21.3.14 - 17.5.14
William Cobbing Transactions of the duddo field club
The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
'An epi[pro]logue for an on-going conversation with sticky mother nature herself'
by holly argent
Across stepping stones and secluded landscape, over mounds of soil, through pools of water we follow at the ankles of a solitary clay man. A disciple figure on the moors of northern countryside carrying out his last act of creation and devotion: the firing of a handmade bell.
Before even watching the film, I feel complicit in a ritual or burning at the stake when I sit down on the orange stool; one of four impressed with gestures of the hand movements, squeezes, and pinches of emotion that went into making them. Feeling somewhat connected to the three others sat either side of me, an un-identifiable crackling sound makes me nervous even before a defaced, living-dead clay man appears solemn projected in front of me. Split into 5 different sections, the fade-to-blacks work in separating the different states of mind and stages in making; washing; preparing; working on blind intuition - adding clay, subtracting clay, smoothing, impressing letters, torching, firing, resting, discovery; a bell chiming - ultimately function being realised.
Cobbing’s encouragement in traditional forms of craftsmanship could be seen as a criticism of contemporary quick and automatic modes of (art) production. However I think this film holds more credit acting as a reminder of the organic origin herewith integrity of craftsmanship using the earth’s resources.
The hands, limbs and skin we construct art from are just as much elemental ancestors of the ground as the materials we bind together to create artworks. InEpilogue’s case the creator, fire and clay off a man’s back are all equally as valuable in materialising objects. Cobbing’s clay man is perhaps an embodiment of a ‘helping hand’ that questions, pauses or shapes reality: an artist. Interestingly, in a bold move the idea of artists as immaculate creators of new objects and concepts is challenged while the ceremonial performative aspects of creation itself are given importance.
The making of this bell is almost Godly, ethereal, a removed act of transferral from one material to another - almost Courbetian. It’s noteworthy that only in the physical destruction of the creator during the firing process does the bell become a finite object. The feeling of uneasiness implies a compassion for creators, the lone nature of art making and the expectations a maker is moulded by. What is left is archival material, broken objects and limb-like pieces, half buried in his own grave, reminiscent of objects in Daniel Silver and Artangel’s DIG (2013). Is this the fate of all artworks?
Because of the circulatory notion of creation and the ubiquitous relationship humans (artists in particular) have to the Earth, I find it almost saddening to assent its title Epilogue which suggests completion. That said, this film neither acts as a prologue, it’s more a continuous epilogue, a never-ending conversation toing and froing from the earth to hands, from immaterial to material ideas. Creation is neither a solitary act nor an existential mythological one and Cobbing very well highlights the unavoidable mutuality between Mother Nature and craft. As the clay protagonist does, this dynamic continuum pushes both parties’ forwards to create and then re-create, die and then transform and without it we and Cobbing himself would be incapable of upholding the truth of materials through art.
William Cobbing is the Lipman Artist in Residence at Newcastle University. His filmEpilogue is part of the exhibition Transactions of the Duddo Field Club on at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle 21 March-17 May.
For more information on the artist visit http://williamcobbing.com
Before even watching the film, I feel complicit in a ritual or burning at the stake when I sit down on the orange stool; one of four impressed with gestures of the hand movements, squeezes, and pinches of emotion that went into making them. Feeling somewhat connected to the three others sat either side of me, an un-identifiable crackling sound makes me nervous even before a defaced, living-dead clay man appears solemn projected in front of me. Split into 5 different sections, the fade-to-blacks work in separating the different states of mind and stages in making; washing; preparing; working on blind intuition - adding clay, subtracting clay, smoothing, impressing letters, torching, firing, resting, discovery; a bell chiming - ultimately function being realised.
Cobbing’s encouragement in traditional forms of craftsmanship could be seen as a criticism of contemporary quick and automatic modes of (art) production. However I think this film holds more credit acting as a reminder of the organic origin herewith integrity of craftsmanship using the earth’s resources.
The hands, limbs and skin we construct art from are just as much elemental ancestors of the ground as the materials we bind together to create artworks. InEpilogue’s case the creator, fire and clay off a man’s back are all equally as valuable in materialising objects. Cobbing’s clay man is perhaps an embodiment of a ‘helping hand’ that questions, pauses or shapes reality: an artist. Interestingly, in a bold move the idea of artists as immaculate creators of new objects and concepts is challenged while the ceremonial performative aspects of creation itself are given importance.
The making of this bell is almost Godly, ethereal, a removed act of transferral from one material to another - almost Courbetian. It’s noteworthy that only in the physical destruction of the creator during the firing process does the bell become a finite object. The feeling of uneasiness implies a compassion for creators, the lone nature of art making and the expectations a maker is moulded by. What is left is archival material, broken objects and limb-like pieces, half buried in his own grave, reminiscent of objects in Daniel Silver and Artangel’s DIG (2013). Is this the fate of all artworks?
Because of the circulatory notion of creation and the ubiquitous relationship humans (artists in particular) have to the Earth, I find it almost saddening to assent its title Epilogue which suggests completion. That said, this film neither acts as a prologue, it’s more a continuous epilogue, a never-ending conversation toing and froing from the earth to hands, from immaterial to material ideas. Creation is neither a solitary act nor an existential mythological one and Cobbing very well highlights the unavoidable mutuality between Mother Nature and craft. As the clay protagonist does, this dynamic continuum pushes both parties’ forwards to create and then re-create, die and then transform and without it we and Cobbing himself would be incapable of upholding the truth of materials through art.
William Cobbing is the Lipman Artist in Residence at Newcastle University. His filmEpilogue is part of the exhibition Transactions of the Duddo Field Club on at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle 21 March-17 May.
For more information on the artist visit http://williamcobbing.com