Richard Wentworth is a British sculptor and artist who is well known for his work generally, but also for his photographs that capture ephemeral moments of chance and beauty. Richard began his talk by stating that really he is too old to care about formality, and that you should never compromise work you believe in. His talk featured a lot of this very frank communicating as well as wisdom that seemed effortless, in reality it has been earned through living and experiencing.
He first described his initial education and how he travelled as much as he could in an effort to investigate culture and understand systems humans create, as well as explore the phenomenology of being human.
Richard spoke at length about how he tried to understand things, to trace the signals of ownership as well as trace what things are and why things are that way. This description felt incredibly familiar to me since, from my perspective, a lot of what I do is trying to understand the vast complexity of the world and universe around me. This has also been commented on by tutors, when discussing my context they stated that there was a sense of being lost or disconnected, but also a curious searching and tentative investigation.
For Richard he likened this to any animal investigating its environment, like a fox or cat that will sniff and poke at things to understand the world around it. He also stated that a lot of other people are oblivious and behave as workers more than animals, since we live in this most modern society where nature and ourselves have become distant.
He then proceeded to display a PowerPoint of archived photographs from the evolving London area in which he lives now, he also explains how the city has changed and how he perceives time through it. Richard sees time as a small window as we perceive it but as a long stream in reality, he also describes it as constant change, the new city of tomorrow is built over the old city of yesterday.
In this way Richard sees his photographs as captures, of what he doesn’t know or specify, but he explains that most people who really look can see what he sees in that moment. He also emphasised how none of the photos are staged or set up and are all found or seen, which illustrates the interesting but absurd ways in which we live/interact at times.
He also spoke a lot about how he is interested in the imprint humans leave, in any way, on the world and how they shape the world, the environment and even people around them to their preference. He is also interested in how humans are incapable of not interpreting things, through pattern, shape, meaning etc. No matter what we see most people are trying to understand that, which is why he states the dark or the ocean or space are so terrifying and also intriguing.
I was fortunate enough to speak to Richard afterwards and he even came up to view my installation briefly, before rushing off to catch a train. He made comments about the way I space things and how I test the hanging, leaning or propping of objects, he recommended a book by Hans Ulrict (I think that is how it is spelled) as well as his own book Making Do and Getting By. He also told me to look at Tom Sachs and Morandi, both of who i will look into in the future.