Education Resource

Look This Way

Teachers:Thank you for your interest in UTS ART and our Education and Outreach program.

This resource was developed by UTS ART Education and Outreach for the UTS Gallery exhibition Look This Way. It is intended to provide some extra information and insight into the works and artists in the exhibition, and suggests some classroom and independent learning and artmaking activities based on the show and related themes and concepts.

While aligned with the NSW BOS Visual Arts Stage 5 Syllabus, it is designed to be easily adaptable for other educational frameworks and age groups, for students working within other subject areas, with non-English speaking backgrounds and with specific needs. This resource can both support an excursion and be used independently.

The booklet includes space for note-taking and key words are highlighted in a glossary to support understanding, vocabulary and literacy development. It is our belief that art and learning through and about art lies at the convergence of thinking and making, and our activities aim to reflect this. Green boxes indicate questions for discussion which could also be used for extended response writing practise.

For NSW teachers and students, activities are structured around the Frames, Conceptual Framework and Practices.

We hope that you and your students enjoy working with this resource.

Students: Whether or not you have visited our exhibition Look This Way, we hope that you learn some new and interesting things from this kit about the artists involved and their work.

There is space through this booklet for you to record notes and ideas. Sometimes we have highlighted new or important words in bold. These words, ideas and concepts are explained in the glossary at the back of the booklet.

This resource should help you learn a little bit about a group of contemporary Australian artists working with signs and signage. The last part of this kit suggesst some other Australian and international artists whose work you might want to find out more about. You may recognise some of them.

Signs are found everywhere around us. So much so that we often take them for granted. Perhaps after learning more about some of these artists you will notice a little bit more how our environments direct and affect our attention and experiences.

Happy learning and happy artmaking!

<3 UTS ART

@utsart

utsart

art.uts.edu.au

INSTALLATION VIEW

Photo: David Lawrey

Make a log of all the different signs you see on your way to

or from school. You can jot them down in your VAPD or take photos. Are there more signs around than you thought? Note how the people around interact with them, including you!

Make a photo essay of signs up around your school. Think about

how to set up interesting compositions. Photo essays sometimes construct a narrative or story. See if you can tell a story through your images.

EXHIBITION

Look This Way is an exploration of signage by seven Sydney artists. Signs surround us everywhere we go. But we rarely stop to think about how they influence our experiences: what we see, where we go, how we interact with our environments and with other people.

Each of the artists in this exhibition has tackled signage in a different way. Some works prompt us to consider how signs affect our sense of space, others to think about how we rely on them for information. And what about us as viewers? The way we interact with both signs and signage, and with art, is another idea explored by some of these artists.

Recently our visual culture has exploded through growth and development in media and technology as well as advertising, business and globalisation. Sometimes we take aspects of this visual culture for granted. We expect to be told certain information, and we often just ignore other messages that don’t stand out enough for us to notice them.

This exhibition makes us think a bit more about the aesthetic and functional qualities of elements of our visual world.

Look This Way UTS ART Gallery5 March - 5 April 2013

Alex GawronskiAdrian GebersSebastian GoldspinkShane HasemanBiljana JancicSean LowryPhilipa Veitch

Signs and symbols are visual cues that help communicate important information very quickly. Symbols often represent something else - something in the real world, or an idea.

Because we do not all speak the same language, visual cues such as signs are often a very effective means of communication. They are effective because enough people identify what they are, and associate them with the same thing.

Signs and symbols usually work because everybody agrees that they mean the same thing. For example, traffic lights work because everyone agrees to identify a red light as meaning ‘stop’ and a green light as meaning ‘go’.

...we can automatically interpret mere shapes and colours as signifying something very specific...

— Alex Gawronski

Signs and Symbols

FOCUS ON

Richard Tipping is an Australian artist who appropriates signs to change their meaning. By making them suddenly say something different to what we are used to, he makes us stop and question visual aspects of our daily lives.

Richard TippingMeat Mart 1980Screenprint, 102.5 x 64.4 cm

Go for a walk around your school and take photos of your favourite signs.

Appropriate one of these signs to make a comment about your environment. You can do this on photoshop, or make a new sign on cardboard. Hang your new sign up in a relevant spot, and document your installation.

FROM THE UTS ART COLLECTION

Alex Gawronski Welcome 2013 digital animation

Signs and symbols are visual cues that help communicate important information very quickly. Symbols often represent something else - something in the real world, or an idea.

