Tag: Performance

As Above So Below

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date July 31, 2015

From Ivor Gott

“Hey Ivor, it’d be pretty neat if you could write a blog to tell us about your project for Nithraid,” announced Katie Anderson excitedly at the last Young Stove meeting. The first thing that went through my mind upon hearing these words was, “Crikey! How on earth am I ever going to explain this to the general public?” After much careful consideration, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best approach would be to just tell the truth.

So here goes…

It all started with a pirate ship. A great big pirate ship. A great big pirate ship made out of recycled plastic bottles. How did I get from a pirate ship to two pyramids—or should I say tetrahedrons—a chrome unicorn, and an art performance loosely based on the concept of enlightenment? The truth is, I didn’t get there on my own. The pirate ship was a snap decision made during a meeting with my Stove mentor, Denise Zygadlo. I was under immense pressure to come up with a decision for the project. At this point, it had been two weeks since the commission began, and my initial idea, although perfect for the Dock Park site (where Nithraid was originally intended to be), just wasn’t going to work at Mill Green.

“Come on, Ivor,” my inner voice urged. “What are you going to do? It must be good—no, better than good—it must be fabulous!” So, before I’d even thought it through properly, I found myself telling Denise that I might make a pirate ship out of plastic bottles.

This idea evolved from a pirate ship into a Viking longboat, inspired by a workshop held at The Stove that evening. However, this didn’t remain the case for very long. After a few meetings with my fellow creatives—The Mad Jackals (Majikals)—the idea of making a Viking longboat was beginning to feel tiresome. I just couldn’t get excited about it. It didn’t reflect me or my wonderfully creative friends.

And then it just came to me. I said, “We need to make a pyramid and float it down the Nith! We have to have a unicorn inside the pyramid!” The words of a mad person? Yes, probably.

At that point, it was me, Sophie, and Michael in the studio. You could feel the collective excitement crackling between us. I started scribbling ideas down. It must—and I repeat, must—include the Mer-ka-ba, rainbow smoke, flash grenades, horned elementals… I was really getting carried away. Credit to Sophie and Michael—they were running with me. We were organic and free, if perhaps a little overly optimistic.

The next day, I met with my little brother in the Queensberry. I was expressing anxiety over the scale of the project. Conor is often the voice of reason and someone I consult when mashing around creative ideas. He’s a creative too, but where I veer off into tangents and allow my concepts to grow bigger than I can handle, he has a knack for reducing it down and keeping it real. I can always trust him to tell me the truth and be realistic.

“One question?” he pondered, eyebrow raised. “How are you going to do this in two weeks?”

I knew he was right. The idea had to change again—and fast. More of the Jackals were arriving at this point. Ideas were flying thick and fast.

“Time capsule…” Did you say time capsule?

That’s perfect. The Mer-ka-ba… As above, so below… We’ll make a time capsule, and it’ll be in the shape of an inverse tetrahedron. Of course, we’ll need a non-inverted tetrahedron too. Ah, it’s perfect. There’ll be two tetrahedrons. The unicorn stays, and so does the rainbow smoke.

To maintain some mystery about the performance and workshop, I’ll stop there. But in a nutshell, that’s how an idea that first birthed itself as a plastic bottle pirate ship evolved into an exciting, interactive art performance loosely based on the theme of enlightenment. We look forward to seeing you all on Sunday when all will be revealed.

One thing I’d like to say before I get back to putting the finishing touches on everything is this: although this commission was applied for as a solo project, it’s been a collaborative effort. I often find collaboration much more exciting than working alone, and I’m lucky to have the most fabulous team of creative individuals in my life. We are The Mad Jackals. They think we’re mad, but we know we’re majickal.

Tags 2015, Artist, Commission, Emerging Artists, Festival, Guest Blog, Nithraid, Performance, Performance Art, River Festival, River Nith, Young Stove

News Project Updates

Bill Drummond in Dumfries

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date October 21, 2012

‘Why Andy Warhol Is Shite’

In 1973, Bill Drummond was coming to the end of his first academic year at Liverpool School of Art. He was studying painting. He loved painting. He wanted to spend the rest of his life painting. But something was troubling him. He thought that even if he became a successful painter, or even a great painter, all it would mean was that his paintings would hang on the walls of a rich man’s apartment in New York.

The young and idealistic Drummond instinctively felt that this was not what art should be about. He put down his paintbrush, walked away from the easel and out into the streets of Liverpool in the hope that he could discover a way of making art that… The rest of his professional life to date has been about trying to work out what the ‘that’ might be.

Some months before he laid down his paintbrush, he had visited the first Andy Warhol retrospective in the UK. It was at Tate Britain. The exhibition had blown him away. But over the next twelve months, what had initially done the blowing began to trouble him. The troubling progressed to the point where he thought what Andy Warhol represented was everything that was wrong with art in the world at that time.

Mr Drummond is standing in the Penkiln Burn (near Newton Stewart) with a salmon and bluebells.

All the first-year fine art students were expected to write a 4,000-word history of art essay on a topic of their choice. This essay was to be handed in by the end of the first academic year. Although he had a title for the essay, he was unable to put more than a few unconnected words on the page.

Most of the several hundred thousand words that Drummond has written and published since the summer of ’73 have been a continuation of this uncompleted essay. What he hopes to present in Dumfries will be a 45-minute performance lecture based on where he is at with the essay at the moment. The working title is, as it was then, the now rather naïve: “Why Andy Warhol is Shite.”

You can be part of the audience for Bill’s lecture “Why Andy Warhol Is Shite” by coming to Greyfriars Church at 6 p.m. on Thursday, 8 November (free).