Tate and Orozco

Photographer:  DG

I am doing a course once a week in the  evening at the Tate Modern  for a period of six weeks. It is about choreographing in response to art works. It's a lively class. We get the use of the gallery with no visitors after hours and congregate in the East room, at the top, with a fantastic view of London. From there we move around the gallery then we return to the East room to do our choreographic work.
This week  we visited the Orozco exhibition and had a few tasks to complete while there. But  first we wandered around the exhibition. I was really struck by Gabriel Orozco's work, especially his photographs. Of these he says:
"I like the idea of the photograph as a shoe box in which you keep and transport objects or memorable events in your life". A shoe box! What a lovely idea. I kept on going back to it, thinking about my own photographs.


The tasks we had  to perform were process oriented. The first one was about looking for a process in the making of a specific work and translate it into instructions. I chose the heart clay, a sculpture which Orozco obtained by taking a piece of clay , lifting it to the heart, clasping it with fingers, getting as a result a finger striped heart shaped lump of clay, which he then let dry. The second one was about finding a sentence among the works on display and I chose "Ballerina with a comic touch". This was part of a series of short poems written by taking sentences from obituaries. The third one was creating a map or a trajectory out of one of his works. I chose the art work "Making strides" based on photography and geometric shapes and devised a small map which gave a sense of the work's dynamics.
Armed with these three choices I made my way back to the East room and shared them with another student, then we made a dance out of my choices and hers. The dance was not particularly complex but it was funny and fun to put together - the idea of a ballerina with a comic touch had an influence on us, I swear.
I kept on thinking of how interesting and  challenging Orozco's art is.
Art works. Do we stand next to them in silence and stillness or do we pick up their inherent dynamics and turn them into movement?


I bet you know what my answer is. And no, we do not have to perform the movements in the gallery as we walk around the objects, it can be more subtle than that.
Since doing this course being moved by an art work has acquired an entirely different meaning...

(All photos by DG and modelled by Alex B.)

Comments

  1. i want paint you.
    Sergio L.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alex, it sounds like the ideal place for a choreography class. And the photos are lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Once again, Alex, another delightful variation on the amazing range of areas you have been involved in Ray

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you both UL and Ray. Everyone is choreographing in art galleries these days! The Tate is fantastic for it. Besides I am preparing my own piece for my final DMP assessment - we have a Creative Practice module - and every little bit helps.
    Ray, thank you for reading.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment