WCA Drawing Lab: Anne-Marie Creamer, 7th March 2014

Drawing Lab: Anne-Marie Creamer, 7th March 201
A Drawing Theatre on Merton Hall Road, (with apologies to Ilya Kabakov)

The drawings:

For this drawing lab we were asked to make 3 “drawings based on your encounters from our field trip to the Royal Academy “Sensing Spaces” exhibition and the “Hannah Hoch” exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery”. On the day of the Gallery visit the weather was not conducive to outdoor sketching, being cold & wet, so I took along my camera as well. There was a tube strike which necessitated my taking a slightly different journey into central London – by overground. That evening when I looked through my photograph of the day some pictures of journey to the train station resonated with what I had been thinking about the direction direction of my drawing.

I was trying to do number of things in drawings including attempting to render a sinister atmosphere and a sense of foreboding. An alley I cut through & a house I pasted seemed to have these characteristics & I set about making the drawings. They left quite an impression as that night I dreamt of a large dark room in which a drum a was being played. As I approached the drum & chair I was unnerved to see an apparent absence of a drummer. In my mind I felt the drum room was somewhere in the house I I was drawing. A narrative was forming. . .

Alley:

House:

Drum:

Time and Location: 2pm at the Centre for Drawing, Friday March 7^thwith Anne-Marie Creamer

Brief summary

This drawing lab builds upon two previous tasks. In its approach and references it builds upon the earlier seminar, “Drawing, spatiality and narrative”, lead by Anne-Marie, which looked at a range of historical and contemporary sources that explore the ways artists have placed drawing in relationship to space, narrative and time, often simultaneously (you can download a pdf of this from Moodle). It also builds on the drawing task set by Anne-Marie approximately one month ago requesting you each make a series of drawings based on your encounters from our field trip to the Royal Academy “Sensing Spaces” exhibition and the “Hannah Hoch” exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. You should bring along these drawings to this drawing lab. If you cannot attend the drawing lab but have done the drawing please email Anne-Marie a copy of the images you made, which can be printed out for use in the lab in your absence.

You will see from the title of this drawing lab that it takes its chief reference an approach to the presentation of drawings by Russian artist Ilya Kabakov. Prior to creating the installations, for which Kabakov is known worldwide, Kabakov created fictional albums of drawings. He has created a total of 50. Each album is a story about one character that is often able to overcome the banality of everyday existence, or, “of a small man, possessed by big ideas”, and often one way or another figure an impossible escape. Produced on sheets of white or gray cardboard & annotated with narrative, dialogue & commentary, Kabakov’s albums tell the illustrated stories of 10 typical Moscow apartment dwellers. The albums were originally kept in boxes. Then in 1973 Kabakov was working on his series of philosophic-encyclopedic albums, such as “Anna Petrovna in Seeing a Dream or They are Flying”, which Kabakov decided to present in the form of a two-four hour performance to an audience of 15- 25 people in which the artist turned the pages of the album and read the text to the audience. Kabakov claims the albums are a genre somewhere between several types of art including literature, fine arts, and cinematography. Russian artist Viktor Pivovaro declared that Kabakov drawings operate within a theatrical space, forming a sort of ‘book theatre’ claiming Kabakov achieved this ‘theatrical quality through his attention to the ‘frames’ and ‘frameworks’ that organize the temporal rhythm of his illustrations.

Rather than focusing on the production of new drawings instead in this drawing lab, with reference to Ilya Kabakov’s use of ‘book theatre’, you will be asked consider how you could present the drawings made from our earlier field trip, in the process encountering new approaches to how your drawing can be presented and which could substantially transform ways your drawings can be encountered: here the approach to the presentation of your drawings will become an essential creative, conceptual part of your work.

Materials
Bring your drawings made from the field trip to the session, or if you cannot attend please email Anne-Marie images of your drawings. Please also bring along masking tape, white tak, string, drawing pins, your laptops, smart phones or ipads, as appropriate. A projector will also be available, as will music and speakers. You will be asked to make use of the surrounding furniture and objects available in the Centre for Drawing. We may also use photocopied versions of your drawing, if appropriate.

Schedule
2 – 2.10 pm
We may need to temporarily remove any existing works mounted onto the walls and to move any furniture to one side of the room.

You will work in groups and will be asked to think about how you can create links between each work. As well as simply pinning your drawings up you should consider how you could make use of the architectural qualities of the room, taking more spatial and sculptural approaches to displaying drawings as well as making use of voice, narration, text, sound, music, or another approaches.

Please note that each of these exercises is intended to be improvised, creative and experimental in nature.

2.10 – 2.15 pm
You will be divided into three groups and will be set the first task. Anne-Marie will place students in either The Walls Group, The Floor Group or The Performance Group.

2.15- 3.15
Exercises:
• Students in The Walls Group will use the drawings made by those in their group to consider how they can display their drawings so that they relate to all the walls of the Centre for Drawing Part of walls display.

• Students in The Floor Group will use the drawings made by those in their group to consider how they can display their drawings so that they relate across the whole floor of the Centre for Drawing.

• Students in The Performance Group will use the drawings made by those in their group to consider how they devise a time-based / performative presentation based on the drawings of their group. This performance should last between 1 – 5 minutes.

Part of Floor (Chair tunnel) & Performance display.

3.15 – 3.30 pm

The groups finish working. We spend 10 minutes looking at the arrangement of wall and floor based works, with a short informal discussion.

3.25 – 3.30pm
The Performance Group gives their presentation.

3.30 – 4.15 pm
Two new groups are formed, Anne-Marie will place students in either The Performance Again Group or The Connecting Group.

• Students in The Performance Again Group will use their drawings as a basis for a new performance / time-based work. This work should last between 1- 5 minutes.