Helen Frik, Higher Up Where to.
Anthony Gormley, Field for the British Isles
Helen Frik is a British born artist who has an installation at Chapter Arts Centre , Cardiff.
Part of the installation - titled `Higher up, Where to`, has been made by volunteers from the public (including me). The call was for weird and wonderful toys, and that is what she got. Absolutely fabulous ,wondrous, beautifulugly, loveliness.
Having missed the private view, we made the journey on Saturday night.When we walked through to the last room ,there was just us and the installation- THEM. Of course, we had interrupted their secret revelries.
Using a contemporary analogy, the characters gave off a post party `chill out` atmosphere. Collected in small relaxed and intimate (some of the extremely intimate) groups, there was in some case unbridled affection and unity. The next unchoreographed move for us humans, was to join the collective on the floor, for comment and conversation.
Whilst crawling in amongst my new the freaky friends, Anthony Gormleys `Field for the British Isles` came to mind. His work won the Turner prize in 1994. What an antitheses to his internal, still and controlled display of terracotta figures. The 40,000 figures in the `Fields` were made by many, many different people , but with stringent regulations about features and form.
I felt that Helen Frinks piece failed to communicated the artists original concept. Even the `Black Guardians` situated at the foot of the `Light` had conceded and sat down.
There was no collective ominous pull towards the light. Rather a placid and accepting camp of the uniqueness found in humanity. Here are pictures on flickr.
The comparisson between the two artists installations of human based form are an interesting illustration of a shift in cultural paradigm.
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