[accessibleimage] Re: London Times article

Very interesting article. It has been my observation, too, that tactile
artworks that are not supported by some form of description are difficult to
use and to learn from.   The pieces in the exhibit that he likes the most
are those that are purely experiential, like the hanging bottles, and which
provide opportunities for "play", rather than some concrete understanding of
what is being depicted. The purely tactile displays had to be explained by a
sighted companion before he could really appreciate them.   The lesson for a
tactile designer is that, to make work that can be independently
experienced, make sure to include plenty of description, either in the form
of an accompanying text or audio.  

 

  _____  

From: Barry Kleider [mailto:bkleider@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 9:20 AM
To: accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [accessibleimage] London Times article

 

The following article appeared in the Times of London Arts section.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,585-2374239,00.html


The Times        September 26, 2006


 


More than a feeling


 


However laudable, why is art for the blind always just a tactile experience?


Peter Whittle

I used to think that one of the nicest things about being blind was that you
didn't have to pretend to like art; but nowadays even this solace is being
denied me. Over the past 25 years or so there seems to have been a concerted
effort on behalf of the art establishment to beat itself up for not allowing
blind people to touch its massively expensive treasures. Today it's a rare
week that I don't get an invitation to an exhibition that seeks to satisfy
my art starvation. 

It must be at least 20 years ago now that I was invited to go along to the
Tate, dip my fingers into a pot of talcum powder and very carefully touch
some specially selected sculptures. At about the same time the students of
Southampton Art College put on a display that invited artists to engage all
the senses to create their work; and so the invitations keep coming. 


 


 

Which is why, when I was asked to review Sense and Sensuality at the
Bankside Gallery, I shuddered. Sending an ingrate such as me along to give
my opinion really is a bit like asking Carla Lane to judge Abattoir of the
Year or Brian Sewell to evaluate the acts at a karaoke night. 

And yet, when I went along to the gallery the other morning, I was almost
instantly seduced by some of the charm of this enterprise. Part of that
charm is that if you're blind, you aren't always sure what's on display and
what's part of the building. For instance, just inside the door, and before
I'd even begun my semi-guided tour, there's a staircase. Feeling my way
along the banister, I became aware that the decoration of it was in the
shape of cello keys; further inspection revealed that the bars down the side
of the staircase were cello strings, tuned in such a way that running your
fingers, or in my case a white cane, along them produced a pleasantly
discordant sound, which I proceeded to experiment with. This turned out to
be an exhibit created by Nick Hornby - there are apparently two of them. I'd
already made one of the discoveries that the creators of this exhibition
intend you to make: that it' s a place to play as much as to examine. 

Meanwhile, what had caught my sighted companion's eye was a dark-grey orb
hanging from the ceiling, which she described as looking like a boulder. It
turns out that if you take it down and turn it the other way up, it's more
like a space helmet. Put it over your head and you are instantly cut off
from everything around you. This typifies the ethos of this exhibition, in
which participants have been told to produce a piece of work that, whatever
else it does, can be appreciated by someone with a visual impairment. 

The challenge has been wholeheartedly accepted, Sheri Khayami, of BlindArt,
the organisation that has pioneered this exhibition, now in its second year,
was worried that not enough artists would respond. She needn't have done.
BlindArt received about 650 entries, which they then whittled down to a
shortlist of 200. There are now just over 70 pieces on display, and after my
flirtation with the cello and the space helmet, the real tour began. 

Very quickly I remembered what my problem with this kind of experience is -
too much touching. However much you strive for a multi-sensory experience -
and they have - most of the exhibits are inevitably tactile. I moved with my
guide, the exhibition's curator Andrew Lamont, through ceramics, oils on
canvas, stainless steel, wires, clay; the artists invariably try to
represent colours, changes in surface, forms of a face, by varying
thicknesses or changes of texture. But I found what I always find with touch
as a vehicle for ideas, rather than just sensation: that it is too
particular. 

I can only touch one tiny bit at a time: although I can spread my hands
across a figure, in reality, if I want to examine it properly, I have to
trace it with a finger. Consequently, my ability to take in a piece of art
is limited to a very precise examination of a part of it a fingertip wide,
or a very imprecise picture of it circumscribed by how far I can spread my
arms. 

This is not how people see a work of art; they can take in the whole of it
at a glance. I feel I want the same. Perhaps this is a failing in me. Many
totally blind people assure me that they can get an enormous amount from
this kind of experience, both examining and creating it. 

This isn't to say there were no almost pure touch experiences that I did
enjoy. Gail Troth's Symbol L, for example, is the depiction of a lizard
crawling into the picture, its bright colours being contrasted by dots with
the smooth background. Nicolas Moreton's Breath shows the first breath of a
baby after it has emerged from the womb, and I was very taken with the
image, but only after I had had it explained to me. Again, this illustrates
my point; there is still too much for which I have to rely on someone else. 

The exhibition has pressed all the access buttons thoroughly: Braille and
large-print signage, a Braille catalogue, audiodescription, British sign
language; no complaints there at all, but still I had the sense that I
needed an intermediary between me and the work. 

It became increasingly clear to me what a very literal mind I have - things
really work for me when I can visualise them. I was particularly taken with
Alison Weightman's Shotgun A, where a ceramic dish has literally been fired
into by a 12-bore shotgun. It conveyed as nothing else has to me the awful,
jagged wounds created by such a gun, not the neat bullet holes my
imagination had conjured up. 

But essentially I was at my happiest when I was invited to play. Nick Ball
has created a square construction, hung with 663 transparent plastic
bottles, hung from wires of different lengths. They are a satisfying thing
to touch, but it's only when you pluck up the courage to try to walk through
them that you appreciate the full point of the exercise. As they part in
front of you, you are walking through what you thought was a solid object,
but also surrounded by the sound they make. 

Rather like Jenny Cordy's Chromosphere at the beginning, it's as near as you
get to being in a different world. Only one complaint, and it's aimed at my
own limited imagination: I had to be urged to do it. Why couldn't I have
worked it out for myself? 

Sense and Sensuality is at Bankside Gallery, Hopton Street, London SE1
(020-7928 7521), until Oct 8. Peter White presents In Touch on Radio 4,
every Tuesday, at 8.40pm

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