#212: War Art

Follow the news for the stream being constantly created.

If you can’t see any, cast a wider net.  It never ever stops.

#211: Immerse your soul in love (Self-portrait XVII)

Your face when feeling love.

#210: The Ultimate Piece of Imaginary Art

A book.

#209: The Dry Well of Imaginary Art

Oil on canvas.  Black words on a white background reading, 

Imagine the colour that would be added by people actually creating their own interpretations of each work.  

We actively encourage you to do so using #haberdasheryofimaginaryart.

#208: This is my canvas

#201: The Void (A Dream, A Manifesto Offshoot)

I think about blank spaces a lot.

Sometimes I try to fill them with my imagination.  

To create imaginary artworks to fill spaces on walls, on floors, in lives.

But I also think about leaving them blank.

I think about silence.  

I think about silence as a blank space.

I think about blank spaces as silence.  

I think that a blank space in art is the equivalent of silence in music.

John Cage silenced an orchestra.  

I want to call blank spaces art.

Silence where no sound is made (Does Silence Exist? IV): Physical Version

I want to add a small label to the wall of the Tate and in doing so add an artwork to the display.

Waiting for art

I want them to leave a gap in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and give it a title in the catalogue.

Whatever else you see here, this is the future to avoid

It is about silence representing absence.

A place to stop and discuss the other works (but not this one)

Absence of music.

Freedom?

Absence of art.

It is what you make of it

But with instruments all around, or artworks all around.

This is both art and not art

Absence.

Your imaginary art ideas board

I think about absence of art as art.  A title alone and a blank space.

Nothing makes sense

The ultimate void.  

My Nothing, or (I know I believe in nothing but it is) My Nothing

More than a blank canvas, or a white one, or a monochrome one, or a phial of air or an empty shoebox and so on and so forth: and more simple than an elaborate opening to an empty gallery and case.

An absence, a blank space, a void among their opposites.  

A blank space that screams.

A dream.  A blogpost.  An idea.  A manifesto offshoot.

Postscript:

And beyond?  Can it go further?

For beyond the blank canvas there is a blank space and beyond that an empty room.  Then empty floors and empty buildings and beyond - not empty things but empty areas, empty places.

#200: Creating a Piece of Imaginary Art

(Process)

Think of a theme.

Come up with a snappy title.

Think of something that represents this.

Write it down and share it.

(does not have to be completed in this order).

#199: Clever Title

(A snappy title is all you’ll ever need)

Anything (though it should probably work with the title, however tenuously)

#198: The Imaginary Art Immersive Experiences

A room based on the Van Gogh Immersive Experience: a room in which artworks are projected onto all four walls with chairs scattered around and facing the centre of the room for visitors to sit and enjoy.  Unlike the Van Gogh Immersive Experience, nothing is projected onto the floor.

There are three variations:

198a 

The text from Imaginary Art blog posts are projected onto the walls and read by actors, accompanied by ambient music.

198b

AI generated art created from the text of Imaginary Artworks is projected onto the walls, while the text from the posts are read by computer simulated voices, accompanied by ambient music.  

Terminals are available so that visitors are able to create their own artworks in the same way and add them to the slideshow.

All art used by the AI to generate its own work is cited, online and on screens within the room.  Prints of these works, and those made by AI, are available from the gift shop.

198c

A future variation of the above.  Visitors take it turns (if they wish) to wear devices that are able to show their thoughts on screens.  They are invited to read the text from Imaginary Art blog posts that are projected onto the walls and read by actors, accompanied by ambient music.  Each reading is accompanied by the images that the person wearing the device is imagining.

#197: Tate Modern Turbine Hall Proposal

197a An Exhibition of Imaginary Art

Screens cover the walls on either side and the far end of the hall up to the height of the parallel girder that is on the southern side.  These form a zig zag shape, rather than being completely flat.

Onto these screens are, in some places projected (in a changing slideshow) and others printed, a series of Imaginary Artworks for people to stand, or sit, and read and imagine.  Elsewhere are stickers on the floor with shorter Imaginary Art examples and tablets on plinths and table tops on which visitors can browse the whole blog or a slideshow.  These are placed so that visitors have to stand facing in different directions.

These works are supplemented by boards giving a background to Imaginary Art and workshops encouraging visitors to create their own.  Slowly, the results of these workshops are worked into the slideshows of Imaginary Art.

197b People at an Exhibition

Boards on the bridge across the Turbine Hall and on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Floor viewing points invite visitors to watch those who are viewing An Exhibition of Imaginary Art.  

They ask visitors to look at how people are portraying themselves, to see how they look in any given moment, to think about the impressions they give out and how the viewer sees them, before imploring them to find a mirror and ask the same questions about themself.