Because we do not all speak the same language, visual cues such as signs are often a very effective means of communication. They are a common language through which we can communicate ideas, warnings and other types of information.

Signs and symbols usually work because everybody agrees that they mean the same thing. For example, traffic lights work because everyone agrees to identify a red light as meaning ‘stop’ and a green light as meaning ‘go’.

...we can automatically interpret mere shapes and colours as signifying something very specific...

— Alex Gawronski

Signs and Symbols

FOCUS ON

Richard Tipping is an Australian artist who appropriates signs to change their meaning. By making them suddenly say something different to what we are used to, he makes us stop and question visual aspects of our daily lives.

Richard TippingMeat Mart 1980Screenprint, 102.5 x 64.4 cm

Go for a walk around your school and take photos of your favourite signs.

Appropriate one of these signs to make a comment about your environment. You can do this on photoshop, or make a new sign on cardboard. Hang your new sign up in a relevant spot, and document your installation.

FROM THE UTS ART COLLECTION

When did signage insert itself so forcefully into our visual and spatial environments?

— Alex Gawronski

Adrian Gebers No Photo 2011 oil on canvas 150×150 cm

ARTIST PROFILE

Adrian Gebers’ No Photo (2011) is a large-scale painting of a sign you may have seen before in a gallery or museum.

A lot of artworks in galleries and museums are not allowed to be photographed. Usually this is to protect the artworks from light damage and fading that can result from flash photography over time. Sometimes artworks cannot be photographed for copyright or cultural reasons.

This artwork could be interpreted as a comment on a few different things, including what we are allowed and not allowed to do, who says we can and cannot do things, and, interestingly on our relationship with art, especially in galleries.

It’s interesting to think about the sign that usually accompanies an artwork as an artwork in itself. In fact, beside this painting is a small printed sign with the same symbol on it.

Adrian Geber’s interest in signs and how they affect our feelings, thoughts and movements is also reflected in his work Jan Van Der Ploeg WALL PAINTING No.288. This consisted of a series of giant adjacent triangles painted in sequence around all the walls of a gallery. Visitors entering the space seemed drawn to walk in the direction the triangles were pointing. The shapes suddenly turned into arrows, and before you knew it, the arrows were guiding or leading your movements around the space.

Adrian GebersJan Van Der Ploeg WALL PAINTING No.288 (detail) 2010

In his artwork No Photo, Adrian Gebers has used a specific, well known symbol. Describe how he has used it, and what this achieves.

I get annoyed when I go to a museum and see people framing everything they see through the viewfinder of a camera and mediating the experience with an LCD screen. So many artworks require that first hand experience to be understood…

— Adrian Gebers

Adrian Gebers

Notes & Ideas:

www.adriangebers.com

Sean Lowry Unaustralia 2013 overpainted wall painting acrylic sign writing and gallery stock paint 1800×1990 cm

ARTIST PROFILE

Unaustralia (2013) is an example of Sean Lowry’s practice of ‘overpainting’. This is a process that involves painting a sign or symbol on a wall, usually one that refers to a very strong concept, and then painting over it with layers of white paint until it is almost invisible.

As an artwork, it is interesting that the most obvious thing about it is its imperceptibility. Part of the artwork is the fact that something has been taken away from view. But is still there, lurking under the surface if you take the time to look carefully.

In a way this artwork is an anti-sign. Instead of demanding your attention, it creeps up on you, and rewards you for noticing detail. This quiet subtlety is something that many people believe we are slowly losing in our visual culture. As much as the media bombards us with information, it also blocks a lot of other information from ever reaching us. Perhaps this artwork is referring to all the things that we don’t talk about.

You could examine this artwork culturally, politically or symbolically. One of the ideas this artwork might be exploring is how many of the truths of Australia’s history are covered up or ‘whitewashed’.

You may have heard the term “unaustralian” before. Have you ever

thought about what this word means? See if you can find a news article in which this word has been used. What has been described as “unaustralian”?

- Make a class list of what was described as “unaustralian” in your found articles.

- Use that list to make another list of what is implied to be “Australian”.

- Do you think the media is constructing a particular idea of what is “Australian”? Does it match up with your experience?

Sean Lowry’s practice of overpainting could be thought of in political terms. How does his technique help convey his message?

Sean LowryNotes & Ideas:

www.seanlowry.com

The overpainted wall painting is finally neither entirely absent tor present.

— Sean Lowry

Biljana Jancic Above 2013 barricade tape dimensions vary

ARTIST PROFILE

Biljana Jancic has recently been using different kinds of barrier tape to make artworks that question how physical barriers inform and affect our experience of space.Instead of discouraging you from entering, has a barrier ever drawn your attention and sparked your curiosity?

We don’t often think about the space we are in. Sometimes it’s not until we get really uncomfortable, or something very noticable changes, that we even notice how space can affect our mood, our feelings or our thoughts.

Above (2013) consists of long ribbons of barrier tape draped to partially cover an area of the ceiling. Gallery audiences usually focus their attention on the walls, as that is typically where artworks are situated. Jancic makes us look up at the ceiling - a part of the gallery we don’t usually pay much attention to. The message on the tape—’Danger, overhead work in progress’—makes us wonder what is being covered up, and what ‘work’ is going on above. It could be the artwork itself. It could be the lighting, tracking and other physical aspects of the gallery building. Or it could be the work going on in the offices and classrooms of the university on the level above the gallery.

Biljana Jancic

Notes & Ideas:

Like all my work, Above is created so that it looks different from various angles and at different proximities... It actually invites the audience to explore it and move around the space, hence in a way choreographing the movement of the visitor through the space.

— Biljana Jancic

www.biljanajancic.com

Biljana Jancic’s work Above was designed especially for this exhibition, She built and installed it in the space in the weeks leading up to the show.

Does the way Jancic has constructed her work affect its meaning? What makes Above site-sepcific?

Sebastian Goldspink X8 (So What?) 2013 neon 22×196 cm

ARTIST PROFILE

This artwork is a little bit different to other works in the show, because it was inspired by a personal experience. Sebastian Goldspink used a line that he came up with that described how he felt at a particular time, and turned it into a big glowing neon sign. By fabricating a sign in a style usually used for business or advertising, he seems to have taken the statement out of the personal realm, and changed its meaning.

Many artists have worked with neon signs. What does neon remind you of? Think about the colour. Although this artwork is glowing, it has a very cold and harsh light. This could be one way that Goldspink conveys the conflicting personal feelings in his work.

Sebastian Goldspink’s artwork was inspired by a personal experience. Is this obvious? Does finding this out change how you perceive this artwork? How has Goldspink achieved a particular emotional mood?

Sebastian Goldspink

I originally came up with this line a few months ago when I was upset with someone I cared about. I wrote it on a wall in pen in my studio and just kept looking at it. Wondering what it meant. It was about someone I love but also is about someone I hate. I originally posted a photo of the hand written version on a social media site. It was a way of reaching out to the person that I love and equally sending a message of anger to a person I hated. So I feel very mixed feelings emotionally about the work.

— Sebastian Goldspink

Sebastian Goldspink also works as the director of an artist-run initiative (ARI) called Alaska Projects. The gallery is inside a carpark in Sydney’s King’s Cross. ARIs allow artists to stage projects and exhibit their work without the restrictions of a formal relationship with a commercial gallery.

Find out about the different types of galleries artists could be involved in. What are the pros and cons of each?

Think/Pair/Share: Think of the sorts of things artists do as part of their job. What activities are involved in being an artist? Brainstorm with a partner then share your ideas with the class.

Write a poem inspired by this work.You might want to use this line as a starting point, or make up your own. Think about how your poem would look in neon!

Adrian Gebers No Photo 2011 oil on canvas 150×150 cm

Have you ever felt that some of the images portrayed in the media were a bit wrong, or even offensive?

In 1993, a group of artists in Sydney made a statement against sexist advertising by changing the text on a huge billboard near their art college in Rozelle. While they knew they were breaking the law, they felt very strongly about images of violence against women, especially glamourised ones like this one. They felt that these sorts of images in the media promoted a culture of sexism and normalised violence. It made them very angry to know that brands and advertisers were using such images to sell their products.

They added the words ‘even if you’re mutilated’ to this ad that said ‘You’ll always feel good in Berlei’, a well-known Australian lingerie brand. The group was arrested and taken to court, though the magistrate agreed that violent and misogynistic advertising culture needed to stop, and they were not formally charged.

Although this story took place twenty years ago, many people believe that not much has changed in advertising. Look at ads on posters, in magazines and online. See if you can adapt a print ad to comment on the advertising industry.

ARTIST PROFILE

Philipa Veitch has constructed three sandwichboard or A-Frame signs for this exhibition. But usually, A-Frames have signs on one or both sides, advertising something or perhaps encouraging you to enter a shop or café. Philipa has made one side of her A-frames out of a double-sided mirror, and the other side empty. The mirrored sides reflect the surrounding environment, including, sometimes, the viewer.

