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Straight from the horse's ass (Part 3)

The as yet untitled work about the duality of power is now complete. These photographs of sheet five (taken over a period of five or six hours- click to enlarge) show my method, which in itself was entirely driven by rules; firstly dividing the shadows into blocks and then layering them up like a screenprint. Again, here we can see how the reverse side of the piece shows through the masked, negative spaces of the other.

The statue depicted here is of Emanuele Filiberto, ‘Testa di Ferro’ in Piazza San Carlo, Turin. A character of considerable fame from sixteenth century Italy, namely because he made Italian the official Savoy language instead of Latin and moved what became the Turin Shroud to the city cathedral. He is also known however, as being a ruthless strategist and exploited any weaknesses for his own ends. My inclusion of him in this project reflects the unavoidable problems related to how powerful people have to present themselves. What are they hiding? What don’t we know? Such ‘PR’ battles and embarrassing ‘reveals’ dominate our news feeds these days but monuments like this one have a wonderfully bombastic way of ignoring everything but heroism- so much so that you get drawn into the romance of it before anything else.

I think the work has been a success; power is portrayed in a graphic sense but it’s also abstracted due to the complimentary colour scheme. Failures would lie in the difficulties I had in finding a workable technique and sometimes losing touch with the concept as a result. Above all, the work has been an intriguing one in terms of using painting to ask sculptural questions.

Coming up in part four:

Title

Once an appropriate venue presents itself, the five pieces will be mounted and placed together in a sequence/installation yet to be determined.

Straight from the horse's ass (part 2)

The concept took prescedence last week in part one, so I thought part two should contain some more technical details on the work but include some more insight as to how it is being made and why. The photos in the gallery (click to enlarge) are of the first piece in a series of five. They show the progression from the initial photograph to colour study and then full scale.

Speaking of scale, I found it essential to get as close as possible to a 1:1 (from the view at street level at least) to convey the uniformity that the chosen subjects have in the real world. Seeing as the concept is based on power, I found the decision to replicate and repeat entirely fitting.

The material is polythene, each of the five sheets measuring 2100x1500 mm. As painting on plastic is damn near impossible I had to experiment and produced a formula which I cannot disclose for obvious reasons.

When it came to the colour scheme (as you can also see in part one) the work relies heavily on the complimentary scale to represent duality. Contrasting colours such as blue and yellow speak of a number of different things, high on the list being political parties, moods or even personal preferences. However, the very nature of a clash, presented on two sides of the same object emphasises what people in power are inevitably conflicted by; that human nature often derails a principle.

The composition of each piece (as aforementioned) is based around the front and back of each monument. Due to the subsequent narrowness, each side makes an abstraction of the other (see part one for a better example) and the combinations sometimes give no real clarity on what you’re actually looking at. The blank areas on one side render the base layer of the other entirely visible and create an interesting dilemma on where to shift your vision.

In light of recent events in the UK; once the last part of this work is underway, the further political context of the work will be explored next week.

Straight from the horse's ass (Part 1)

The history of the horse and its consequent relationship to us has culminated in a complex symbol that has allowed us to produce a plethora of artistic interpretations. Horses make us think of strength, richness and perfection. Pictorially, they hold a place in art history as powerful representations of status. Even in common phrases and jargon: ‘the width of a horse’s ass’, ‘wins by a nose’ or indeed, ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’.

Along with ‘get off your high horse’ and ‘hold your horses’, they form the crux of what this piece is about. Relatively speaking, the preconceived ideas that we have about power have been interesting to investigate and transform into something visually.

Torino has had a particular role to play in the formation of what we now know as the Italian state: French occupation, the Savoia dynasty and the Risorgimento, things which are clearly in evidence by what we see in the streets and piazzas. The monuments therefore are vital for this idea of power and what it means to our urban environment.

When they were designed the idea was to immortalise people as national heroes using idealism, romance and the horse’s symbolic potency. However, such beautiful forms got me thinking about how they reflect on our current society? We still have leaders and important people but they are (and will be) presented completely differently. Politicians are eager to be seen as approachable, honest and thoughtful but we ironically know more about them and their flaws these days than say, Testa de Ferro or Ferdinand D’Savoia - but they are still public figures none the less and still have the same ambition and ruthlessness as those cast in bronze. The question is how much do current leaders wish to be seen or are seen as such?

The conception of the work and the representation of the two-faced nature of elitism and modern politics both came from this.

It struck me as interesting that (considering the perfect forms in front of me) that there are two different viewpoints from which any ‘immortal on horseback’ cannot not be seen and identified; from up the horse’s nose and from up its ass. The careful consideration of the sculptor and his workshop to convey the hero is lost with each example. Funnily enough all you are confronted with is either a strain of neck muscles or a pair of giant testicles.

I found this to be ideal territory for the new work, representative of the high society figure as a joke who can never fully achieve power because our society has become disinterested and hypercritical.

More to come in the next post on December 13

Here4 at Cavallerizza Irreale

May 2019. The debut showing of “Monument to the EU”, selected as part of the Here4 festival at Cavallerizza Irreale in Torino. The space allows for the full implementation of the project as I originally saw it. The sculpture is accompanied by photographs and technical drawings that make up the 2026 competition entry from LAS Architects Associates. Conceptually speaking, the piece draws from the current political fragility across Europe that has allowed for the rise of nationalism. The threat of EU breakup is very real and this work is prophetic in its intention. More information on the work itself can be read in the blog entry “Predicable Monumentalism”. The banality of the competition entry ‘visualisations’ highlights how the passage of time affects public spaces and monuments of this type.

The Cavallerizza Irreale is a community of multi-disciplined artists that occupy and maintain the premises of the old royal stables in Turin, Italy. The building was left abandoned for many years but now hosts a variety of exhibitions, performances and screenings. Here4 is the fourth edition of the festival and this years theme is ‘temporary cities’.

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