Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth

On the 23rd July, 11-12 I went to see my friend play her part in Anthony Gormly's One and Other, a piece spanning 100 days and enrolling 2400 random people from all over the UK to take their stand on the plinth; a classic indicator of this is art! The piece presented as a cross section of Britain today whether the people decided to entertain us in some way or just sit there, simply being. In the 2 hours I was there I saw a Latin lecturer recite poetry in a ancient roman costume, my friend, a 20 year old history of art student, take photographs and then shield herself and her camera from the terrible English weather and a young man throw a giant ball back and forth to the viewers below (the ball soon disappeared).

Talking to onlookers it became apparent that everyone expected something different from their experience. Most expected a performance of some sort, forgetting that the piece wasn't another reality TV show they could have any illusion of controlling.

Documentation is something that has made this work interesting. It was filmed 24 hours a day and presented live on TV for all to see in the convenience of their own home. Participants in the project took photographs, left diaries and blogged their experiences so that now Antony Gormly has created an art work that involves a vast amount of Britain's public. In this way I think the piece was extremely successful.

Summer Exhibition 2009

The theme this year for The Royal Academy's summer exhibition was space although it looked as though the curators didn't pay much attention to any sort of theme and went with the usual mass of works crammed in wherever possible. However predictable this layout may be, I do love it. The print room is especially exciting; there are little gems of work everywhere for your eye to find amongst the masses exhibited.

A video room was added just this year as well, something I didn't see, but I did find it interesting that video has been a prominent art form for so long and yet has only just been recognised as a social art form so to speak. Something that the masses can enjoy, not just the art educated.

The New Monumentality: Henry Moore Institute

The New Monumentality showed video work based around monumental architecture of the 1960's. Of particular interest to the project is the 1960's campus at the university. The monument is something that has always been attributed with sculpture but by using creative elements from sculptural practice these buildings have created something that still rings as modern today.

Video art is not something I am usually interested in but the combination of script in and layering over of voices in one film was really quite beautiful.

Poor.Old.Tired.Horse ICA

This exhibition focused on text based works inspired by the concrete poetry of the 1960's. It's not something I've seen before but there was something about the work there that really held my attention. Concrete poetry places equal importance on the visual of the poem and it's content adding "form to syntax" (Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. Gallery Guide. p.5). It was the illustrations I found particularly interesting. David Hockney's engraved illustrations for the love poems of Conatntine Cavafy were a personal favourite along with Frances Stark's Quantity Effect and Matthew Brannon's Words on a Page. It's the black and white, thin, flat, simplicity of these images I like. They aren't pretentious or unnecessarily mysterious; the images are relevant and timeless as they will always have a context.

Classified: Contemporary Art at Tate Britain

The 'Classified' exhibition drew together contemporary works from British artists Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Jeremy Deller and Tacita Dean. Each piece made connections with human constructs and classifications. I feel the more successful works held an imposing visual through the mass of collections. It's very satisfying to see objects in their correct classifications, Damien Hirsts Pharmacy, 1992, is especially pleasing as an icon of all things clean and orderly in the world. Medicine gives us a sense of control but Hirst reminds us we don't have so much power with his God like insect-o-cutor ready to kill without mercy.

The piece I enjoyed most, however, was Tate Thames Dig 1999, by Mark Dion. The found objects categorized, labelled and displayed according to use really encapsulate the human need to rationalize and understand the world we inhabit, even down to trying to understand our own activity. The items being displayed in the 19th C display cabinet automatically set the classifications in stone; the cabinet acts as a prop for solidifying meaning and looks beautiful too.