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Industrial past as sculpture.

Interesting article. I like this kind of equipment it is not found everywhere anymore and a lot has been scrapped out.
 
I appreciate that he hasn’t taken a torch or cutoff wheel to destroy the machines in the name of making art, but the grumpy side of me fails to see what he has contributed to make the installation ‘his’ art. All I see is a bunch of items that he has curated and put on various platforms. I don’t see any of his artistic input really.
 
Nice link, thanks.

From the pictures one would assume 'Duveen Galleries' is not located in a seismically active location.:eek:

Stuart
 
S E L F C O N T R O L

Deep breaths, deep breaths....:angry: :wall:

This is a personally sensitive issue to me, as I do the art thang.

I have issue with “found art”. BIGTIME.

These installations shown above at least have form and relatively minimum mods; I’m not saying I dislike them. My problem is with the found art fad infecting legitimate fine art shows and museums.

You know the yard art trinkets for sale in West Yellowstone? A bison made of bike chains? Exhaust pipes booger-welded and Rustoleum rattle-canned into a green frog sculpture?

And don’t get me started on pistons, camshafts and gears welded into anything from a desktop motorcycle toy to an animal... :vomit:

This, coupled with “steampunk” has been “trending now” (HATE that term) for too long; the fact that it gets in to fine art shows literally leaves me enraged.

DEEEEEEEP BREATHS.

Yes, art is subjective. I just don’t understand why found art can bypass all quality and legitimacy rules that bronze sculpting, oil painting, etc, must meet.

I believe in what I call Process Art (I hope everyone is clapping for me, as I came up with that on my own :D :rolleyes5:). That is (my) style of celebrating/joining the precision and beauty of machined, formed, punched, pressed, hammered and filed materials with form and beauty.
Booger welds don’t fit here. Flap-disc grinder swirls with a cheap overdose of clearcoat don’t fit here (HOLY CRAP, every other lazer cut crapola sign has that finish here in Utah. How long did it take, 15 minutes?!?!?!??).
Rustic is everywhere! BOO!

How about creating the parts you assemble, instead of welding lawnmower pistons into a cutesy horse sculpture? And describe the process????

OR, on the flip side, enter an entire lathe as an art installation by itself, WITHOUT anything attached to it that detracts from the RAW, REAL history of industry. I’m talking real industry, NOT “industrial art”.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeew. I had to let that out.

If anyone wants, I can post a pic or two of my dorky art with an explanation of what I’m trying to convey. Not for attention! Only to explain what I try to preach, or why I find beauty/form in functional stuff. BY ITSSELF.
 
I suppose my shop is a art gallery now...

Britain's Industrial History Reimagined for the Tate Commission

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Part of my ideology actually says, in a way, your shop probably is an art gallery! An area where creation happens. And obviously more legitimate than this hipster installation.

For me, 99% of the time when I see another’s machine shop it invokes the same spark of creative excitement and visual beauty that beautiful paintings provide. The process room, the creation room!
 
Domething or nothing

Usual pretentious twaddle, but as to the machines, from the top.


1, Ward capstan (turret to you) lathe (with quick action collet chuck) hope what's standing on is a lot sturdier than it looks, :eek:

2, The only one I can ID is (I think) a Binks Bullows compressor back left - and of course the digger (backhoe) bucket - the red paint saying probably early JCB.

3, No idea what the extreme left m/c is, but I'm pretty sure the cement mixer is an early (just pre or post WWII) Winget (who FWIW were based at Rochester in Kent ..................and a very young and green Sami made parts for at one of Wingets supppliers / subbys)


4, Is a Gardner diesel engine, …..(if it isn't then I'd damn well like to know what it is!)

5, I'm pretty sure is a Lely Vicon ''Acrobat'' hay turner

6, I'm pretty sure is a ''Rapidor'' hacksaw, possibly their ''Manchester''model, ………...good tool in it's day, mine was donkeys when I got it and it went on to cut up many many tons.
 
S

Yes, art is subjective. I just don’t understand why found art can bypass all quality and legitimacy rules that bronze sculpting, oil painting, etc, must meet.

This. I have a fairly restricted view of what is art. i'd add movies and TV to the bogus list, that's not art, its an entertainment product. Music, some. What many would call classical (more correctly called art music as classical is just one era) I think of as art. Drake or the latest pop craze, nope, not art. More packaged entertainment product, which is ok if you like it, but popularity doesn't make it art and I don't consider them artists. Maybe that's that jist of it, where the line is drawn is personal and some get so self absorbed with they lose the sense of there even being a line, or simply think its this side of it if some expert says so. When it comes to say the Tate Modern, someone needs to point out the Emperor has no clothes.

Nothing I do in my shop is art. Lots is original and lots done with a lot of care, but its technique, skills and process not art. otoh, it it doesn't have to be art to be pleasing to the eye, a beautiful woman, my schaublin, a model engine I made or a Muskoka lake vista....all great to look at, but not art.