#196: Maneck's Refrigerator

A refrigerator.  On it is written:

Maneck was silent as they persevered to rescue the shreds of their livelihood. Not all their skills with needle and thread could sew it together again, he thought. Did life treat everyone so wantonly, ripping the good things to pieces while letting bad things fester and grow like fungus on unrefrigerated food? Vasantrao Valmik the proofreader would say it was all part of living, that the secret of survival was to balance hope and despair, to embrace change. But embrace misery and destruction? No. If there were a large enough refrigerator, he would be able to preserve the happy times in this flat, keep them from ever spoiling; and Avinash and chess, which soured so soon, he would save that too; and the mountains of snow, and the General Store, before it all went gloomy …

But it was an unrefrigerated world. And everything ended badly. What could he do now? … There was no way out, it was checkmate for him.

Mistry, Rohinton (1995) A Fine Balance. London, Vintage, p.505.

What would you save?

#195: Omprakash's Coat of Good Times

‘If time were a bolt of cloth,’ said Om, ‘I would cut out all the bad parts. 

How would yours look?

 Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable.

Om has concerns about his: would you have enough fabric?

 Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily.’

Or far too much?

---

Quote from p.310 of Mistry, Rohinton (1995) A Fine Balance. London, Vintage.

#194: Support (An Exhibition of Prescribed Experiences to Help Visitors Understand How They Feel)

A leaflet and poster campaign is launched throughout the country.  Both include the following quote:

“Whatever you might be feeling, make a bookshelf of the writers who speak to you most, compile your favourite poems, go to your local gallery to experience art in the flesh or curate your own mini exhibition that will help you get through. Look to art for the answers because across the years, decades, or centuries, in work by someone who lived a completely different existence to you, you’ll find something you instantly recognise. And when you do, you can pass it on to someone else who might need it too.” - Katy Hessel.

as well as details of how to recommend art, literature, music, film, tv, or anything that might help aid people’s passages through different feelings and experiences.

Following on from this is an exhibition of the recommended (or prescribed) “medications” is staged.

At the centre is a sculpture called Support.  It features people crouched down in a circle supporting and raising up someone who is lying on a circular platform curled into a ball.

The exhibition shop only stocks leaflets and books aimed at supporting and helping attendees with their problems.

#193: Worry and After Worry

A full-size model of a tree.  

One side features entirely bare branches that have mould along them, which also runs down the trunk of the tree.  Blackbirds perch on the branches and nests sit empty.  

The opposite side is clear of the mould, and has branches bearing leaves and fruit (watermelons, bananas, artichokes and apples).  Within the leaves perch robins, crows and hummingbirds, many of whom occupy nests alongside partners and chicks; and many different flowers bloom: Christmas Rose, Lenten Rose, Red Columbine, and Stitchwort can all be seen.

Wherever the work is shown, the gallery must sell and have on offer a range of books, films and leaflets about anxiety and worry - for all ages and backgrounds.

#192: Empty and Solid

A hollow model of an apple seed made from stone and large enough to fit between someone's lungs. 

#191: Debt

Oil on canvas.  The scene shows a cross section of sky, ground and the soil beneath it.  Buried under the ground is a coffin containing a person who is awake and worried, dressed in a straitjacket. On the surface people are enjoying their lives.

#190: Shame

Oil on canvas.

Someone hiding inside a house, shrouded in darkness.  Through the window, a busy street scene is visible.

Or, Someone hiding in darkness while the world carries on outside.

#189:

Content waiting for a title.

#188: A title waiting for an idea

#187: A room full of vacuum or a room full of air?

An empty, sealed, room in a gallery.

#186: The Human Spirit

Oil on canvas.  

Word painting reading:

D oes

N ot

A ccept

#185: Remember Victims

An exhibition of portraits of the victims of murderers (both those killed and those left behind).  Alongside each picture is information about their subject’s life.  No mention is made of the details of their deaths or of the murderers.

#184: Close your eyes

Close your eyes.

Be somewhere else.  

In place, 

time, 

space, 

situation.  

Count to ten and find yourself there.  

Use anytime you need it (or anytime you can, or want, to).

#183: No light, eyes...

GIFs of the patterns you see in the dark when your eyes are open or closed.

#182: Bright light, closed eyes

Oil on canvas. Monochrome painting that is the colour you see when you close your eyes in bright light.

#181: Closed eyes (Art anywhere, anytime)

The impressions made, in red on black or black on red, by the light on your eyelids when you close your eyes.

#180: Panic Piece

Recreate the feeling until you can’t breathe.

Then relax because you faked it.

And smile because that will do.

#179: Nude

A full-length mirror in a gallery.

