Expanded Studio Project, Wysing Arts Centre, July 2013

Expanded Studio Project

Wysing Arts Centre 

March - July 2013

Erica Böhr engaged in dialogues with fellow Wysing studio artists Rob Smith, Alexandra Drysdale and Elena Cologni.

The project resulted in cross-pollination of ideas, themes and narratives, as well as more formal properties in the inter-practice exchanges. 

1. Rob Smith:  After a discussion about Rauschenberg erasure of one of de Kooning’s drawings (at Rauschenberg’s request), Rob gave Erica an original photograph, which she altered. Erica collaged a hyena and a space hopper onto Rob’s print of a Martian landscape, which he then reprinted as an new analogue photograph with the alterations and reinserted the new work into his photographic installation. 

"Hyena goes to Mars", 2013, altered analogue print

2. Erica’s response to one of Alexandra Drysdale’s mixed media sculptures resulted in ‘The Celestial Teapot Party’, an installation and interactive performance. 

Still from performance of "The Celestial Teapot Party",at Wysing Arts Centre, July 2013

Visitors are invited to sit on the chairs and have a discussion with the artist (when she is present, or among themselves.  Visitors are requested to choose one of the props on offer as they do so. 

The ‘celestial teapot’ references the philosopher Bertrand Russell’s notion of unfalsifiability (inability to disprove) of the existence of God.  He argued that it is as feasible that his assertion that there is a flying teapot in orbit between earth and Mars is true, as it too cannot be disproved. With reference to contemporary art practices that are framed by political concerns, Erica would argue that these approaches are themselves unfalsifiable, as they are rooted in the artist’s subjectivity.  It is this grey area of slippage and ambiguity in the work’s ‘meaning’ and its reception that is of interest to her.

3.  A prolonged discussion over 2 sessions with Elena Cologni, sharing 

narratives of motherhood, feminism and their lives growing up 

outside the UK, informed Erica’s digital print.  The work was inspired by a 

line taken from one of Elena’s catalogues, a stage direction for a 

performance ‘on a balcony sweeping the floor crying’, an incident 

recounted from Elena’s memories of an encounter with her mother in Milan where she grew up.

"ne Becomes a Woman", 2013, digital print

 Map designed and reprinted with permission by Lisa Wilkens