Abstract

This was a paper given at the Symposium, 'Painting/looking' at The Collection, Lincoln — 16th April

Painting/looking was a symposium organised by Andrew Bracey to accompany the (detail) exhibition, curated by Bracey and on show at The Usher Gallery from 19th December until 19th April.

The Painting/looking symposium aims to explore the diverse approaches to examining paintings by bringing together artists, curators and academics in order to advocate distinctive standpoints and positions. The content of the papers which will be delivered ranges from a consideration of the feelings that a position of unfamiliarity and incomprehension can provoke, to exploring how different paint types can offer different types of narrative.

Speakers: Professor Beth Harland, Dr Richard Davey and Iain Andrews, Dr Catherine Ferguson, Ann Bukantas, Andrew Bracey.

Abstract of paper:
A painter usually works close up to the canvas, stepping back occasionally to take in the whole composition. The eye constantly darts back and forth; fragments become the whole and vice versa. For the filmmaker Dziga Vertov the ‘Kino-Eye’ was more perfect than the human eye. Vertov’s pioneering use of montage allowed fragmented footage to be subsumed into the whole and consequently revolutionised the way we see the world. Meanwhile the projectionist has a unique and rather strange way of viewing films; peering through a scratched, dirty window, the big screen appears miniature from the booth. Before the digital era the projectionist eye’s search for the ‘cue-dot’ meant the projectionist knew a few individual frames of the film with almost forensic detail and focus.

(detail) is a group exhibition curated by Bracey that has developed from the scrutiny involved in looking at paintings in distinct circumstances; the studio, gallery or in varied forms of reproduction. It features photographs of close ups from 118 different paintings selected by the artists who created them.

This paper will explore ideas concerned with ways of looking contained within (detail). It will specifically address how the exhibition seeks to investigate painting by simultaneously adopting the approach of the painter’s eye, the Kino eye and projectionist’s eye. The paper will examine how concerns within the author’s art practice (Frames, Reconfigure Paintings) filter through to the curatorial decisions fundamental to (detail).