#178: Work Together (A Socialist Tapestry)

Flags hang from the gallery ceiling representing all activisms that fall, or should fall, on the political left.  All strands and points of view are represented.  The bottom end of each flag is frayed so that they carry on and dangle down.  These frayed ends are then knotted to the frayed ends of every other flag, connecting all to each other.

sailing under all flags

we should all be socialists

and raise each other up

we should all be everythingists

advocates for each other

for we face obstacles in common 

and can only beat them together

competition narrows and demeans

us, makes us more like them

undermining and exploding

holding on and pulling down

to live as fearlessly as a child

we must first dismantle 

the entire prison together 

sailing under all flags

we should all be everything

for to raise each other up

#177: The End of the Golden Period (and The Start of the Dialogue with The Past)

Oil on canvas.  

Word painting reading, 

< googles, “The Idea” >

Damn it, I thought I was being original.

#176: A place to stop and discuss the other works (but not this one)

Somewhere within your exhibition, preferably breaking up an otherwise solid wall of paintings, please leave a blank space from the floor to the ceiling of 2 metres titled in the catalogue as:

A place to stop and discuss the other works (but not this one).

---

Unentered idea for the 2023 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the theme of which was “Only Connect,” taken from the famous quote in Howards End by E.M. Forster.

Click here for a background twitter thread.

#175: Connect us to love

Oil on canvas painting of someone sat at a desktop computer.

#174: After a visit to an art gallery (and a throwback to the beginnings)

Work of art whose meaning remains hidden from the viewer, such as B. a painting facing the wall or a statue covered with a cloth.

(Is something in a work of art lost over time or each time it is placed in a new place or context? Is there something to be gained? Do some works of art lose their meanings after their first exposure, and if so, will they ever be?  Are some just memories of an event, and so they ultimately lose their meaning and value when they leave that event, a provocation flattened and agitated by time, a moment gone?

And what happens when a work of art is seen but is invisible when not busy? What happens when visitors don't overlook it and have a bad idea? Does it matter? When someone looks and decides, when they walk by, sees it, decides, but doesn't really stop or doesn't read the label? Or if so much is not there? When it is difficult for the viewer, when the art is like a finger removed from the body, when far from its original context it is difficult to see what it means?)

I think.

#173: Choose your title: Peace and Quiet Diptych / Underwater Silence Diptych / Swimming Pool, or Bathtime, Silence / Escape /

Two paintings, oil on canvas.

1: Bird’s eye view of someone floating in an outside swimming pool, the water just up above their ears, staring up into the sky, miles away.

2: View from above of someone lying in the bath, the water just up above their ears, staring up at the ceiling, somewhere else.

#172: I just get in the sea

Oil on canvas.  A woman swimming in the sea as seen from the pebbly beach.

Underneath is the following text: 

“What I’ve learned, when my mental health is bad, I just get in the sea and I feel better.” - Angela Barnes.

#171: Losing It and Loving It (Self-portrait XVI)

You: 

lost in something you enjoy: 

in the state where you are losing your shit and loving it: 

where you just don’t care how you look: 

you are not even thinking about it: 

(zero fucks):

you are just in that moment: 

doing whatever in wherever.

(For example, while singing it loud at the indie disco).

#170: Divine Youth? (Self-portrait XV)

The self-portrait in your own mind of how you imagine yourself to be.  That is, the version that lives inside your current self and that is the image you see in your mind’s eye before looking in the mirror - possibly causing you to get a bit of a surprise when you see the real you - especially if, like Nicky Wire, you are seeing a sort-of idealised younger version of yourself and your inner self does not match-up with your outer self: 

“Divine youth is lying in

A battered and a bruised skin

I wear but don't recognise.”

#169: Put yourself in Munch's place (Self-portrait XIV)

Take a look at Edvard Munch’s Self-Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed.  

Behind him is a room full of light, showing his life and work.  Beside him stands a reminder of passing, counting down his time left on earth, to one side, and, to the other, his deathbed.  Each waiting to take him away.  

Put yourself in Munch’s place. 

What would you be leaving behind at The End?  

What would be in the room behind to represent your life?

And how would you look when facing the inevitable? 

What would be going through your head?

:

What would your Self-Portrait look like?

#168: National Memory (History of Britain's Involvement in Slavery Edition)

A display cabinet alongside a filing cabinet.  

In each is a card.  

The one in the display cabinet reads, “What do we want to display?” while the one in the filing cabinet reads, “What do we want to file away and forget?”  

The display cabinet additionally contains a number of boards on which are printed the following articles:

Olusoga, David (2023) The Ties That Bind Us. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/28/slavery-and-the-guardian-the-ties-that-bind-us (Accessed: 28-29 March 2023).

