October 20– 21, 2021, 10 am – 12:30 pm
Many thanks to the artist Emily Hunt for her workshop introducing our participants to Experimental Drawing – Total environment: The Artist and the Interior ~ Experimental Plan drawing & Total environment: The Artist and the Interior ~ Experimenting with Material during the basic course within the Studio Program at BAI | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School, Arts Incubator, and Live Online Courses & Classes.
“Total environment: The Artist and the Interior ~ Experimental Plan drawing
The course will begin with a short introduction into the history of artists creating dream spaces, that is, interiors entirely constructed by artists. We will cover the work of William Morris, The Omega Workshop and Studio Alchimia. Studio Alchimia was an interdisciplinary and multiform group whose activities included seminars, production of experimental video, clothing design, theatrical set design, product design, decorative arts, performance art, and architecture. We will discuss this practice of creating a total environment. Thinking over ideas such as, if you could create your own salt shaker, what would it look like? Or your own wallpaper.
The exercises will begin by rifting-off found craft pieces as a source for drawing. Working in A2 size, we will be using these spontaneous drawing exercises to create a collaborative cut-out wallpaper piece.
When thinking of interiors or architecture, we can turn our attention to the plan drawings. These drawings contain a flatten perspective to describe a three-dimensional space, thus it is similar to a puzzle. Scale models and drawings can speak of a different kind of potential, allowing the ability to dream up impossible structures. We will begin the second exercise of creating a personal aesthetic interior space drawing. We will be thinking of experimental, abstract ways to describe space through drawing. The drawing will be worked on overnight.
DAY 2: Total environment: The Artist and the Interior ~ Experimenting with Material
Taking off where left off, the presentation will begin by talking about the concept of the gesamtkunstwerk. We will discuss examples of this utopian concept through the work of Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot garden and the contemporary interiors of Henrike Naumann, and Lucy McKenzie. We will also look at the radical furniture of Carlo Bugatti and Misha Kahn, discussing appropriation and the incorporation of found objects into artworks. Also we will cover the commercialisation of David Shrigley’s drawings over many different forms of objects.
We will then discuss the importance of artist studios as total environments, and places of resistance. I will shortly cover the subject of how to build and protect your studio time. The plan drawing from the previous day will be finalised in class, and discussed.
The third exercise will focus on the material of copper. You will be given a small ancient square of copper sheeting sourced from a pre-war industrial complex in Leipzig. This material can be embossed, filigree, painted on, moulded etc, with the concept of the interior or applied art in mind.” (Text by courtesy of Emily Hunt)
Emily Hunt (b. 1981) lives and works in Berlin since 2017. Hunt has been running Big Ego Books since 2015. She was the co-Dictator of DUKE Magazine, an artist magazine focusing on Australian artists and thrift culture between 2005-2009. She has shown extensively in Australia since 2012, including at the Museum for Contemporary Art Sydney, First Draft, Casula Powerhouse, UTS Gallery, Artspace, Bundanon Trust, UQ Art Museum, KNULP and The Commercial gallery.Her work is held in collections that include The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art (CCWA), Artbank, and Manly Art Gallery. She was awarded Marten Bequest Scholarship for Painting (2015), and Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant (2017), with two grants from Australia Council for the Arts (2014 & 2019). Her work has recently been shown at the Arp Museum Remagen, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, Zitadelle Spandau (ZAK) and Sim Smith Gallery, London. In 2020 Hunt was selected as a participant in the Goldrausch Künstlerinnen Projekt. In 2021, Hunt’s first solo exhibition in Berlin opened at Galerie Wedding.
More information on the Emily Hunt Website.