When our teacher analyzed our homework in the following lesson, he told me that I should not make the things to easy for me. I think the problem was that I thought we should make collages “out of nothing”, so I focused a lot on not thinking to much about what I was doing, so the result was really trashy. For the next lesson I made new collages, this time trying to arrange them a bit more thoughtfully. It was better than what I had done before, but I still was told to work less “nice”.
When we switched to making real 3D objects then, I tried to work therefore really free, spontaneously, without focusing on the aspect. Maybe I was a bit to hard in that this time, because the teacher was really critical and made clear to me that there must be any idea visible, and that everybody could make “trash”, but some of the works I made he liked, so I worked more in that direction. At that time I thought I would understand better what it was about. The objects should not be nice in aspect, but neather just senseless trash. There should be an idea behind the arrangement or the shape giving, but the aim was to make it interesting, not nice.
It was hard for me to get this point. I also was a bit angry, because it seemed that my original standpoint, that this subject would be perfect for my ideas, would not really work out. So what I did for the following lesson was not to put that many things just together like I did before, but work more minimalistic. Therefore I used a lot of ready-mades, because I didn’t want to make “trash” again, which I destructed or deconstructed.
The ready-mades were the biggest criticspoint in the following lesson. I was told not to use so much material, make the things less heavy, and still work more free, because ready-mades have already a shape what allows not so many variations. The teacher made clear to me that, if I wanted to work with ready-mades, I would have to pay a lot more attention on HOW I worked with them in order to make it interesting. But some of my workes asked his attention, and he gave me the advice to inform myself about the artist Erwin Wurm as an example. I followed the advice and noticed that the way this artists used the things was more my direction.
We were also told to think about our works, to find a description for them or for our working style, what it would be about. One big question in my life is the question about identity. If it exists, where it comes from, if things can have a fixed identity or not, and also if I myself, as a person or an artist, can have an identity which is visible in all of my works. So I chose that question to describe my works, “what is identity?”. That explained also why I had problems at the beginning to start producing, because I was not sure about the “identity” I wanted to give the things I made. Also my interest for ready-mades fits in there, because they already have an identity, and my question is if this is fixed or not.
I understood now also better what the teacher ment by saying I should pay more attention on HOW I worked with ready-mades. Just to destroy them or put them together in a new order would not question anything. This happens every day, everybody can do it and it’s not interesting and nothing. So if I wanted to work in this direction, I would have to add something new, something which would not be expected. So for the following lesson I experimented a lot and made several series of works. The feedback I got was then the best feedback I got during the whole period.
The end of the first period was near, and I made a final work which should express all I learned in this period and get in to a point. I “melted together” two light bulbs. Before I came to the art academy I would have left it like that, because I would have thought that this would be interesting. What I did not was to add something unexpected, so I broke out a piece of glass on the place where they “melted”. The aim was not to give two things new identity (“two light bulbs melted together”), but to question the identity in general. So by braking out the piece of glass, I wanted the viewer to ask himself why I did that. Was it an accident? Did he do it consciously? Are this still two light bulbs melted together? I explained everything to the teacher on the day of the presentation. He was still very critical and saw still a lot of thing I would have to learn. The thing is that at this day I could agree with him, and this is the important point for me, because I have now the feeling that I really learned something and understood now better where my weak points are. I’m more satisfied with that knowledge as if I would be if I would have worked perfectly, because I think this is a good base to work on for the second period.
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