Alex Murdoch, Artist

Tag: play

  • Je ne regrette rien 

    Remembering Philippe Gauler 1943-2026

    Yesterday I went to Paris to attend the extraordinary funeral of the teacher who changed the course of my life Philippe Gaulier.  In the sometimes murky world of artist training Gaulier is perhaps the most widely and wildly misunderstood pedagogue of all.  Perhaps we all assembled from around the world yesterday – how many? maybe 600 of us – because we wanted to hold onto that magical thread of his teaching specifically by being together…because we were there…because we know it.  Perhaps we all feel tired by having to listen – every time his name comes up – to the broken record of criticism spewing from the mouths of people who never even went to his school regarding his somewhat unorthodox teaching style. As Simon McBurney put it he was –

    ‘provocative, demanding, deliberately inappropriate and utterly hilarious’ 

    The elusive cornerstone of his school was to find that ‘complicité’ on which McBurney, Arden and Magni founded the namesake company – the inferred danger and delight in being connected (with each other, with the audience) when we play.  Do we have pleasure to be on the stage?  If not why bore us? ’Adios, sit down immediately, my little friend’.  Gaulier actors read audience in a way that no other actors do and that is what I am proud to know. It will be in my bones.  It was in the bones of us, connected together when we – a giant congregation – burst into ‘Non, Je ne regrette rien’ along with Piaf as we saw the old fella off on his way.  And we might be messy and we may not do things ‘correctly’ but we will do it with heart and a kind of passion that is very rarely really seen on stage.  Spontaneous, huge applause, whooping, cheering, Bravo, Bravo went off as he was carried up the long theatrical staircase to disappear into the glittery backdrop of blue-sky mosaics of La Coupole in Pere Lechaise cemetery.    

    I began at Gaulier’s school aged 25, just two months after losing my mother.  Philippe taught me to feel again and how to be free.

    Why am I writing about this here?  Because what I am looking for is not and should not be definitive or even precisely known.  This is the same for fine art, for performance, for poetry, for playwriting, for art installation, for ceramics, for concept art, for music – definitely not for music – for opera, for dance, for education…for making anything at all really, I think.  

  • Gifts from the Kiln Gods 

    (Clay in Conversation, Ceramic Research Centre, 16th January)

    I went to a really useful talk at the Ceramics Research Centre called ‘Clay in Conversation – Play’. 

    Gaby Mlynarczyk a ceramicist who teaches throwing at my studio makes beautiful work constructed from detritus and accidents from the firing process. ‘Gifted to me by the Kiln Gods’ she says.  She explores environmental concerns, is obsessed by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – and she’ll cast food waste she’s salvaged in porcelain slip. It’s interesting to me in term of my improvisation practice – she embraces accident in her work, pieces that have fused together in the kiln or disintegrated.  She says it’s a game of trial and error.  ‘I take stuff that has died and try to create a narrative’.

    Gaby talks about the agency of clay – ‘clay is an active partner’.  She also cites Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter which by chance comes up several times in this week – in the Art in Context Lecture, in our Thursday session, during my tutorial and then I find the book on Charly Blackburn’s shelf – the aforementioned artist in residence at my studio.

    An idea I’m definitely going to look at is that she starts building one way, then turns the thing over and starts building in another direction.  She calls it Rhizomatic play.  How does she decide it’s finished? ‘I ask myself – has it got energy, is the negative space interesting?’. I’m reminded about bringing my experience of space and audience viewpoint into my work.

    The second talk is Yuki Nakamura.  For ‘Fragile Like Life’ Nakamura used her peculiar collection of deflated footballs.  Cast them in slip and glazes them.  The work was commissioned for a hospital garden, the sort of place where people come to smoke a cigarette having had bad news.  A charged space.  Instead of displaying the artwork on a plinth she rolls the footballs under a hedge, or places them on a bench, or stuck in the branches of a tree.  The work stayed there temporarily – an idea that she was keen on because of the nature of the experience of a number of viewers who stumbled on them for a short moment in time. That might have lifted their spirits.  She observed a doctor trying to kick one and discovering no bounce back, he discovered the piece like a child or an animal, with curiosity and play.

    By chance I get talking to the woman sat next to me Vidya Thirunarayan and she’s writing her PhD  on the relationship of theatre and clay.  We plan to meet and talk more.  

    So again, community.  Serendipity.  Being there and being open.  Noticing threads coming together even if I don’t know how I’ll use them yet. 

  • Univited Guests

    This week was treated to a visit from imposter syndrome.  All of his friends came too – perfectionism, procrastination, paralysis – the whole gang.

    I have lurched between the identities of six different kinds of artists.  Been haunted by distorted imaginary voices of perfectly supportive ceramicist friends, who think I’ve made bad choices and generally am making a fool of myself.  

    The nature of these thoughts are worth writing down because they are so ridiculous in black and white.  We are not our thoughts.  An idea that seems impossible to grapple with, I believe rooted in mindfulness and therapeutic practices – though at odds with Freud. 

    What am I doing making art?  And in the middle of the night – ‘What IS art? See, you can’t even answer that’.  Well I’m doing a Fine Art Masters, so let’s just see.   I find in these moments of self doubt I scroll on instagram more – it’s a great idea.  My feed shows pristine lifestyle ceramicists throwing pots next to white sofas, desperate influencers showing 3 steps for making abstract art that sells…and even the legit art scene posts seem all about what’s fashionable and what’s correct and accepted right now.  

    And part of the problem also is that everything is acceptable.  I sit down at my life-drawing class (organised by the students union, and excellent) next to a gloomy woman who says that no-one seems to care what art is anymore.  

    Under a cloud I head to the studio at County Hall Pottery, where I work as a technician in exchange for studio space. 

    At the studio Charley Blackburn, the new ceramicist-in-residence, is preparing for an update with the managers.  Her sketchbooks and glaze tests are set out for the meeting and it’s breathtaking work, but also chatting to her, I notice there are more questions than answers.  There’s certainly no end goal.  I show her a box of bisque shapes I’ve been playing with.  And a stop-frame animation I made to document the process.  I might make more stop-frames.  Charley gives me some feedback about what would making a film of them moving add to the work, which she feels already has movement and energy.  I have no idea how she has seen that. 

    While her meeting goes on I listen in to a fantastic conversation from my lovely brilliant colleagues about Charleys work – and I go into hyper focus.  Or flow. Just playing with the shapes.

    One of the challenges of ceramics is the technicality of putting something together, which really requires prototyping, sketching out, planning.  Factoring in the 7-10 different stages of drying time.  But how do I improvise if I have to plan first?  Where is the creativity that comes from spontaneity.  Each ceramicist approaches this chicken and egg in a different way.

    But most importantly something is unblocked by showing up at the studio and my wonderful community and friends at County Hall.  By Charley’s serious generosity and belief.  

    I felt so galvanised by that.  I also want to mention Daniella who has (along with Olga and Hicham) pretty much remotely organised a group show for us in the Good Rice Gallery with a couple of days notice.  She is one of the extraordinary people that just believes, is unfailingly optimistic and generous.   Instead of overthinking this, I go with the flow.

    I think my my thought this week is about community.  If I can’t be kind to myself then to take myself to the people who lift me up.  The studio becomes then not an aspirational space I can’t afford, but an environment I create by people I choose to connect with.