Слайд 1Natural
Unnatural
Richard Wentworth
Charles Baudelaire
Слайд 4Richard Wentworth (b.1947)
Sculptor
Photographer
Walker
Talker
Urban explorer
Слайд 7Richard Wentworth has lived in London’s King's Cross for over
25 years
Слайд 8 “An ongoing conversation with his native habitat, fuelled by daily
walks down the Caledonian Road and expeditions into the hinterlands
of King's Cross”
Слайд 9 In photographs, objects and lectures he charts the contours of
the inner city, the ebb and flow of urban life,
the things that change and the things that never do
London (2007)
Слайд 11In the 1970s, his discovery of Walker Evans was a
major influence on his thought processes.
Слайд 12Richard Wentworth
"A lot of photographs I was taking
I didn't understand. Walker Evans' work helped confirm what they
were. Sometimes you need a little hand, which comes out of the wall and squeezes you."
Слайд 16 With An Area of Outstanding Unnatural Beauty, his latest project,
commissioned by Artangel, visitors had to negotiate their way around
tennis tables as they would to navigate around London.
Слайд 18 They could stay and play a game – the space
was theirs.
"The underlying subject matter was essentially theatrical, just
like being a participant in a city."
Слайд 19 Whether isolating an image of this existing world in one
of the thousands of photographs that constitute the series Making
Do and Getting By, or combining, transforming or manipulating found objects not normally associated with art such as dictionaries, sweet wrappers, books, plates and buckets in his sculptures, Wentworth teases us into a new awareness of the everyday.
Слайд 21 Objects as much as ways of mind are disrupted and
subverted, allowing the thousands of tiny gestures and things that
constitute the world around us to be read in new and unexpected ways.
Слайд 22Tract (From Boost to Wham) (1993)
In conversation with the critic
Stuart Morgan, Richard Wentworth said: "I find cigarette packets folded
up under table legs more monumental than a Henry Moore. Five reasons. Firstly the scale. Secondly, the fingertip manipulation. Thirdly, modesty of both gesture and material. Fourth, its absurdity and fifth, the fact that it works."
Слайд 24The Flowers of Evil
Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of
Evil) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire,
first published in 1857
Слайд 25 The Flowers of Evil
expresses the changing nature of
beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. He
is credited with coining the term "modernity“ to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience
Felicien Rops
Слайд 26...the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis,
and the responsibility art has to capture that experience
Links to
Richard
Wentworth?
Слайд 27The Flowers Of Evil
Baudelaire felt that modern poetry must evoke
the artificial and paradoxical aspects of life. He thought that
beauty could evolve on its own, irrespective of nature and even fuelled by sin.
Слайд 28Baudelaire
The result is a clear opposition between two worlds, "spleen"
and the "ideal."
Слайд 29Spleen
Spleen signifies everything that is wrong with the world: death,
despair, solitude, murder, and disease. (The spleen, an organ that
removes disease-causing agents from the bloodstream, was traditionally associated with dissatisfaction; "spleen" is a synonym for "ill-temper.")
Слайд 30Spleen/Ideal
In contrast, the ideal represents a transcendence over the harsh
reality of spleen, where love is possible and the senses
are united in ecstasy.
The ideal is primarily an escape of reality through wine, opium, travel, and passion. Dulling the harsh impact of one's failure and regrets, the ideal is an imagined state of happiness, ecstasy, and voluptuousness where time and death have no place.
Слайд 31Baudelaire
He is endlessly confronted with the fear of death, the
failure of his will, and the suffocation of his spirit.
Yet even as the poem's speaker is thwarted by spleen, Baudelaire himself never desists in his attempt to make the bizarre beautiful, an attempt perfectly expressed by the juxtaposition of his two worlds.