“Polarised city space and the‘Handyman Aesthetic’”

• Main Author: Winter, Keith
• Published: University of Ulster 2013
• Subjects: 307.76
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.604654

This thesis is divided into three chapters of theoretical research, each followed by an analysis of related artwork. 'This structure is intended to demonstrate a dialogue between art practice and text-based investigation. The city is a representation of human impact and behaviour. To understand city space through art involves drawing closer to the objects embedded in polarised spaces. To further investigate these we require a new spatial language. While recent discourse on art and urban theory has been important, the connection between contemporary sculpture and the city continues to need further development. To further explore the interface between art and architecture it is necessary to reveal the spaces between buildings, between high and low capital, between antiquity and modernity and between the art object and the viewer. The relationships between Mastery and Slavery, Order and Chaos and Light and Dark 'drives' are explored through philosophical models and applied to spaces. These models include those of Hegel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and others. The definition of space is examined in relation to time, capital and existing spatial terms. Two new terms, 'Sterile' and 'Dissonant' are coined and applied to five accessible spaces, located and investigated in five cities around the world via methods of 'drifting', documentation and intervention. Finally, the space of the gallery and the object of art becomes the focus of the study, with a particular concentration on four emerging artists who are implementing a fresh material language in their work. 'The Handyman Aesthetic' concept builds on this work and outlines modes of operation that move from the city to the gallery and back to the city. Through the interwoven exhibitions I present there is a development of 'The Handyman Aesthetic'. In extracting potent debris from city spaces and representing these in a gallery context I am seeking to demonstrate acknowledgement. This acknowledgement occurs between an art object and viewer.