Practical research

Brief

Title: Ceal Floyer at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art

Background: Ceal Floyer (b. 1968) is a contemporary visual artist  known for her work that explores a variety of media to convey her outlook on the everyday.

Although her work is contemporary, it has a modernistic approach, conveying her ideas in a minimal way.

This exhibition is held in great anticipation for the appearance at the BALTIC, due to its international reputation, being the UK’s largest dedicated contemporary art institution.

Brief: 1 A3 poster and a two fold brochure to promote and inform Ceal Floyers exhibition at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. They should reflect the status of the BALTIC and present Ceal Floyers work in an informative manner.

Deliverables: 1 A3 poster and a two fold brochure.

Mandatory requirements: Brochure must include the BALTIC logo, website and address, Arts Council England logo and Gateshead Council logo, with the correct date, place and artists name for exhibition. It should display the works exhibited, with the name of piece and year made, with a description of the piece.

Poster should have obvious visual links to artists work through both type and/or image, with the BALTIC logo, website, address and the correct date, place and artists name for exhibition.

Both need to represent the artists contemporary work, while continuing the BALTIC brand identity.

Aim: To reflect the contemporary work of Ceal Floyer, utilising postmodern typeface and layouts, with consideration for the legibility of the type.

Research 

Audience considerations:

The audience will be of all ages any gender and any ethnicity. Nationality most likely British, however may include those from other places in the world due to BALTIC’s international reputation. Audience will value the artists work highly; the poster and booklet should be professional looking and the thinking behind the design should reflect the same amount of thinking the work in the exhibition delivers.

Ceal Floyers work:

Monochrome Till Receipt (White) is a till print-out of a list of goods purchased by Floyer at Morrisons, a UK supermarket chain. Despite its title, the paper is in fact yellowish-white in tone and the information is printed in blue ink. The list itself comprises ordinary objects that are all white or have the word ‘white’ in their name, including flour, hand cream, mozzarella cheese, toothpaste, tissues, white chocolate, milk, salt, sugar and cotton wool pads among many other items, amounting to forty-nine purchases in total. When exhibited, the work is attached to a bare wall in a vertical orientation, without any framing device. 

A shopping receipt may seem like a strange thing to put on an art gallery wall. How can this be art? Rather than making a painting or sculpture, there are many artists (like Ceal Floyer here) who create art from everyday things. She would like you to think about the idea behind the art, rather than what it looks like. Take a closer look at the receipt. You will see that it is a list of objects bought from the supermarket that are all white. Imagine the objects and their whiteness and think about why this might be in a display about colour. Is white a colour?

It’s actually a funny process… How many packets I’ve opened to check [the contents are white] and then not bought. But basically it should equal or come close to a picture of white. It is ‘concrete poetry’, suggesting ‘a still life made entirely of white objects.

(from Tate)

Etching (at 45 rpm) shaky lines trace an irregular circular form on off-white card. The print was handmade by the artist drawing directly on to an etching plate with an etching tool. Floyer mimicked the circular movement of a record player spinning at forty-five revolutions per minute, the speed traditionally associated with seven inch single records. The artists drew an overlapping circle made up of forty-five rotations in sixty seconds. The diameter of Floyer’s rough circle approximately corresponds to the middle of song on a typical seven inch record.

Floyer echoed the mechanism of a machine designed to produce sound in order to create a visual artwork. The resulting print was then produced as a multiple like a limited edition disc. Refers to technology that may appear slightly outmoded or nostalgic. 

Light Switch - inconspicuous or unassuming, but make sophisticated use of a number of strategies from such art historical precedents as the readymades of Duchamp and conceptual and minimalist art of the 1960s. Light Switch, one of Floyer’s early works, is a colour photographic slide image of a light switch, projected to scale on a wall at the height one would expect to find a switch in a domestic setting. A slide projector is set up on a stand, near an entrance or doorway, a few feet away from a wall. Only in close proximity to the work does the small area of light projected on the wall become apparent and reveal itself as a projected image – an image of a light switch, existing only as light from the projector. 

Hearing Aid - https://www.303gallery.com/gallery-exhibitions/ceal-floyer4?view=slider#14 

Quote from Floyer: “The more pared down an idea or its presentation, as is quite characteristic of the work I make, the more I think it can apply to another train of thought.”

Her work examines art itself, its processes, display and meaning, and continually contest the distinctions between what is considered art and what is not. Always presents a minimal amount of information.

BALTIC:

http://baltic.art/about/what-is-baltic 

Our mission is to create greater understanding of the world through outstanding, experimental and inspiring contemporary art which has power, relevance and meaning for individuals and communities.

BALTIC has gained an international reputation for its commissioning of cutting-edge temporary exhibitions.

UK’s largest dedicated contemporary art institution.

Situated in Newcastle in a converted flour mill, six floors high with 3000sqm of arts space.

BALTIC brand was designed by Ripe. Bold, industrial font and minimal colour palette to reinforce the industrial building and allow the artwork to shine. The BALTIC brand is now well established. Represents the calibre of work housed in the gallery, without detracting from it.

Carson:

David Carson  is a contemporary graphic designer, known for his illegible, experimental magazine articles and posters. Layering words, cutting off characters, and fitting words around eachother are some exmaples of his techniques of creating design that conveys a message to the reader just through an initial glance. His work is relavant for the context of this brief due to his work being of this postmodern time; questioning the limits of graphic design. This is fitting with the contemporary ideas behind the artists work, which questions art and its versatility.

Hofmann:

Although a postmodern approach should be taken to this brief; meeting the requirements of representing the exhibition, it also should explicitly represent the artist. Floyers work is very minimal, communicating her contemporary ideas behind the work in a functional, minimal way.

Armin Hofmann is a modernist graphic designer who’s approach is similar to Floyers in that he communicates the contents in the clearest way possible, opposing Carsons methods. 

With inspiration drawn from the postmodernist graphic design of Carson, and the modernist functional designs of Hofmann, the brief should be met, communicating the information required clearly, whilst hinting and the contemporary ideas behind the work. This should appeal to the audience expected to visit such an exhibition.