Signage and advertising material usually project a message outwards, into the outside world. The ones in Philipa’s artwork, however, seem to be taking information in, and reflecting you back at yourself. The audience becomes part of the artwork, and part of the sign. Although everyone is looking at the same thing, what each person sees is slightly different.

Philipa Veitch’s work Objective Field sets up a particular relationship between the audience and the artwork. Describe what this is, how she has achieved it, and what message it helps her to convey.

Philipa Veitch

Set up a small group of mirrors in your classroom in a still-life style arrangement. Draw what you can see from the place where you are seated. What have your classmates drawn? Could they see things from their perspective that you did not?

Philipa Veitch Objective Field 2013 powdercoated steel, glass mirrors dimensions vary

Alex Gawronski has two works in this exhibition, both of which examine gallery practice and the art world.

Machine blends right in to the gallery setting. It blends in so well that it can be overlooked as an artwork entirely. Visitors expect to see labels like this one placed near artworks. They include information that is supposed to help the audience understand the work.However, if you read the work closely, you realise that Gawronski’s gallery wall label is actually describing itself.

Gawronski seems to be thinking about how we interact with art in a gallery setting and the role of the gallery in the life of an artwork. He is also making us think about the sign as an artwork, and the artwork as a sign. Both are communicating with us, but what happens when they say the same thing?

Alex Gawronski’s works Welcome and Machine both make jokes about how galleries work. This is quite ironic considering they are artworks in a gallery. Explain why these artworks might be considered to have postmodern qualities.

Notes & Ideas:

When we look at art, is background information important, or should we be able to ‘read’ an artwork on its own?

Alex Gawronski

To make this work, Shane Haseman hired a professional signwriter to hand-paint these signs on the gallery window. This was how shop window signs used to be made, although now this process is usually automatic and digital. He is also exploring the language of advertising by making ironic statements about how we engage with art and ideas.

In a way, Shane Haseman is thinking about the history of signage and advertising. He seems to be saying that signs used to be simpler in their appearance and message, yet at the same time more laborious to produce. Do you think this might have made people pay more or less attention to them? These days, all the different signs and advertisements around us are all competing with each other for our attention, and seem to be shouting louder and louder to be heard above the din.

Think about Shane Haseman’s practice. If he employed a signwriter to paint his signs onto the gallery window, is he still the artist? Describe what you think makes someone an artist.

Notes & Ideas:Shane Haseman

FOCUS ON

Many artists have made signs or explored language in different and interesting ways. Often these artists have been interested in how we communicate, and how we make meaning of the world around us.

Here are just a few examples of artists and artworks you might like to find out more about. You may have seen the work of some of these artists before.

Signs and Language

Rosalie Gascoigne was an Australian - New Zealander artist whose practice was based in found object assemblage. In this series, she reassembled fragments of old, weathered roadsigns into very beautiful and visually striking formations. You can just imagine speeding down a highway at night and catching flashes of reflected yellow roadsigns as you pass. Rosalie Gascoigne was the first woman to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale.

Use ads or signs from magazines and newspapers to make your own mini assemblage collage.

Think about whether you will include legible words, or crop pieces very close so that the letters just turn into colours and shapes. You might want to stick to a certain colour palette, or rearrange words on a certain theme to form a poem. Arrange your cut out pieces to make a visually interesting arrangement.

Make up your own extended response question linking one

of these artworks to one of the themes or artworks in Look This Way. Swap with your classmates to practise your writing!

Facing Page:

Top Right Barbara Kruger Untitled (I Shop Therefore I am) 1987 photographic silkscreen on vinyl, 282 x 287cm

Middle Left Rosalie Gasgoigne Metropolis 1999 retro reflective roadsign on wood, 232 × 319.5cm

Bottom Left Jenny Holzer Protect Me From What I Want 1985-7 LED sign, installation at Times Square, New York.

This Page:

Top Right Simon Patterson The Great Bear 1992 lithograph on paper, 1027 x 1280cm

Middle Left Mel Ramsden Secret Painting 1967-8 oil on canvas, photostat, 79 × 79cm, 65.5 x 65.5 cm

Bottom Left Tom Polo I Promise This Will Be Worth Something One Day* 2010 Acrylic wall painting, width 300cm

Simon Patterson’s artwork The Great Bear is also an appropriation of a very functional sign – the map of the London underground. He has replaced all the stations with the names of various people through history. Those familiar with the London map will recognise it instantly, but then notice that something is awry. Patterson has made this normally very practical sign redundant by removing all the useul information and replacing it with the names of famous people.

