Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Vladimir Umanets the 26 year old Russian founder of ‘Yellowism’ has been arrested by British police for the graffiti damage caused to a Mark Rothko painting at the Tate Modern. In an article by John Fahey & Ellen Branagh published in The Independent, states “The wording on the bottom-right corner of the piece appears to read: “Vladimir Umanets, A Potential Piece of Yellowism. “Umanets said “Some people think I’m crazy or a vandal, but my intention was not to destroy or decrease the value, or to go crazy. I am not a vandal.” Umanets, who studied art, is one of the founders of “Yellowism”, which he describes as… “Yellowism is not art, and Yellowish isn’t anti-art. It’s an element of contemporary visual culture. It’s not an artistic movement. It’s not art, it’s not reality, it’s just Yellowism. It can’t be presented in a gallery of art, it can be presented only in Yellowistic chambers. The main difference between Yellowism and art is that in art you have got freedom of interpretation, in Yellowism you don’t have freedom of interpretation. Everything is about Yellowism – that’s it. I am a Yellowist. I believe what I am doing and I want people to start talking about this. It was like a platform. I don’t need to be famous, I don’t want money, I don’t want fame, I’m not seeking attention. Maybe I would like to point people’s attention on what it’s all about. What is Yellowism? What is art? It’s good people are shocked about what happened. No one is realising what actually happened, everyone is just posting that the piece has been damaged or destroyed or defaced. “But I believe that after a few years they will start looking for it from the right angle. So that’s why I did it. I believe that from everything bad there’s always a good outcome so I’m prepared for that but obviously I don’t want to spend a few months, even a few weeks, in jail. But I do strongly believe in what I am doing, I have dedicated my life to this. To be honest, I do believe I increased the value. It seems probably ridiculous for someone but I do believe in this. I didn’t decrease the value, I didn’t destroy this picture, I put something new.”

Inspired by John Fahey & Ellen Branagh ow.ly/eofzx image source Huff Post ow.ly/eofWN

Expert in creating mesmerizing forms of repetition (January 17th)

Anri Sala the 37 year old Albanian artist renowned for his favored medium in video has been announced as a representative for France at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Sala is currently based in Paris, represented by Hauser & Wirth Gallery along with the Marian Goodman Gallery. Sala studied video production at the French Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and film direction in Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Tourcoing. Sala currently has a video installation titled ‘Dammi i colori’ (Give me the colors) on display at the London Tate Modern. The installation explores the colour transformation of his hometown Tirana in 2003. The installation includes a discussion between Sala and a personal friend Edi Rama, the Mayor of Tirana. Daniel Birnbaum wrote in Artforum in 2004 that Sala “is an expert in creating mesmerizing forms of repetition that produce strange states of mind, but he never goes so far as to cause pain.”

Inspired by Artinfo http://ht.ly/8qZp9 image source http://ow.ly/8tPHX

No longer do you rely on the moment (November 4th)

Tacita Dean the 46 year old UK Berlin based YBA visual artist who works primarily with film has unveiled her latest work in the darkened Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern as the 12^th commission of the Unilever series. The work is a looped film installation, entitled Film, and is a homage to the declining analogue film industry under threat from the burgeoning digital and animation technologies. Dean is renowned for her work in analogue film, although she still explores a variety of other alternative media including photography and sound. The catalogue for this exhibition references international directors including as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese who provide favorable reflections on the power of analogue film. Dean laments the decline of the industry with the pending closure of her favorite London Soho Film Laboratory, announcing it will cease printing her chosen media the 16mm film.

Inspired by Charlotte Higgins http://ow.ly/75ZyR image source Teresa Gleadowe http://ow.ly/75Zwo

Painting will never die, just changes its nature (September 22nd)

Gerhard Richter the 79 year old German visual artist renowned for his abstract and photorealistic painted works is to be honored with an exhibition at the Tate Modern in the UK. Richter a painter of immense skill has also embraced photograph, a rarity of sorts with painters of his notoriety, undermining the concept an artist needs or has an obligation to a single medium. Richter having escaped to the west before the Berlin wall was constructed, has gained popularity throughout his career with a significant boost in 2005 from a retrospective exhibition that defined him as one of the great artists of the century, and the greatest living painter of the time. Richter has been the recipient of many and often distinguished arts awards, which has particular emphasis given the post modernist cry that painting was dead.

Inspired by Jonathon Jones http://ow.ly/6tYqf image source Hps-poll http://ow.ly/6tYpi

Edwin Parker “Cy” Twombly the recently deceased 83 year old US artist renowned for his paintings that blurred the line between drawing and painting, is the subject of a major exhibition to celebrate the Bicentenary of the Dulwich Gallery. The show explores the parallels between his work and that of the Renaissance painter Nicolas Poussin, both of whom took up residence in Rome for the greater part of the careers. Although their works are quite disparate in style, curator Dr. Nicholas Cullinan of the International Modern Art at Tate Modern explores the overlapping subjects shared by both through the juxtaposition of their related interests in antiquity and classical mythology. Prior to his death, Twombly closely collaborated with Cullinan on the development of the exhibition which includes works not previously exhibited.

Inspired by Randy Kennedy http://ow.ly/5Df8p image source Painting Zombies http://ow.ly/5DfjS

Tacita Dean the 46 year old UK visual artist referred as one of the Young British Artists (YBA’s), now living and working since 2000 in Berlin Germany and internationally renowned for her film installations along with closely related photographic and sound recordings, is preparing to unveil new work at the Tate Modern’s ‘Turbine Hall’. Dean’s new work is a commission for the Unilever annual series that attracts millions of visitors each year as iconic artists are commissioned to utilize the cavernous public space. Dean has exhibited worldwide, in biennials and in numerous group exhibitions and is best known for her work in 16mm film although utilizing a variety of media. Her film work is said to have a contemplative atmosphere through the combination of long takes and steady camera angles.

Inspired by Helen Young Chang http://ow.ly/5wMlN image source Falmouth Convention http://ow.ly/5wMl9

An upper-respiratory disaster waiting to happen (October 24th)

Ai Weiwei aged 53 the renown Chinese artist has encountered health and safety concerns with his work “Sunflower Seeds,” currently exhibited at the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. The Tate in consultation with Ai Weiwei have decided to close visitor’s physical interaction with the work due to dust that was stirred. The piece comprises approximately 100 million hand-painted black and white porcelain sunflower seeds spread throughout the Turbine Hall some 100mm deep.  The shells crackle when walked on, having been designed for tactility and the interaction from visitors. Visitors view a gray expanse from the bridge that spans the Turbine Hall one floor up, experienced now only from behind ropes.

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com