Monday 20 July 2015

Clare Twomey

I've volunteered to help in the "Acts of Making" festival of performance art that's happening in Plymouth and Mount Edgcumbe from the 12th to the 26th September.

I was "interviewed" for the task, which involved picking one of the 6 artists in the festival, researching them for 30 minutes and then talking about their work for 10 minutes or so.

I picked Clare Twomey, partly because I knew a little about her already (mainly the thousands of ceramic birds that she scattered around the V&A - see later) and partly because she seems very thoughtful, well organised and articulate.

The upshot is that I think I will end up being one of Twomey's helpers in a repeat of one of her previous installations, called "Is it Madness.  Is it Beauty."

I decided I ought to do a little more research on Twomey before the event, so here's a rundown of her more notable projects:

 Is it Madness.  Is it Beauty. 

First performed in November 2010.

"Is It Madness. Is It Beauty" was a work commissioned for the Siobhan Davies Studios that communicated ideas about the futility of human action. Twomey responded to the repetitive actions of dancers in The Score, and conceived a performance piece that involved the periodic filling of a large number of unfired ceramic bowls with water; however, as the bowls were unfired they collapsed, visually emphasising human endeavour and desire to achieve.

Everyman's Dream

April 2013

 Everyman’s Dream was a work commissioned for the exhibition Marking the line: Ceramics and Architecture, inspired by Sir John Soane's house and collections, challenging where and how we view both ancient and modern works of art.  For Sir John Soane's Museum in London Twomey asked one thousand men to tell her about their hopes of personal legacy. This is in reference to the legacy that Sir John Soane left in the form of his architectural contributions as well as his collection of artefacts at the Sir John Soane's Museum in London.


Piece by Piece

October 2014 - January 2015

Piece by Piece was staged at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche.  Piece by Piece features an army of more than 2,000 ceramic figurines – all inspired by the Gardiner’s rare Commedia dell’Arte Harlequin collection – and demonstrates the conflicting emotions of everyday life. The exhibit also featured an on-site artist/maker creating additional statuettes to add to Twomey’s ever-growing ghostly white world.


 Exchange

June - September 2013

Clare Twomey's concept for her work, Exchange, was inspired by the acts of exchange and philanthropy that lie at the heart of the Foundling Hospital -- the UK's first children's charity and England's first public art gallery. Each day of the exhibition, ten people were invited to choose a cup from the hundreds laid out on tables. In exchange for agreeing to complete the good deed, they were allowed to keep the cup.


Trophy


 September 2006

Trophy was commissioned by the V&A Museum and played with notions of value, permanence and the culture of collecting. The artist worked in collaboration with Wedgwood to produce 4000 small birds made from Jasper Blue –an historical material created by Wedgwood in the 1800s– that were then displayed throughout the Cast Courts; the concept was to create a unique object for the museum’s collections that would be both beautiful and desirable. Within five hours of opening, the public had stolen each one of the 4000 birds that made up the collection; although they were not formally invited to take the birds home, many followed the behaviour of others in the space.



Consciousness/Conscience


 2001-2004

Consciousness/Conscience was a ceramic installation that comprises several thousand hollow unfired Bone China tiles laid out on the floor of the gallery space. The work is installed so that visitors to the exhibition need to cross the work to encounter other parts of the exhibition. By walking across the work they effectively destroy the floor to gain access to other works. The floor tiles record their path within the space. Consciousness/Conscience is conceptually linked with ideas of human interaction, social convention and appropriateness.




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