Bead Drawings

Bead Drawings
The Sea Wall – Activity Sheet 1/5
Work in Focus: Untitled (Water), Felix Gonzales-Torres
Felix Gonzales-Torres often used everyday
or domestic items such as lights or shelves,
curtains or clocks to make his work.
He tried to say serious things about his life and
the world around him by using materials that
people would be familiar and comfortable with.
The beaded curtains you see in the gallery
spaces are blue and green in colour because
Felix had a lifelong love of the sea; he lived
by the coast for a great deal of his life. Has
the artist has created an abstract portrait
of the sea?
You can walk through the curtains and touch
them; this is different from a lot of other
artworks.
How do the curtains change the gallery
spaces?
Inside the Gallery
1. Collect drawings sheets of Arnolfini’s
gallery spaces from the Reading Room
and a little packet of blue sticky dots.
2. Create your own Felix Gonzales-Torres
beaded curtain, you could use the same
shape of Felix’ work or you could make a
new shape or pattern.
Would your design have just one beaded
thread or would it be a circle or star shape?
Would it seperate one gallery space from
another or float in the middle of the gallery
space?
I Chalk the Line
The Sea Wall – Activity Sheet 2/5
Work in focus: Untitled (Water), Felix Gonzalez-Torres
and 49.46m², Haegue Yang
Think of the different ways the artworks in this
exhibition relate to borders and boundaries
(Things that mark the edge of spaces and
show one space is different to another - a gate,
a curtain, a line).
Are most boundaries made or set by other
people or do we sometimes create them
ourselves? Are you told how you have to behave
and where you go or do you choose yourself?
Outside the Gallery
Inside the Gallery
Collect a piece of chalk from The Reading
Room (on the second floor) and draw a line
(just one line) on the cobbled pavement
outside Arnolfini.
1. Collect drawing sheets of Felix GonzalesTorres’ work in the Arnolfini’s gallery
spaces from the Reading Room and a
selection of coloured pencils.
2. Take these to the gallery spaces and see if
you can record what you see through the
beaded curtains (People emerging, other
artworks). You can also write down things
you notice.
Observe how this makes people behave when
they encounter it:
Do they walk straight over it?
Do they feel wary of crossing it?
Do they go around it?
Record what people do and their reactions here:
How Objects Make Space
The Sea Wall – Activity Sheet 3/5
Work in Focus: VIP’s Union, Haegue Yang
VIP’s Union is an installation made up of
chairs, tables and other items of furniture
To make this work Haegue has written to all
the VIP’s (Very Important People like
famous writers, musicians, TV personalities,
politicians etc) associated with Bristol and
invited them to donate a piece of furniture to
the installation.
What does the furniture say about the
people who donated them? How are they all
different? What do the choices of objects we
surround ourselves with say about us?
Inside the Gallery
1. Choose one piece of furniture that you
can see in the VIP’s Union installation
and draw it on the back of this sheet– use
any style of drawing you want to (rough
sketch, scribble, detailed)
2. Can you find out who it belongs to? Write
this here
3. What do you think this object says about
the owner and how they live? Write your
thoughts down here
4. Write down a story of how this piece of
furniture came to be where it is from the
beginning of its life until now.
Mirror Mirror
The Sea Wall – Activity Sheet 4/5
Work in focus: Mirror Series, Haegue Yang
Have you seen Haegue’s mirrors? They are in
Gallery 4, why don’t you go and have a look?
Do they behave like normal mirrors? Can you
see your reflection in them?
Write down the different things they do when
you walk up to them…
Imagine you are in control of one of the
mirrors, what would you make it do when
people looked at it?
Draw your idea in the mirror below, you can
also explain your idea further by writing notes
beside it.
Poetry Of Materials
The Sea Wall – Activity Sheet 5/5
Artists have to think very carefully about the
materials they use in their works. Haegue
Yang and Felix Gonzales-Torres are known for
using poetic and political themes and ideas
through their use of materials.
Different materials provoke different
responses: consider all the materials that are
used in the artworks you can see in front of
you. Why do you think the artists chose those
materials?
1. Write down 5 different types of materials
you can find in the artworks and in the
gallery space around you.
2. Add an adjective (describing word) to
each material (e.g. cold metal, soft wool,
light plastic) in the column below.
3. Re-organise the words you have to create
a poem or word sculpture describing the
environment around you.
4. Read your poem out loud or quietly in your
head while you are in the space. How does
it make you feel? Does it describe the
gallery environment you are in?
The materials you identify and words
you select will mean different things to
different people.