{"id":49111,"date":"2017-03-28T12:49:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T10:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=49111"},"modified":"2017-03-28T12:49:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T10:49:03","slug":"claire-barclay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/claire-barclay\/","title":{"rendered":"Claire Barclay: Between the Fetishistic and Anthropological"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s by drawing on local histories or through her meticulous engagement with form, Claire Barclay explores the narrative potential of objects. As a maker, Barclay\u2019s fascination for investigating our emotional and bodily response to materials motivates her poignant reflections.
\nSleek spoke to the Scottish artist to discuss her career\u2019s beginnings and current trajectory through her new work currently on show at Tramway, Glasgow. Barclay shared her musings on site-specific artworks, history, technology and craft, revealing the ideas that underpin her work.
\nSLEEK: You studied on the famous Environmental Art course at Glasgow School of Art. How were those years formative to your practice now?<\/strong> \nClare Barclay: Our whole training was very much about putting context at the centre of everything, so you start with context. Sometimes it\u2019s quite an involved process, other time it\u2019s quite loose. Sometimes it\u2019s elements of the architecture I\u2019m responding to and sometimes it\u2019s the history of the wider location. Here, in a way, I have used the space as a white cube, but it is also responding to the post-industrial heritage. The site offers a kind of filter for my own ideas and practise that I\u2019m bringing to it and in turn I\u2019m adopting elements of its context. My experience at GSA is very much something that has stayed with me.
\n\"\"
\nSie<\/strong>\u2019re represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery. How did you initially form a relationship with them?<\/strong> \nI hadn\u2019t been out of art school for long when I first met Stephen Friedman and David Hubbard. I remember them coming to my flat when my living room was also my studio. They are a great gallery to work with because they don\u2019t put pressure on me to make my work more commercial.
\nHistory plays a clear role in your work. Could you talk a bit about the museum and how your fascination with historical and anthropological artefacts feeds into your conceptual ideas about where cultures come from in the first place?<\/strong> \nQuite often I start with going to local museums and looking at artefacts. I\u2019m interested in the ambiguity of museum objects – when you’re not sure of their origin or function. Like a lot of artists, I\u2019m trying to pinpoint things that are universal and almost quite primal within ourselves. A lot of the motifs and forms in my work are what I might describe as pared-down. The arch shape that I\u2019ve used a lot in the show here and recent shows, for example. This could relate to the human body and at the same time, it could relate to simple domestic objects like bowls. If anything, I\u2019m trying to find the commonality within these different components.
\n\"Claire
\n
\nYour modes of display are opposed to those of a typical museum. There are no plinths or vitrines, and instead it feels like more of a theatrical space. How does this element of suggested performance operate within the work?<\/strong> \nWhat I\u2019m trying to do is make objects and put them in situations where the potential drama of them is highlighted. Sometimes it operates within the combination, so something hard and sharp might be nestling up against something that might yield or puncture. With that you create a certain amount of tension, but it\u2019s suggestive of scenarios as well. I\u2019m trying to talk about human emotion through inanimate objects and play with the way that we are very keen to anthropomorphise everything. Often the simpler the forms and motifs, the more we tend to do that.
\n\"Claire<\/em>
\nMuch of your work has an archaic feeling to it, however, the work also seems to reference the hyper-consumerist culture of the present. For example, the highly polished brass elements could be spear heads or palaeolithic combs. On the other hand, they could be highly designed luxury products. Could you comment on how these various components drawn from the past and the present are able to co-exist in the work?<\/strong> \nIt\u2019s a suggestion that there is this thread that has transcended time and culture. I often make things that might reference some sort of heritage in the use of materials that we associate with the past, but they are also brand new as they\u2019ve all just been made. There\u2019s no sign of wear and yet there\u2019s the sign of the threat of wear. The suede is soiled with the grease or the threads are saturated with the oil. There\u2019s a sense that you\u2019re meant to see that these things are not authentic. It\u2019s not as if I\u2019m using really old oily bags or worn down wooden used tools. How we glean our meaning from artefacts is often from the signs of human interaction. Whereas, these things are devoid of that as they\u2019ve only just come into being.
\n\"Claire
\n\"Claire
\nCould you talk a bit about the role of curation within your work and the decision making process during installation?<\/strong> \nI started describing it as working with a mood in mind rather than a plan. You\u2019re trying to use your gut feeling and intuition in order to bring things together. It\u2019s a play between things being aesthetically pleasing and also awkward. It\u2019s these kind of oppositions that are kind of guiding the decisions that I make. Quite often it\u2019s dictated by the scale I\u2019m working with. Sometimes it\u2019s to do with the body and there’s an ergonomic aspect to that. Sometimes it\u2019s decided by the need to create some kind of effect within the installation. Sometimes I decide I want to build a structure that almost fills the room, or something that will cut across the room and mask the natural light.
\n\"Claire
\nWhen I was thinking about how you engage with materials the words “<\/strong>fetishistic” and “forensic” came to mind. What do you think about those two words to describe your approach to materials?
\n<\/strong>I think I\u2019ve always had an interest in the idea of a fetish object and I would use that to describe a lot of my work. Forensic is interesting, but I think it is maybe more “anthropological.” Anthropologists are trying to understand things from within rather than as an outsider. “Forensic” or “anthropological” give a sense of understanding through doing. When you make you realise there is a cerebral element to craft and hands-on production. There is that way that the material, the environment, the tool and the body are all working in unison. You\u2019re not necessarily conscious of that all the time.
\n
\nCould you talk about the relationship between the hand-crafted and the technologically fabricated?
\n<\/strong>For me the most highly crafted elements in the show have been the parts made by the metal machinists at the engineering company I work with. They are highly skilled at what they do but they are making these things with the help of machines. People don\u2019t necessarily associate the precision-machined object as craft. All the things I\u2019m doing are very hands-on, but I\u2019m not artisan in my approach. Our presumption of what we see as skill in making is very interesting. Is the show relating to the idea of a fading industrial heritage here in Glasgow? The people here have a very strong attachment to the industry in terms of identity. That\u2019s something that, in a general way, is a struggle. But I suppose I\u2019m trying to offer up other ways of interacting with making processes and looking at material. The conversations I have with metal machinists have revealed we have a lot of common ground. We\u2019re coming from different angles; I\u2019m an artist and they\u2019re a business usually making functional parts for industry. Our commonality is in the question of where we will go from here and how we will continue to make things.
\nClaire Barclay’s “Yield Point” is at Tramway, Glasgow, UK, until 9 April 2017<\/strong> \nTramway is a leading international art space which commissions, produces and presents contemporary arts projects in Glasgow. For more information visit www.tramway.org<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scottish artist Claire Barclay on the fetishistic and the anthropological aspects of her installations<\/p>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":49142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[8267,946,8268],"class_list":["post-49111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-claire-barclay","tag-installation","tag-stephen-friedman"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\nClaire Barclay: Between the Fetishistic and Anthropological<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scottish artist Claire Barclay on the fetishistic and the anthropological aspects of her installations now on show in Glasgow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/claire-barclay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Claire Barclay: Between the Fetishistic and Anthropological\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scottish artist Claire Barclay on the fetishistic and the anthropological aspects of her installations now on show in Glasgow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/claire-barclay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-03-28T10:49:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Naomi Ellis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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