6.1.20 Red knittings and site responsiveness
As part of my Research Methodologies research, I’ve been looking at site responsiveness. I’m interested in the different ways my work can be installed and how the location and method of installation can add meaning to it. Knitting is wonderfully site responsive because it’s literally so flexible.
‘Miwon Kwon (2002, p4) discusses the ‘impermanence and transience’ of art installed in response to ‘one site after another’. Tuttle ‘enters a dialogue with the space’ (Petersens, 2014, p77), sometimes reinstalling his work to explore how it can respond differently to the same setting. Other artists creating inspiring site-responsive installations using textiles include Chiharu Shiota (2019) and Christo (2019). I definitely find that installing my knitting in ‘unexpected places’ (Baker, 2019) changes the way my work is perceived and I’m very keen to research this area further’ (Baker, 2020, p.22, 23)
I started knitting these abstract knitted pieces last March for a site responsive exhibition at Shepton Mallet Prison, where I finally installed them during B-Wing in Sept 2019. I knitted them specifically to visualise what I perceived as the traces of emotion left behind by those who had been incarcerated here - grief, rage, remorse, loneliness, despair, guilt. These long abstract pieces were installed throughout the first floor of the prison wing, interposed with some larger sculptures that I had knitted previously, and joined with red wool. Visitors were invited to ‘follow the red thread through the labyrinth of cells as it connects the traces of emotions…’ (B-Wing, 2019). Not only were the works knitted in response to the place, they were also installed site responsively. It was thrilling to be able to set up something so large in such an atmosheric space. Have a look at a video walkthrough of the installation. And here are some images.
Since then, I’ve carried on knitting these elongated forms, whenever and wherever I can, so I now have many more. I took the opportunity this week to set up these multiple red knitted soft sculptures in an empty space outside the studio. I had trialled this idea previously in the MA studio, but was glad to have the chance to try it in a larger, clearer space too.
I wanted to see how the meanings of the work change when they’re installed in a different place and in a different way. The installation at B-Wing was especially effective, I know, as the environment itself had so many troubling associations, so I’m interested, and pleased, to see that essentially the same work (plus a number of new pieces) can still be effective in much less evocative surroundings! Inevitably, many people see it as blood, blood spatter, others comment on the unexpectedness of so much knitting, installed in this way. I’m delighted with it! Now I want it to be bigger….
I have used hanging as a device for many of my soft sculptures over the past few years, for a number of reasons. The main reason is that it can bring a sense of vulnerability and fragility.
‘Louise Bourgeois says of her work that hanging the garments emphasises the sculpture’s ‘fragility and vulnerability’ (in Larratt-Smith 2011). She also asserts that the hanging thing ‘…is very helpless’ (in Nixon 2005:170) and ‘Hanging and floating are states of ambivalence and doubt’ (in Larratt- Smith 2011). It is clearly significant to her. I think the hanging motif distinguishes ‘very different identities for (her) sculpture…suggesting a kind of displacement’ (Barlow 1996, p 9) which also adds a feeling of abjection’ (Baker, 2014, p. 15)
Gravity also creates form and hanging sculptures will often also move spontaneously.
Ideally I would like to install a room full of these perpendicular knittings as a walk in installation….. Now I just need to find an opportunity, and keep knitting!
B-Wing (2019), Red is the colour of…, https://b-wing.weebly.com/lou-baker-red-is-the-colour-of.html (Accessed: 12 January 2020)
Baker, L. (2014) Second skin: used clothing and representations of the body in the work of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski, undergraduate dissertation
Baker, L. (2019) Works. Available at: https://loubakerartist.co.uk/ (Accessed: 2 October 2019)
Baker, L (2020) Critical knitting; knitting as a research method, unpublished post-graduate essay
Barlow, P. (1996) ‘The Sneeze of Louise’ in Cole, Ian, (ed.), 1996, Museum of Modern Art Papers, Volume 1 Louise Bourgeois, Oxford: Museum of Modern Art pp4-11
Christo and Jeanne Claude (2019) Artworks: realized projects. Available at: https://christojeanneclaude.net/artworks/realized-projects (Accessed: 13 November 2019)
Kwon, M. (2002) One place after another: site-specific art and locational identity. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press
Larratt-Smith, P. (2011) Louise Bourgeois, the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, Available from: http://arttattler.com/archivebourgeois.html (Accessed 6 November 2013)
Nixon, M. (2005) Fantastic Reality: Louise Bourgeois and a story of Modern Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press
Petersens, M. (2014) ‘The visual poetry of Richard Tuttle.’ in Tuttle, R. (ed.) (2014) I don’t know. The weave of textile language. Exhibition held at Tate Modern 14 October 2014 - 6 April 2015 and Whitechapel Gallery, London 14 October – 14 December 2014 [Exhibition catalogue] pp 73-81
