Day 3: Tarp in Arts Con't...

Tarps general use by the public is to cover/protect monuments
during times of construction and harsh weather conditions.
After which they are discarded and thrown away.
Through the hands of the artist,
tarps themselves have been made monumental thought out art history.
Given purpose by the artist, not only to protect the monument,
but to be transformed into the very monument itself.
This process pays homage to the tarp ghost,
to appease their empty souls of lost and forgotten purpose,
by making them whole once more.

To these artists I pay homage.

-v


Christo and Jeanne-Claude,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Wrapped, 1968-69

"Although they had just wrapped the Bern Museum in translucent plastic, the Christos decided for aesthetic reasons to shroud the Chicago museum in greenish-brown tarpaulin, which would give greater physical presence to the building and make a better contrast with the snow."
-Excerpt from the book Christo by David Bourdon.
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York, ©1970.
Edited and updated by Susan Astwood, June 2000.




Keith Haring.
Untitled, 1983
Vinyl Ink on Vinyl Tarpaulin
120 x 120 inches
305 x 305 cm
Collection The Estate of Keith Haring

"Haring began using a vinyl or muslin tarpaulin as a surface for his techno-primitive Pop imagery circa 1981-1982. Painting on tarpaulin was a way of carrying "alternative” Pop sensibility into important ´80s galleries like Leo Castelli and Tony Shafrazi, where he had begun to exhibit at the same time as he began painting on tarpaulin. Unlike traditional canvases, the tarps are not stretched but hung via grommets sewn into the fabric of the painted surface, providing for a continuous expanse of canvas on a monumental scale while retaining the popular dimension so important to Haring."
-From artfacts.net



Jonathan Jones
untitled (the tyranny of distance), 2008
aluminium, tarpaulin, fluorescent tubes and fittings
6 walls, each 3.4 x 1.9 x 8.27 m.

"Jones’s use of blue plastic tarpaulin in the SCAF installation is similarly loaded with meaning. Used throughout the world during construction projects, as temporary shelter after natural disasters and as housing for the homeless, blue tarpaulin has a layered set of associations that are rendered more complex through the medium of filtered light."
-Artist statement from http://www.sherman-scaf.org.au

Day 3 - Tarps in Arts

Dwelling, now, in a more recent past; artist Chris Burden performs Dead Man (1972) where the artist covers himself with a tarp lying in the road flanked by two flares. The flares would eventually burn out increasing the risk of the artist being run over by a car. the act confronts the viewer as they become witness to the spectacle the artist has created

Functionality of the tarps becomes blurred as the object is appropriated into a creative context. The tarps original function (to cover and, in some cases, protect) is crossed as the use of the tarp actually endangers what is within its cover. Here a paradox occurs and we see a new life forms out of one artists "materialization of an idea". Although this new life went un-noticed, its existence is anything but hoax!

-d

Day 2: Historical Overview of the TARP

To understand more about the phenomena of tarp ghost,
we trace its ancestry back to the days of gruesome hard labour and lonely sailors.





Basic definition:

tarp |tärp|
noun informal
a tarpaulin sheet or cover.
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: abbreviation,


tarpaulin |tärˈpôlən; ˈtärpə-|
noun
1 heavy-duty waterproof cloth, originally of tarred canvas.
• a sheet or covering of this.
2 historical a sailor's tarred or oilskin hat.
• archaic a sailor.
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: probably from tar 1 + pall 1 + -ing 1





From Wikipedia:

The word tarpaulin originated as a compound of the words tar and palling, referring to a tarred canvas pall used to cover objects on ships. By association, according to one theory, sailors became known as tarpaulins and eventually tars


Example of tarred/oil skinned sailor hats.


Illustration of old sailor with tarp hanging in background.

^[1]

When used for a tarp, the word hoochie (also hootchie, hootch, or hooch) comes from the Japanese uchi ("house"). Huts in various parts of rural Asia are known by this or similar names, and during the Korean and Vietnam Wars English-speaking soldiers came to use the word to refer to their own makeshift shelters, which often consisted of little more than a tarp.

In English, the word is normally pronounced "TAR-paul-in". An American pronunciation would be "TAR-pole-in". A colloquial variation adds a vowel sound, resulting in the pronunciation, "tar-POLE-ee-in".

Tarp used to cover damaged area of ship.



Tarp used as temporary "hoochie" church for soldiers during war.

Day 1 - the beginning of covering old steps

Here is the first in an on-coming many. Starting fresh seems hard when we look back in oder to begin. So lets stop and rewind a little, not to the beginning but to a point of interest...

#1:
These two were what I and othes found in the night AND in a park. Whose to say what they were doing... Just WONDERING or MEANDERING. I say that it's beyond YOURS to fool what they begin because it was in this happening that another meaning (and life) is found.

Whimsy living landscapes pose for the lights. The cameras penetrate the darkness and capture a minor essence (if you will). Fear was aroused within us but I believe that a sense of confusion was in their own. I believe that at this time we moved on because attentions to other details ensued.

Be sure to here more... LAY-TER

-D