If anyone wants, I can post a pic or two of my dorky art with an explanation of what I’m trying to convey. Not for attention! Only to explain what I try to preach, or why I find beauty/form in functional stuff. BY ITSSELF.

yes please
 
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[/url]art1 by crh2765, on Flickr[/IMG]

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[/url]arty2 by crh2765, on Flickr[/IMG]


One of my cheesy, opinionated descriptions below:

An exercise in forming raw materials that pays respect to the steps used. I hope to display a sharp contrast to found art, yet also diminish terms like "craft". “Craft” in my mind seems to cheapen many methods used to create. Bump, bend, file, quench, harden, press, thread, heat, blue, coat and stretch. Draw, temper, relieve, brake, bore, turn, ream. Precision as a form of art done by careful connection of the mind, eye and hand.

The many methods of process bring to mind my belief that there is virtually no difference between manual labor and fine art.

The experience planting a London Plane tree or not using too much Prussian blue; whether making tooling and dies, figure drawing, or finish painting an entire automobile, I consider all of them absolute examples of fine art.

Each involve multiple processes of organizing matter, which each both require and produce sound, smell, touch and visual joy. I very much enjoy process, like that visual lure I find when I see an unfinished painting.

Materials formed:
Steel, brass & copper bar stock (round, square and rectangular) as well as rebar & walnut hardwood.



47860252071_d47950b537_z.jpg
[/url]IMG_8686 by crh2765, on Flickr[/IMG]


40893619373_686f791198_z.jpg
[/url]IMG_8681 by crh2765, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
This. I have a fairly restricted view of what is art. i'd add movies and TV to the bogus list, that's not art, its an entertainment product. Music, some. What many would call classical (more correctly called art music as classical is just one era) I think of as art. Drake or the latest pop craze, nope, not art. More packaged entertainment product, which is ok if you like it, but popularity doesn't make it art and I don't consider them artists. Maybe that's that jist of it, where the line is drawn is personal and some get so self absorbed with they lose the sense of there even being a line, or simply think its this side of it if some expert says so. When it comes to say the Tate Modern, someone needs to point out the Emperor has no clothes.

Nothing I do in my shop is art. Lots is original and lots done with a lot of care, but its technique, skills and process not art. otoh, it it doesn't have to be art to be pleasing to the eye, a beautiful woman, my schaublin, a model engine I made or a Muskoka lake vista....all great to look at, but not art.

CRAP, don't make me question my still-infantile art beliefs! I thought I lived the higher, purist laws:fight::D...and here you are making some valid points, causing me to question!
 
I spent a little time in the fine art world (museum level) and making the stuff. Found object art can be really good, so rare it is we tend to lump it all together as trash (like Xerox art). The spoon art car and the orange rooster behind the cubala at metal museum are my favorites. the rooster makes me smile, and I do not see the various tractor parts, I see fun in art (piece) and skill (craft) in the respect for materials, the execution, the proportions, and all that. The spoon art car does not look like a gazillion spoons as much as a cross between fish scales and pinecone texture - a smoothness from texture, like engine turn for machinist people. Un refined found object art is garbage, good scrap value maybe.
Sadly I see less of this and more of the plasma art - which is a tier (or three) lower on the laziness and skill level. Sometimes it even has grinder texture for added gringe, not even smooth even sexy motion , that bouncy scooby doo back and forth ish.
The sad part is not just the look, industry follows art, always has - it is the social responsibility of the craft artist to push the envelope of material - and as the artist gets lazy industry does too.
Performance art (music, tv, plays, dance...) is supposed to be entertainment. If you get entertainment out of it, it has succeeded as a piece of art.
 
See, but in the examples given, you have actually recombined various items to make new and interesting creations of your own design. Even if it is just meant for whimsy, you have directly altered something to display your vision to others. As far as I can tell, the schmuck featured at Tate has just taken items and put them on platforms. He has not put any labor into creating something new and unique.

What would have been awesome would have been taking the machines unaltered, and making sculptures of stylized/interpreted people toiling away at the machines and implements. I think that would have had great impact.

As an aside, I do think that the industrial design incorporated into older machine tools and logos is pretty awesome. I would love to see some of that art deco through mid-century modern aesthetics brought forward into modern machines.
 
See, but in the examples given, you have actually recombined various items to make new and interesting creations of your own design. Even if it is just meant for whimsy, you have directly altered something to display your vision to others. As far as I can tell, the schmuck featured at Tate has just taken items and put them on platforms. He has not put any labor into creating something new and unique.

What would have been awesome would have been taking the machines unaltered, and making sculptures of stylized/interpreted people toiling away at the machines and implements. I think that would have had great impact.

As an aside, I do think that the industrial design incorporated into older machine tools and logos is pretty awesome. I would love to see some of that art deco through mid-century modern aesthetics brought forward into modern machines.

I love the beauty of old machinery also. I like your idea.
I just wish there was attention given to assemblages where each individual part was made during the art process, not just sourced and then bent, cut or welded together.

I feel like there is more credibility if each piece is made by the artist.

Most aggravating: When curators saw an art piece I made and said, “Cool! is that part from a lawnmower engine?” :angry: :angry: :angry:

Me: Um, no, I machined and formed and patina’d each piece from straight bar”. All purposefully as I want them to compliment the art inherent in line, in process, in industry!
 








 
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