Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Wales Trinity Saint David (joint submission with Cardiff Metropolitan University and University of South Wales)
Witness:
Artefact – Artists’ Wallpaper, (10.05 x 0.52 m rolls ) printed and commercially available from Graham & Brown, and available from the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.
Two books: Cool Brands (2010); We Have The Mirrors We Have The Plans, Mostyn Publication (2011).
Funding: Whitworth Art Gallery, V & A, and Graham & Brown
Witness is an artists’ wallpaper created for the Walls Are Talking – Wallpaper, Art and Culture survey exhibition of artists’ wallpapers held at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (co-organized by the V&A Museum, London), 2010, and included in the accompanying book (University of Chicago Press, 2010) of the same name. Witness is one of the latest works to emerge from the ongoing collaboration (since 2000) between Craig Wood and Chris Taylor. The formation of the initial research question and the realization of the design are shared equally by Taylor and Wood. The work continues their interest in blurring the boundaries between conceptual art, craft, and public art. They adopt historical formats that have often become ubiquitous, e.g. wallpaper, folk art, commemorative mugs, in order to reclaim them for more contemporary meaning. Witness responds to recent worldwide problems whose severity suggests that future generations may wish to look back and hold us responsible, e.g. the financial crash, imminent ecological catastrophe. The eyes in the design belong to Wood’s teenage daughter, and are drawn from life by Wood. With the eyes reproduced in an endlessly repeating pattern across a wall, the normally one-to-one moment of eye-contact is translated into an expanse of judgment, and the space of decoration is turned into an ethical statement. A Flexotype press was used to allow qualities of the original line drawing to be transferred onto the wallpaper, suggesting detail that turns the onlookers into individuals and makes their judgment more pointed.
Witness also featured in the exhibition and catalogue We Have The Mirrors, We Have The Plans, Mostyn, 2010. The passage undertaken by Witness from the private and domestic to the cultural and the political is recorded by Mackinnon in her review in the Mostyn catalogue (p. 118). The wallpaper is available commercially.
