A level, Exam Project, Fine Art, class tasks

1. This task is essential and must be completed as it is going to inform the task
you do in your next class. Better prep work = better outcome.

2. Before you do or think of anything watch this
short film about where ideas come from.
Where do ideas come from?

3. secrets,
codes and
conventions
This is the title
Now it’s no secret!

4. secrets, codes and conventions
Look up the meanings of the words
and begin to understand the theme
more in depth.
Mini task 1
Be proactive… Look the words up, not on the
internet but in a dictionary. You might find other
words that will help you figure out what you might
do later.

5. Let’s goFor your next lesson you need to record
your favourite journey. If you can’t choose then do
your second favourite journey.
Homework: A
Document each different journey by making drawings,
maps, writing, stream of consciousness, taking
photographs…. However you see fit to document
different journeys. Maybe the same journey looking
at different aspects of it X2/3/4 times.

6. i) Make a three minute
drawings of your
favourite car journey.
Think about…
your favourite journey/a familiar car/train journey,
somewhere you walk…
Make your drawing now

7. ii) Make a three minute
drawing of three
different buildings from
your journey.
Make your drawing now

8. iii) Make a line drawing that
combines both of the
drawings you made earlier.
[this is another drawing that
needs to be layers].
Task:
Overlay your drawings- what can you see?
Enlarge your drawing and cut it out. You are mimicking
a work by David Smith, ‘River Hudson Landscape’.
Let’s understand the context of that work.

9. David Smith USA b.1906 – d.1965

10. Many of Smith’s sculptures began as drawn ideas, and his works often resembles
what he referred to as “drawings in space”.
By refusing to transform the found elements of his pieces, Smith reminds the
viewer that these elements were sourced from a factory, so that the action of the
artist’s manufacture, similar to Pollock’s ‘action painting’, is evident. Rather
than carve or cast his sculptures, as was the
convention in three dimensional art at the
time, Smith welded his work together, a
process associated with industrial
manufacturing. Far more immediate that the
traditional sculptural process of casting
bronze, welding allowed Smith to work
spontaneously, much as a painter does.

11. iv) Make a line drawing
that combines both of
the drawings you made
earlier.
Make your drawing now.
2 minutes!

12. v) make a paper cut out
version of your drawing
reducing everything to line
and shapes from your
drawing
Make your drawing now.
2 minutes!

13. vi) Write a paragraph that
describes what you’ve
understood about this
process and idea.
Do this bit now
You should end up with a collage that visually describes the
journey you made

14. David Smith, River Hudson Landscape, 1951, Welded painted steel and stainless
steel , 123.8 × 183.2 × 44 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Audio guide stop for David Smith,
Hudson River Landscape, 1951

15. Task: Make your gallery trips easier by
downloading Artrabbit.
It will make exhibition visits easier and help
you find the exhibitions you want to see.
Please down load it before we go on the Art
Trip on the 8th February.

16. Task for the
National Gallery
During this gallery visit it is important that you pay attention to
what you are looking at. It’s not always going to be obvious why
the works in the National Gallery fit the theme of Secret, Codes
and Conventions, but they do. Listen carefully during the talk. Look
carefully at works by Turner, Manet, Van Gogh, Holbien, Stubbs,
van Eyck, Velazquez, Canaletto… The list of names is endless. Look
hard at these works and make connections and links that highlight
the themes.
Most of these works were at the forefront of time, avant garde.
Their stories, meanings and their reception has been dimmed over
time, but scratch a little and below the surface there is the treasure
and permission for you to make your own work.

17. Take photographs in the gallery… of everything. Document.
Make drawings. Listen. Take your time when looking. This might be
the day you understand the difference between seeing the actual
art object and looking at the endless copies and fragments you
experience as second or even third hand representationa of art
works. Remember, unless you’re stood in front
of the art work, you’re not actually
experiencing the art work. Its somewhere
else. [if you only ever listen to Ed Sheeran records, then you’ve
never seen the real thing play live. It’s always a recording of him
singing. Something manipulated and different to the actual Ed
singing his little heart out].
The way you engage with the building and the works in it will
inform what you do next when you return to the classroom.

18. Paul Cezanne
Bathers
about 1900-6
Henri Rousseau
Tiger in a Tropical Storm
(Surprised)
1891
Rembrandt
Belshazzar’s Feast
About 1636-8
Leonardo da Vinci
The Virgin of the Rocks
About 1508
Titian
Bacchus and Ariadne
1522-3
Diego Velazquez
Kitchen Scene with Christ in the
House of Martha and Mary
1618?
Paintings in the National Gallery… They’re old but they’re said to be by masters for a reason!

19. Caravaggio
Boy bitten by a Lizard
about 1594-5
Paul Delaroche
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
1833
Antonello da Messina
Saint Jerome in his Study
About 1475-6
Jan van Eyck
The Portrait of Giovanni(?) Arnolfini
and his Wife (‘The Arnolfini Portrait’)
1434
Hans Holbein the Younger
Jean de Dinteville and Georges de
Selve (‘The Ambassadors’)
1533
Vincent van Gogh
The Sunflowers
1888
These paintings
and the ones on
the next slide are
the kinds of
works that are
held in the
National Galleries
collection.
The National
Gallery was
founded in 1824.
The Government
set it up from the
sale of old
masters
collection of John
Julius Angerstein
and the
unexpected
repayment by
Australia of a war
debt.
The first painting
in the collection
was The Raising
of Lazarus by
Sebastiano del
Piombo and bears
the accession
number ‘1’ in the
collection.