Younge, Gary (2023) Lest we remember: How Britain Buried Its History of Slavery. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/29/lest-we-remember-how-britain-buried-its-history-of-slavery (Accessed: 29-30 March 2023).

---

See also: The Guardian Cotton Capital Special Series.

#167: Collective (and Individual) Memory and Forgetting

A mantelpiece and a wastepaper basket.  

One card stands on the mantelpiece in a frame, another is crumpled and sits in the bin.  

Both read, “What goes here?”

---

After: Spinney, Laura (2022) If the secret police had a file on you, why wouldn’t you want to see it? Ask the Germans spied on by the Stasi. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/28/secret-police-have-file-do-you-want-to-see-it-stasi-east-germany-siegfried-wittenburg (Accessed: 28 November 2022). 

#166: Talking

Talk

Talk to someone

Talk to anyone

Talk about something

Talk about someone

Talk about anything

Talk about anyone

Talk here

Talk there

Talk anywhere 

In person

Online

Offline

Down the line

You just need at least one other

Find a space and fill that space

Make it safe

Just talk and talk and talk it through

Seek and find feedback to

Find what you need

From who you need it

And

never

ever

stop

This is something I find hard to do

Although the above was easy to write.

#165: Brain Fog

Cartoon.

Someone sat working at a desk.  A cloud of fog obscures their head, shoulders and much of the upper part of the picture.

#164: Titles to interpret, or change, an artwork

Choose a work of art and give it a title to interpret it, or to change it into something new.

For example:

The Commuter’s House for Man with a Newspaper by René Magritte. 

Or one of these:

The Disappearance

Liberation Outside* 

Queer Freedom Beyond*

Bad News 

Good News

The Abduction

The war

Coloniser

Staged conformity* 

Queer resonance* 

Another locked room case

Suburban Nightmare

* With thanks to Leon Williams and Tate for the inspiration for the whole idea, and these particular titles.

#163: The information that you need

A gallery full of posters, leaflets, booklets etc that give all the information that the town, region and/or country the gallery is in is lacking.  

#162: Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world

Poster.

Scenes of a teenage vampire engaged in various acts, partaking the fruits of knowledge, so to speak.  In one they are reading in their bedroom, surrounded by books; in another they are browsing library shelves; here the cinema, there listening to music, or dancing, or in an art gallery and so on.  Arranged around the pictures are these words:

“Read. Read as much as possible. Read the big stuff, the challenging stuff, the confronting stuff, and read the fun stuff too. Visit galleries and look at paintings, watch movies, listen to music, go to concerts –  be a little vampire running around the place sucking up all the art and ideas you can. Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world. Have fun. Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being. Fully understand your enormous value in the scheme of things because the planet needs people like you… who can minister to the world with positive, mischievous energy, young people who seek spiritual enrichment and who see hatred and disconnection as the corrosive forces they are. These are manifest indicators of a human being with immense potential… A little smart vampire full of raging love, amazed by the world – that will be you, my young friend.” - Nick Cave

#161: I have nothing

Drawing of two hands held out, palms up and empty.

#160: Historical Art I and II

 I

Think about an artwork that no longer exists.  

It does now?

II

Think about an artwork that you have seen in the past.

Comment with pictures, if you like.

#159: Favourite Wall

Place a frame on your favourite wall and preserve it.  Whether it is a favourite colour or wallpaper pattern, bricks or tiles, mark it out and make it special.

#158: There is never redemption, any fool can regret yesterday

Oil on canvas.

Black text on a white background reading:

Just think first.  A lot.

#157: The earth stripped bare by its inhabitants

A landscape of rock, punctuated only by seas, covering the entire world.

#156: A Monument to Humanity

What would it consist of?

#155: Propaganda for Compassion and Equality

Be nice to everyone.

--

After: Cochrane, Lauren (2022) ‘It’s about having your tag everywhere’: why the art of Keith Haring is all around us. Available At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/nov/17/keith-haring-art-fashion-brand-partnerships (Accessed: 17th November 2022).

And between writing and posting: Siobhán (@SlugInkPress) (2022) "No x" [Twitter] 12 December. Available at: https://twitter.com/SlugInkPress/status/1602282262124453890 (Accessed: 12th December 2022).

Riedzewski, Ramona (@archivist_ramona) (2022) "Positive messaging on the streets of Hammersmith." [Instagram] 16 December. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmO5naaobV4/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= (Accessed: 16th December 2022).

#154: Portraits of Artists as Everyday Objects

A series of portraits of artists represented by an object - the object itself, rather than a picture or a painting of it.  Often the most obvious thing.  For example, LS Lowry is a matchstick, Yoko Ono is a grapefruit and Vincent Van Gogh a sunflower.

Who would you include, and what would represent them?