Issue 6 - Writing - Play

In the turbulent times we are living in where it can fill us with fear to open the newspaper day to day, play and joy are more important to our lives than ever. Fine art can sometimes be a serious field with its socio-political inclinations and motives. However, let’s not forget the fine art that relies on play and discovering something new. In this case, I would like to discuss material play- that is letting the materials lead the way and create something fresh and unexpected.

Painters have always led the way in material play. The medium lends itself to experimentation with the variety of ‘paints’ available to us. Yes, acyclic and oil paint is great- but how about nail varnish or food? How about applying this paint with a bucket, string, a toothbrush, a kitchen sponge or in fact anything you can get your hands on. This is something I like to play with in my own practice, I play with glitter, gels, gloopy enamel, beads, spray paint and oils. Whether favourable or not, the result when using a new material that has a mind of its own is always surprising and almost tells you where to go next, somewhere that may have never crossed your mind before.

I have always been inspired by artists who aren’t afraid to let go of their control over the materials, especially those in the public eye who aren’t afraid to play. Of course, Jackson Pollock is the pioneer in this, a major player in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock coined the term action painting for his dramatic techniques of spilling and dripping the paint from above onto the surface. All of Pollock’s painting bared a resemblance in that this was unmistakably ‘his’ work. However, each varied as a kind of map of his thoughts and impulses. This led the way for artists like Damien Hirst and his spin paintings. For these paintings, Hirst made his very own spin painting machine, comprised of a drill that attached to the board or canvas and would spin it at high speed while paint is added. Again, these brightly coloured fantastical paintings are unmistakably Hirst and are a map of movement. Hirst also took these machines out into the public for people to have a go and this points to something very significant that comes with material play in art, the union of all, from established artists to those who have never picked up a paintbrush in their life before. The fear of doing something ‘perfectly’ is taken away when the element of control is taken away and this results in more people showing an open interest in the work who might not have felt comfortable or interested too before. This breaks down the walls of artist and audience and fuses them together in a way which we can all play.

Perhaps what brings us together is the pursuit of something truly new. In our heavily digital led lives with social media and the news making everything tangible at our fingertips it can sometimes feel like nothing is new anymore. But even if just for a moment, what material play really provides us with is something that is our own and undiscovered, it allows the mind to wander to our own state of play.

Of course, we all have our own ideas of play that will differ massively from person to person. This begs the question, what exactly is play in the context of art? Is it the mind freely navigating, a single thought, a process, an action, a performance?

‘The Playground Project’ exhibition at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary art in 2016 provided a gallery space for the exploration of this idea. This exhibition concentrated on the idea of play as leaving your comfort zone and exploring something new. The wiggly worm slides, playmats, large swings, interactive wall displays with magnets, beanbags and films- all the things we might normally associate with Play contrasted with the archival material around playgrounds as a subject of social experiments, community, architectural experimentation and a place of refuge. This fusion of this group show and it’s pieces were intended to encourage the mingling of all ages in a shared experience of play, whichever way interacting with the elements this may be. This may seem naïve- how many adults would really come in with the same loss of inhibitions as a child may have and ride the wiggly worm slide? And how many people under the age of 10 would be interested in the archival news clippings from the 1980s? Well, as somebody who was a gallery assistant at BALTIC at the time of this show, I can tell you it was 99 percent of people. It was quite common as a bystander to see people transform in the space over as short of a period of 10 minutes. What was not so important was how a viewer may interact, but that they entered a space of play, with both their mind and their actions.

This makes you really question if play can be described singularly, especially in an artistic context. Play is a feeling, a motion, or anything that it is deemed to be by its author. Material play is one expression of this, which I feel especially tied too. However, if you start to look back through major movements in art history you can start to piece together the different types of play associated with Key artists. Take Salvador Dali and surrealism and the mind-bending dreamlike compositions and we can see the play of the mind in its extreme form and at the other end of the spectrum take world renowned performance artist Marina Abramovich and her endurance art- this is an exploration of playing with action and physicality.

 It may not be clear cut what  exactly ‘Play’ is in an artistic context, but what is clear is that these differences in approaches to play are what make the diversity of the arts and cultures so fantastical and exciting to an audience over and over again. 

Written piece and Painting by Artist Carolina Aguirre Barrandeguy

https://www.instagram.com/_carolina_aguirre_/

LOS CHICOS

I kept hearing wails (not whales, though the sound was similar). I hadn't realised there was a small child living inside my chest.
The sound intensified if I put my ear to my nipple, which is hard to do and requires a couple of upper spine stretches to bend that far.
Contorted in this strange shape I would listen, and through her little megaphone she would demand;

I want to eat mud biscuits baked in the shape of leaves. I want to put frogs in my pocket!
But I couldn’t let her out to play. The door was too heavy. I was too tired from feeding a fish called Kronos. He lurks in my greasy depths and loves, above all else, a child-cheddar sandwich.
I wrapped the kid in a pity pitta and tried to throw her in, but she gripped onto my uvula. I fed him moist fish bites instead; a mix of anxieties and moral quandaries rolled into energy balls, using a little self loathing as the gelling agent. He gobbled them up, getting fatter and stronger and uglier and uglier.

The child was relentless though. She scratched at my thoracic wall. She sneaked into my dreams where she threw tantrums, shapeshifting into trapped birds or dying wolf pups.
Then she scared me shitless by materialising at the foot of my bed, and that was too much. I had to do something.

So I pushed, I pushed hard and managed to nudge the door open an inch. Not enough for a child to squeeze through. I was worried it was a failed attempt. But she saw the crack and ran at it, kicking it open with a strength I found rather disconcerting. Once outside she befriended some cup-pissing, crop-circle-catching pals and I left them to it, leaving the door ajar so I could hear her if she needed me.

The fish, offended by my diverted attention, sank sulking.
A year later and a different door is closed. This one with a government key.
I can feel the frozen fish thaw in cabin fever, get hungry with instability.
So I put my ear to my nipple to listen to my ribcage dwelling sprog, to make sure she's happy.

She shouts;
Tell the fish to piss off!

I say; language! and she cackles, does a summersault and hides behind my kidney.

(Los Chicos, May 2019, Acrylic and Oil on Paper; 
Story first published in PostWork Magazine, May 2020)