20. Sebastiano del Piombo
The Raising of Lazarus
1517–1519
Oil on wood, transferred to canvas

21. • a
Gerhard Richter painting over photographs 1
Richter dragged painting over photographs.
i) Obscuring the image.
ii) Breaking image conventions.

22. a
• a
Gerhard Richter painting over photographs 2
Task
Take images, post cards, drawings… you have collected
from the National Gallery and then drag paint over the
top of them to obscure the original image.

23. When you’re back from the National Gallery and
you’ve got the drawings, post cards, photographs
and writing you did in the gallery gathered in one
place…
Task
i) Using all the different
elements you’ve
brought back from the
gallery, create different
composition from them
and then make a work
based on you
composition. The
original, your copy, your
reworking, your work
again.
ii) It’s an elaborate
journey but the
meaning and
conventions, prescribed
codes and secrets from
the original setting are
exploited in this
process.
iii) Add another new layer at the last minute of your own invention.
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov

24. This is the point where you take a breather and
think about things so far. Why don’t you reflect on
what you’ve done before we move on.
Like an Ad break but better because…
Back to work now…
Next task

25. Let’s think about signs and the different
things they tell us.
Alejandro Diaz
Let’s look at the work of Bob and Roberta
Smith… but before we do that let’s think
about Susan Hillers
Hillers starts off by looking at Postman’s
Park. The idea of Postman’s Park is that
the Victorians wanted to create a
monument that celebrated humble
Londoner’s who lost their lives in the
attempt to help and rescue others.
POSTMAN’S PARK… check it out.
King Edward Street,
London EC1A 7BT
½ term
homework
.

26. Alejandro Diaz
Task Susan Hillers, Monument, 1980 as installed in Tate Britain.
Hillers takes her inspiration from Post Mans Park. An old forgotten Victorian
Monument in the memory of Londoner’s who gave their lives to save others.

28. Task Your mission is to visit and document Postman’s Park.
Once you have done that you must make signs of your own.
Think about what you want to say.
What is the message your signs will deliver?
Tate Modern
is just over the
river from
Postman’s
Park. Past St
Pauls and over
the Millenium
Bridge. Make
good use of
your time and
go in to Tate
Modern after
your visit to
Postman’s
Park. Be
inspired by
other art
works.

29. Task 3 In response to Postman’s Park
Alejandro Diaz
Make a sign. It’s not as easy are you might first think, so, think again.
Think differently about it.
i) Avoid cliches. You don’t want your sign to be like something you might send as
a message in a birthday card. Bad idea!
Ii) Do consider how Susan Hillers used Postman’s Park. It already existed, the
poetry of the idea is re-enforced in the language used to express the story
iii) Use news paper headlines in order to arrive at the language and sentiment of
what your message.
iv) Do look at the way Bob and Roberta Smith make art works that look like signs.
Consider the way these works are presented.
v) Make an interesting presentation of your sign
Willie Baronet Howard Finster Robert Montgomery

30. Bob and Roberta Smith English b1963
Art gives a voice to the voiceless:
Bob and Roberta Smith
at TEDxCourtauldInstitute

35. Willie Baronet

36. For your next lesson you need to bring a small object. The
object should be something that is meaningful to you but
not something you’re going to cry over if it doesn’t survive
the process.
Do not discuss your object with anyone else.
It’s not exactly a secret but keep it to yourself.
Keep it under
wraps.
P.S. Your going to need fabric
and string and soft materials
to do this next task. The more
the better.

37. Piero Manzoni Italian b. 1933 – d 1963

38. Discuss
No other details…
What’s going on here
then?
What is this sculpture
about?

40. Piero Manzoni Artista. Find out more about naughty boy Manzoni did by
watching this documentary when you’ve got more
time. It’s going to help you conceptualise your own
work.
Same thing, just in different languages.
Manzoni is here not because of the content of the tins but the idea of putting
something into a tin or box and sealing it so that one else can open. In effect,
creating an secret.

41. A netsuke is a small sculptural object which has gradually
developed in Japan over a period of more than three hundred
years. Netsuke (singular and plural) initially served both functional
and aesthetic purposes.
The traditional form of Japanese dress, the kimono, had no pockets.
Find out about the function of Netsuke and explore
it potential as an idea relating to the theme.
Netsuke
Netsuke

42. Judith Scott USA b1943 – d2005

44. Judith Scott working
Judith Scott + Ability
Check out Creative Growth
an amazing institution
based on Oakland, CA, USA

45. Boxers wrap their hands before putting on
their boxing gloves.
Here Muhammad Ali demonstrating
wrapped hands for you.

46. Lets wrap stuff. Lets wrap secrets.
Non Art object Art object
Task:
Take one of the objects and continue to wrap it. Keep wrapping until your object
is twice as big as your own head. Add materials you think might be relevant to the
object being wrapped.
Ann Hamilton discusses how to
animate objects and allow
process into your own practise.
Listen to this.

47. Task:
Consider what the object at the centre of your wrapping might be.
Make a large drawing of a small thing. Photograph your object and then
photocopy the image and make it as big as you can. Make another drawing based
on your photographed image.

48. Extend this task by making links to other forms of
wrapping.
Wrapping of dead bodies.
The Turin shroud
Egyptian mummies
Gifts
Etc…
Make visual links and explain how wrapping has been
used in different cultures to mean and represent
different things.

49. Task
Look here’s Sarah Lucas with a fish
her shoulder. Take encouragemen
from Lucas’ action and put your
sculpture under your arm and tak
for a walk.
Install your wrapped sculpture in
different locations and photograp
as documentation of your act…
Living room, bath room, in woods
public spaces, Trafalgar Square, th
wilder the location the better.
It’s a bit like Paul Klee’s taking a lin
for a walk… only you’re doing so w
your own sculpture.