Lecture / Confrontations 1: Barbara Visser & Gemma Draper
A double lecture in the Confrontations series was organized on 16 February of this year by St Lucas University College of Art and Design Antwerp, Jewellery Design|Silversmithing department. Contemporary jewellery artist Liesbet Bussche introduced the guest speakers, Gemma Draper and Barbara Visser, and highlighted their specific relationship to presentation, connecting them to ‘UnScene: Jewellery and Presentation,’ a research project conducted by St Lucas University College of Art and Design Antwerp, Jewellery Design|Silversmithing department.
Spanish contemporary jewellery artist and guest speaker Gemma Draper started her unconventional lecture by emphasizing the importance of ‘the first sentence’ and the difference language can make in the creation of meaning. Besides her work as a jewellery artist, Gemma Draper coordinates La Germinal, a platform created to stimulate, share, learn, test and receive feedback on ideas and independent jewellery work in the form of workshops and clinics.
Drawing on images and titles taken from her own work, she showed how her research is transformed into the safety of representation, as opposed to the insecurity of fiction. She explained that there are various aspects in her jewellery that create context, such as communication, beauty, humour, contrast, light, colour, and existence, while she attempts to ‘trash borders both physical and mental.’ Evoking contemplation and dialogue, she claimed that her work confuses, while she experiments, presents it and searches for acceptance. When placed in a carefully chosen setting, the context becomes equal to the work, and both are then in need of each other. Gemma Draper also talked about how her images, taken as evidence, generate an additional layer. In combining meaningfulness and the need for explanation in relation to the body and galleries, she concluded that her jewels stimulate reflection, not revelation.
Drawing on images and titles taken from her own work, she showed how her research is transformed into the safety of representation, as opposed to the insecurity of fiction. She explained that there are various aspects in her jewellery that create context, such as communication, beauty, humour, contrast, light, colour, and existence, while she attempts to ‘trash borders both physical and mental.’ Evoking contemplation and dialogue, she claimed that her work confuses, while she experiments, presents it and searches for acceptance. When placed in a carefully chosen setting, the context becomes equal to the work, and both are then in need of each other. Gemma Draper also talked about how her images, taken as evidence, generate an additional layer. In combining meaningfulness and the need for explanation in relation to the body and galleries, she concluded that her jewels stimulate reflection, not revelation.
Renowned Dutch multi-disciplinary artist Barbara Visser followed with a lecture entitled ‘Re-presentation.’ She immediately illustrated her art involving representation through a series of performance-lectures she had worked on. The first of these, ‘Lecture with Actress’ (1997), was a performance simulating a lecture on reality and fiction. For the occasion, Barbara Visser had invited an actress whose appearance was the very opposite of her own. Instructed through an earpiece, the actress ‘dubbed’ Barbara Visser’s words. No one in the audience doubted for a second that the actress was indeed Barbara Visser!
In the second work, ‘Lecture on Lecture with Actress’ (2004), Barbara Visser invited another actress, who now looked a lot like her, to speak on a video of the first performance-lecture. Again, while she was ‘re-presenting,’ Barbara Visser was instructing the actress through an earpiece.
The final performance, ‘Last Lecture,’ was delivered in 2007. A video screening of both previous performances was shown, with Barbara Visser herself standing behind the screen as she recapitulated the events of the first performances by means of another lecture.
In the second work, ‘Lecture on Lecture with Actress’ (2004), Barbara Visser invited another actress, who now looked a lot like her, to speak on a video of the first performance-lecture. Again, while she was ‘re-presenting,’ Barbara Visser was instructing the actress through an earpiece.
The final performance, ‘Last Lecture,’ was delivered in 2007. A video screening of both previous performances was shown, with Barbara Visser herself standing behind the screen as she recapitulated the events of the first performances by means of another lecture.
Through these performances and other examples of her work, Barbara Visser explained how she works in a conceptual manner; the lectures are the artworks, undefined and challenging the viewers’ perceptions. She expressed her dislike of the idea that ‘one could do anything under the name of art, as long as it is not horribly against the law.’ For her, art needs to stimulate reflection, provoke, and challenge assumptions. Her idea is the artwork; the execution serves as a medium to express that idea, and the execution can be exchanged or can even be carried out by someone else. Of course this approach also implies questions of authorship and authenticity, as Barbara Visser demonstrated extensively with examples taken from her artwork in her lecture. To get her message across, she emphasised that presentation is very important, but also flexibility in presentation. For this, she used the example of the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, where she was invited to work together with five other Dutch artists from various disciplines and a curator. She experienced another facet of presentation: maintaining her own identity in the collective artwork Opera Aperta/Loose Work. This work was not well received, which gave Barbara Visser the opportunity to clarify her intentions in the numerous debates that followed. Pleased with the amount of feedback, she explained that she saw the exhibition as a success, since it proved that the viewers’ perception had been stimulated and contemplation encouraged, exactly as she had set out to do.
After these diverse and intriguing lectures, questions were asked and comments were made by several members of the audience, which were then answered extensively by the speakers.
Text: Broes van Iterson
www.broesvi.com
broesvitrine.blogspot.nl/
After these diverse and intriguing lectures, questions were asked and comments were made by several members of the audience, which were then answered extensively by the speakers.
Text: Broes van Iterson
www.broesvi.com
broesvitrine.blogspot.nl/
LINKS