Do you catch the train or bus? Find the map or timetable of the transport you most use, and use it to make your own artwork.

You could change the text, add colour, draw over the top of it, or use it as the basis of a sculpture. See if you can express an idea about how you travel or where you live. Can an artwork be functional as well as beautiful? Can a sign be an artwork?

Aesthetic means how something looks, or its visual properties (as opposed to functional - how it works).

Appropriate To appropriate something means to adapt it in a way that changes its meaning, while still acknowledging the original meaning or purpose.

Artist Run Initiative (ARI) Usually a gallery, project space or workshop that is set up and run by artists together to allow them and their peers to make and show their work.

Assemblage is an artmaking process in which already existing bits and pieces are put together or ‘assembled’.

Awry If something is awry it is not in its normal position. Shifted, askew.

Colour palette Means the colour or group of colours being used. Think of the colours found on a painter’s palette.

Composition is how different elements or pieces are arranged together, especially in an artwork.

Fabricate means to make or build using an industrial process - to manufacture.

Glossary

Found Object In art, this refers to a type of sculpture made of objects that already existed (as opposed to making them from scratch as in pottery).

Functional means how something fulfils its purpose, how useful it is or how it works (as opposed to aesthetic - how it looks).

Globalisation is the breaking down of barriers between countries so that ideas and resources can be shared. This is often used in reference to economic activity.

Imperceptible Not able to be seen.

Installation An installation is a type of 3D artwork that needs to be set up in a particular place for display.

Irony When the actual meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning.

Mediate To mediate means to filter a direct process - to step in between and be in a middle position.

Misogyny A strong negative attitude towards females, a hatred of women.

Narrative A story, often one that describes events in the order in which they took place.

Photo Essay A series of photographs that tells a story or explores a topic.

Proximity is how near or far something is from something else.

Redundant No longer useful or needed.

Subtle If something is subtle, it is not obvious. Delicate, gentle, understated.

Visual Cues Signals, directions or instructions given visually.

Visual Culture includes all the things around us that we can see, especially those that are made to communicate messages, eg. photos, film, posters.

Images

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (I Shop Therefore I am) 1987 photographic silkscreen on vinyl, 282 x 287cm Retrieved March 2013 from http://www.maryboonegallery.com/artist_info/pages/kruger/detail1.html

Rosalie Gasgoigne, Metropolis 1999 retro reflective roadsign on wood, 232 × 319.5cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Retrieved March 2013 from http://m.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media/collection_images/1/187.1999%23%23S.jpg

Jenny Holzer, Protect Me From What I Want 1985-7 LED sign, installation view at Times Square, New York. Retrieved March 2013 from http://emu-memu.net/art/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tumblr_kvcn9cZcsO1qzn6jzo1_500.jpg

Simon Patterson, The Great Bear 1992 lithograph on paper, 1027 x 1280cm, TATE, London. Retrieved March 2013 from http://maeveconwayfried.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/patterson_great_bear851.jpg

Mel Ramsden, Secret Painting 1967-8 oil on canvas, photostat, 79 × 79cm, 65.5 x 65.5 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Retrieved March 2013 from http://m.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media/collection_images/3/30.2003.a-b%23%23S.jpg

Tom Polo, I Promise This Will Be Worth Something One Day* 2010 Acrylic wall painting, width 300cm. Retrieved March 2013 from http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1-xCIEJ5aDI/TGVSHoOtnBI/AAAAAAAAAbE/4PlxCGCOZ5I/s1600/14.jpg

Look This Way Exhibition documentation photography by David Lawrey.

‘Women’s Sign of Victory’ Lisa Green, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 January 1993

UTS ART Education and Outreach offers a rich and flexible program of activities tailored to specific student groups from a variety of backgrounds and ages – from pre-school up to university level.

These include events and workshops based on the Gallery and Art Collection exhibition programs, which are held on campus to connect students and their teachers with contemporary art and ideas in a warm, welcoming and supportive environment.

Education resources that accompany our program, such as this one, are specifically aligned with school syllabi and available online for use in the classroom via the Education page on the Gallery website.

This Project supports the UTS Widening Participation Strategy (WPS), and is assisted by the Australian Government through funding from the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) distributed by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISTRE).