glass lenses and then studying everything and anything through them. These studies were first brought to light in 1673 when he wrote his first letter to The Royal Society of London offering his scientific observations for publication in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’. This was as a result of recently setup Royal Society looking to communicate with all men (no matter of what learning) who were working for “the promotion of natural knowledge” (Dobell and Leeuwenhoek, 1960).

This was the start of a frequent correspondence, mostly on his observations and discoveries made using his microscopes, which was to continue until his death fifty years later in 1723.

These letters were not scientific papers, they were descriptions of the studies he had made and discovered using his microscopes, written in his native Dutch and translated by The Royal Society for publication.

Because of the quality of his lenses, he was the only serious microscopist in the world at the time and he had no rivals in this field. As a result of his letters he was elected as a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1680.

Once his discoveries were published and became known about, he became famous and was sought out by celebrities and royalty to demonstrate his microscopes and the things he viewed through them. It was not fame he sought though and in correspondence he confessed he was bored by these interruptions and would prefer to be left in peace to continue his studies.

He is credited with many discoveries:

protozoa (single-celled organisms)
bacteria
spermatozoa
blood cells
muscle fibre construction
blood flow in capillaries.

Pollen

I decided that one pollen grain type was sufficient for this piece and picked that of Passiflora caerulea (Kesseler and Harley, 2004).

References

Bbc.co.uk. (2017). BBC – History – Historic Figures: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632 – 1723). [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/van_leeuwenhoek_antonie.shtml [Accessed 14 Apr. 2017].

Dobell, C. and Leeuwenhoek, A. (1960). Anthony van Leeuwenhoek and his “little animals”. 1st ed. New York: Dover.

En.wikipedia.org. (2017). Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonie_van_Leeuwenhoek [Accessed 14 Apr. 2017].

Explorable.com. (2017). Discovery Of Bacteria – by Antony van Leeuwenhoek. [online] Available at: https://explorable.com/discovery-of-bacteria [Accessed 14 Apr. 2017].

Kesseler, R. and Harley, M. (2004). Pollen. 1st ed. London: Andreas Papadakis.

I mulled over what to do for this stage of the course for quite a long time exploring a number of ideas to start with.

Space

Pollen

This subject has plenty of scope, although my ideas all use representational pollen grains, scaling them up to different extents. Some of these had great potential, particularly going very large and forming a large pollen sphere using an open plaster shape (In a similar structure as that used by Richard Hamilton in ‘Growth and Form’, 1951 – based on drawings of morphologies from a book by the biologist D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (Macba.cat, 2017)), or using concrete covered scrim (in a similar way to the method used by Phyllida Barlow in her ‘untitled: screestage, 2013’).

Viruses

The development idea from the end of Stage 4:

Virus attacking skin images – lumpy marks – weld pools of bronze?

Microscopy

We decided in my tutorial at the end of part 3 to drop the course content for part 4. I had however been reading ahead and thinking about possibilities for that stage. The ‘Monument to a hero’ section was one I had pondered on and decided that I might be able to manipulate it to suit something I wanted to explore (rather than an actual hero of mine). There had recently been a Google Doodle for the 384^th Birthday of Anthony van Leeuwenhoek (Google.com, 2017). His work on microscopes fitted neatly into my recent work on pollen grains and I looked into his work further.

Direction

I decided that the pollen and microscopy ideas had the most potential (and fit together), so this was the direction I took.

References

Google.com. (2017). Antoni van Leeuwenhoek’s 384th Birthday. [online] Available at: https://www.google.com/doodles/antoni-van-leeuwenhoeks-384th-birthday [Accessed 13 Apr. 2017].

The Huffington Post. (2017). LOOK: Under The Microscope, Deadly Viruses Look Absolutely Stunning. [online] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/13/deadly-viruses-beautiful-photos_n_4545309.html [Accessed 13 Apr. 2017].

Macba.cat. (2017). Growth and Form. [online] Available at: http://www.macba.cat/en/growth-and-form-5245 [Accessed 13 Apr. 2017].

An exhibition curated by a fashion designer (J. Anderson) covering art, fashion, ceramics and design was an intriguing prospect. Fashion is an alien world to me, something I have never understood or followed!

The first thing that strikes you as you enter the space is the use of curtains to divide up the exhibition space, instantly giving a cosier space than the stark sterile white of many gallery spaces. The works are then laid out in a series of themes, although these are quite loose (and I didn’t always agree with the placement of objects into them). What I found fascinating was how he placed groups of works together.

A ‘bustle coat’ by Yohji Yamamoto echoing the shape of ‘Metamorphosis, 1984’ by William Turnball:

‘Teddy Boy and Girl, 1979’ by Lynn Chadwick was complemented by similarly angular garments by Junya Watanbe (‘Architectural dress’) and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood (‘Witches Dress’ and ‘Witches Trench Coat’):

A collection of Sarah Flynn ceramics sharing many characteristics with garments by JW Anderson:

These pairings show the artistic processes of picking ideas and inspiration from diverse sources. It is curated with a very broad-minded approach, resulting in an exhibition that should be of interest to everyone.

Two last items I wanted to comment on, firstly the immersive ’28 Jumpers’ by JW Anderson. This was a display of oversized jumpers which the public are invited to interact with. It had similarities to Phyllida Barlow’s ‘untitled: screestage, 2013’ which you were able to walk under, but added the tactile experience of being able to touch and interact (or play) with the exhibit. This is something which seems to be becoming more popular (e.g. touching exhibits in York Art Gallery) and something I think works well with sculpture which often has a tactile element to be experienced.

Lastly, a piece I didn’t like was ‘Bunny Gets Snookered #9, 1997’ by Sarah Lucas. I find the stuffed tights she uses in her works disturbing, like distorted flesh. Her work might have an important message to get across, but I do wonder if it works? I think I need to have beauty in works of art, I feel that there are enough ugly things in the world without adding to them! Perhaps sometimes the message is everything though and I just haven’t found an issue which is important to me enough to protest against?!