Shiota, C. (2019) Installation & performance. Available at: https://www.chiharu-shiota.com/installationperformance-2019-1 (Accessed: 5 December 2019)
‘Miwon Kwon (2002, p4) discusses the ‘impermanence and transience’ of art installed in response to ‘one site after another’. Tuttle ‘enters a dialogue with the space’ (Petersens, 2014, p77), sometimes reinstalling his work to explore how it can respond differently to the same setting. Other artists creating inspiring site-responsive installations using textiles include Chiharu Shiota (2019) and Christo (2019). I definitely find that installing my knitting in ‘unexpected places’ (Baker, 2019) changes the way my work is perceived and I’m very keen to research this area further’ (Baker, 2020, p.22, 23)
I started knitting these abstract knitted pieces last March for a site responsive exhibition at Shepton Mallet Prison, where I finally installed them during B-Wing in Sept 2019. I knitted them specifically to visualise what I perceived as the traces of emotion left behind by those who had been incarcerated here - grief, rage, remorse, loneliness, despair, guilt. These long abstract pieces were installed throughout the first floor of the prison wing, interposed with some larger sculptures that I had knitted previously, and joined with red wool. Visitors were invited to ‘follow the red thread through the labyrinth of cells as it connects the traces of emotions…’ (B-Wing, 2019). Not only were the works knitted in response to the place, they were also installed site responsively. It was thrilling to be able to set up something so large in such an atmosheric space. Have a look at a video walkthrough of the installation. And here are some images.
Since then, I’ve carried on knitting these elongated forms, whenever and wherever I can, so I now have many more. I took the opportunity this week to set up these multiple red knitted soft sculptures in an empty space outside the studio. I had trialled this idea previously in the MA studio, but was glad to have the chance to try it in a larger, clearer space too.
I wanted to see how the meanings of the work change when they’re installed in a different place and in a different way. The installation at B-Wing was especially effective, I know, as the environment itself had so many troubling associations, so I’m interested, and pleased, to see that essentially the same work (plus a number of new pieces) can still be effective in much less evocative surroundings! Inevitably, many people see it as blood, blood spatter, others comment on the unexpectedness of so much knitting, installed in this way. I’m delighted with it! Now I want it to be bigger….
I have used hanging as a device for many of my soft sculptures over the past few years, for a number of reasons. The main reason is that it can bring a sense of vulnerability and fragility.
‘Louise Bourgeois says of her work that hanging the garments emphasises the sculpture’s ‘fragility and vulnerability’ (in Larratt-Smith 2011). She also asserts that the hanging thing ‘…is very helpless’ (in Nixon 2005:170) and ‘Hanging and floating are states of ambivalence and doubt’ (in Larratt- Smith 2011). It is clearly significant to her. I think the hanging motif distinguishes ‘very different identities for (her) sculpture…suggesting a kind of displacement’ (Barlow 1996, p 9) which also adds a feeling of abjection’ (Baker, 2014, p. 15)
Gravity also creates form and hanging sculptures will often also move spontaneously.
Ideally I would like to install a room full of these perpendicular knittings as a walk in installation….. Now I just need to find an opportunity, and keep knitting!
B-Wing (2019), Red is the colour of…, https://b-wing.weebly.com/lou-baker-red-is-the-colour-of.html (Accessed: 12 January 2020)
Baker, L. (2014) Second skin: used clothing and representations of the body in the work of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski, undergraduate dissertation
Baker, L. (2019) Works. Available at: https://loubakerartist.co.uk/ (Accessed: 2 October 2019)
Baker, L (2020) Critical knitting; knitting as a research method, unpublished post-graduate essay
Barlow, P. (1996) ‘The Sneeze of Louise’ in Cole, Ian, (ed.), 1996, Museum of Modern Art Papers, Volume 1 Louise Bourgeois, Oxford: Museum of Modern Art pp4-11
Christo and Jeanne Claude (2019) Artworks: realized projects. Available at: https://christojeanneclaude.net/artworks/realized-projects (Accessed: 13 November 2019)
Kwon, M. (2002) One place after another: site-specific art and locational identity. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press
Larratt-Smith, P. (2011) Louise Bourgeois, the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, Available from: http://arttattler.com/archivebourgeois.html (Accessed 6 November 2013)
Nixon, M. (2005) Fantastic Reality: Louise Bourgeois and a story of Modern Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press
Petersens, M. (2014) ‘The visual poetry of Richard Tuttle.’ in Tuttle, R. (ed.) (2014) I don’t know. The weave of textile language. Exhibition held at Tate Modern 14 October 2014 - 6 April 2015 and Whitechapel Gallery, London 14 October – 14 December 2014 [Exhibition catalogue] pp 73-81
Shiota, C. (2019) Installation & performance. Available at: https://www.chiharu-shiota.com/installationperformance-2019-1 (Accessed: 5 December 2019)