Week 6 - Steve Lovett

How has Steve Lovett's practice evolved over the period of his professional career, ie from political, social & historical concerns to issues of colour and form?

Steve Lovett's work encompasses many layers of thought and physical construction, and although it has developed and evolved in style and content throughout his career, a running theme is how poignantly deep, passionate and personal it is to himself, his life and his beliefs. His work is layered and lost to the point where I feel quite overwhelmed and at sea in its depths!

Lovett is interested in the use of time and movement within a space in his artworks. He has always lived in the same area, and has observed the changes it has undertaken over the years. Coming from a single parent family combines with this to explain early exploration of themes such as the home space and loss. He is interested in providing his subjects with a voice, his early works utilising typography to convey this. Time is illustrated in these works in blurred images and backgrounds, multiple images and abstract colours and forms. The personal and policital are inseperable and indistinguishable to Lovett, the larger political picture relating directly and immediately to the present state of society. He considers in these works the political movement in the past 25 years, the priority given to private companies, and the rich/poor divide. These works are layered in meaning, as well as layered visually - literally, type upon images.

It seems to me a natural progression from typography to the use of sound to convey a personal monolgue for the subject, given his interest in time and creating a voice, or record, of the individual. Combining still images and sound allowed Lovett to create a vividly temporal representation of a subject, as well as spacial, and invites the audience to consider the past, present and future of the subjects. This 'record' he has created challenges the public record of events & history, providing his own record for the future, which he believes to be closer to the truth and less tainted/biased. His theory is that a person's recording is incontestable. This relates to his rejection of faith in the powers which hold the official records, empowering him in this way, allowing him to contribute to history & indirectly dispel some of his anger anger towards the situation of the world.

I posed this question to Dion Hitchens' after his lecture; why, if he is Chinese-Maori and so interested in cultural art, is his work so dominated by Maori culture as opposed to to his Chinese background? One reason he gave was that he took the opportunities he was offered in order to further his career, and there was a high demand for Maori art in New Zealand, which he could provide. Lovett commented in his lecture that galleries were not so favourable towards his complicated sound works which took a long time to install, and this pressure from the artworld changed the direction of his medium. His works from this point have veered more in the direction of print making, and this is the style of Lovett's work which I personally favour.

Lovett quotes Sylvie Blocher as an influence and this is especially evident to me in his creation of diptyches. Her work also seems to influence Lovett's sound work. "Blocher's videos reveal the humanness of these "living picture" ". She invites the audience to identify with the subject by delving below the obvious surface of an image. Lovett also seeks to create an intimate, human relationship between the audience and the subject.

Sylvie Blocher, La sauteuse (lapsus n¡ 1), 2002, video installation (courtesy of Casino Luxembourg; photo: Sylvie Blocher)

Living Pictures/Men In Gold, Sylvie Blocher, 2007, video installation with sound

Bambi/Darren 1997 - 2009 © Steve Lovett, 7 colour screen print on board

These works by Lovett and Blocher both invite the viewer to encounter different aspects of the same subject, allowing a certain level of intimacy. This work of Lovett is poignant in that it is a 7 colour screen print - here, we see a shift towards the physical building of layers within the artwork being an important factor in itself, and the study of colour, although it also seems to relate to the many layers of meaning within the image.

His use of diptyches also reflects a style depicted in Patrick Keiller's London, 1994. This film strongly conveys temporal elements, as demonstrated in Lovett's work. It can be compared with his use of triptych in several ways; the contrasting scenes places one after the other, the way the scenery is often visually divided into close ups/far away landscapes, cutting back and forth between the same scenes, and two very similar scenes places one after the other. The film echoes Lovett's consideration of political events of the past few years, and the direct relation of the political powers to the negative effects of the lower class societies. It shares Lovett's confused/angered stance in relation to the state of society, and wondering how it became the way it is.

Still from London, Patrick Keiller, 1994. This frame interested me as immediately after the camera spent several seconds watching the remainds of the building blow in the breeze, it cut to exactly the same shot, but with plastic bags blowing across the screen. This lingering watching combined with the cutting from one shot to the next emphasises the sense of 'real time'

I was unable to find any stills of London which portray the near/far elements within the same image, but feel that this is directly linked to Steve's work, and creates an idea of two things happening at the same time. The scenes featured of the still camera watching pedestrians walking consider this theme of real time, and relate directly to Lovett's work Intersection, which encompass many stills of pedestrians he has montaged into one large work, contemplating movement in space at different times. It also shares his interest in using a voiceover to transform an artwork and convey a very personal/political slant.

Intersection 1214307845
© Steve Lovett
2007

It would be easy to discuss the relation of Lovett's practice to London in great depth, but I feel it would detract from the theme of the development of his work. Suffice to say, the film is depressing & heartfelt in it's political opinions, as well as artistic on its take of the world. Lovett commented in his lecture that he was not sure why he moved more towards the issues of colour and form, but that he was tired of being so angry at the world, and perhaps needed a break from all this angst he was conveying. If we look back to his previous work, it is evident that this physical building of layers was always a theme (eg the 7 layer screen print), it is only more recently that is had become the dominating theme over political/social/historical issues.

His more recent works are more secretive in their depth - at first, they may appear to the viewer to be simple constructions of lines/shapes. Lovett is interested in this idea. This practice places value on time, in that it takes time to construct the work, rather than portraying images to depict time. At this stage, his practice has evolved from politically driven images, to social & historical sound works and prints to a place where the emphasis is directly on the print. His recent works invite the viewer to look twice and notice what may easily go unnoticed, a theme comparable to the unnoticed repercussions in everyday life of political decisions, perhaps a specific shade of colour, or the careful complexity of a multi layered screen print. This unexpected surprise from a print which might otherwise look 'normal' is what he wishes to convey in his current focus on colour & form. We have this recurring theme of layers, yet rather then carefully considered policial layers, we see carefully constructed physical layers.

Lovett quotes Wunderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit as an inspiration to him. "[this] book captures, in the ease and cadences of its prose, the rhythms of a good walk." His work is built slowly and thoughtfully, contemplating the finer details that one might not notice whilst rushing around.

Although these more recent works concentrate more on colour & form, the political connotations are still there - however, explored in perhaps a more abstract way. It is as though Lovett is taking time out to enjoy a less angsty creation of artwork after a long career of politically driven work. Billboards are an inspiration here - physically punching holes into images allows the audience to view what is behind, or what was hidden. This relates to his interest in layers of messages, and also ties in with his work which is based more on layers of colour/form, lying somewhere in between the two.

www.sfmoma.org/artwork/125519
Slides on emit


Chatting to Dion


London, 1994, Patrick Keiller

www.artpapers.org/.../2005_1112/F1.4.jpg


http://cookylamoo.com/boringlikeadrill/blogpix/keiller02.jpg

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=2HaKPwAACAAJ&dq=wanderlust+rebecca&hl=en&ei=GRZ6TPu6EJCcsQPk9NDsCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA