Tony Hayward

A not very well thought out or written account of an interview.  Big thanks tovery much Tony: I went to interview the educater, artist and collector Tony Hayward, among his collections that he mentioned there was: his Indian Collection- rat traps, kerosene lamps, moving toys, jugs- postcards of swiss alpine hotels, shampoo bottle tops, viewmaster slideshows, pepsi branded objects, figurines, Paul Emil paintings, flipbooks, and books about collections.

All of which seemed to be linked to his work either by being a resource to use later in his work, or as reference for his work. He talked about the spirit of the hand crafted batch produced Indian objects: 'surrounding myself with the spirit of something'. Some of his collections have become pieces of work in their own right rather than the physical material or inspiration for an artwork, the display process of his collections seems to be important despite claiming that the hunt was where the pleasure was derived from- I think this is more a result from being an artist and displaying being an intrinsic part of the process of that.

Tony also produces quite alot of books it seems- mostly containing his collections. There was one which was just nine images or so of chairs in India, these objects were recorded through photography alone, and then later published in a book. Even this seemingly insignificant collection was worthy of printing- He talked about how making books about the collections kept them going, and how he liked the 'thingyness of books' and contrasted these with websites and other display methods- I think this is nice in terms of turning a memory or record back into an object. Also the sharing and public display aspects of this is interesting- it turns a collection of objects into a piece of work, and again I think this is due to the artists need to exhibit and share.

Other things of interest: Tony described Deptford market as having strata, and how you could be opening boxes and a hit a seam of postcards that stop you in your tracks. Artifacts purchased for the Pitt Rivers being an outpost of the main collection. 'I don't really put things on display, I store them'- the collection as a bank/ store room for the collection- not living with it but visiting it. 'It's terrible I don't really look at this stuff'.

Inspiration

Once in a while I come across some design related stuff that lifts my soul and I think 'it's all O.K, brilliant, beautiful, intelligent stuff does exist'. You never know one day I might get to do some myself one day. Anyway for now this is a very nicely designed and intriguingly thought about blog called- But does it Float- I guess peeps have seen it before, they get quoted alot on ffffound! but I think it should be on everyones blog rounds. Lots of love. Luke This is the link But Does It Float

Overheard & Interviews

A write up of stuff heard at Stampex (see previous post), I once had a customer, he's dead now, but we went to auctions together. Henry was a millionaire, and I would spend three grand on the business and he would spend thirty on his personal collection, & I asked him what was the best bit for him? Was it finding the right stamp at the right price, or just the right stamp, or putting it in the album or looking at it. He said the best bit was crossing it of his list.

Animals? Birds? Eagles? Bald Eagles? Do you have any?

Collecting is an opiate, it charms and gets in your blood & you're finished.

The stranger things are more interesting, when compared to the rarer stamps. All you can say about them is, well they're rare. At least the stranger ones are interesting.

Many wise people collect the envelopes- single stamps are intrinsically worthless bits of paper, but the envelope gives the use and history of the stamp.

It's in your hand one moment and then you don't know where then into the person you sent it to.

It's all National Trust bags, F1 T-shirts, Insignias, Beards & Boxes (me).

Trainspotting

I conducted an interview with an avid transport collector at the weekend. His main interest was in taking slides of steam trains. For this hobby he travelled all over the world with friends and alone to acquire images. After 40 years of collecting he speculated that there were approximately 15-20 thousand images in his collection. He spoke about how slides were his preferred medium as they allowed for simultaneously display within the social group of the trainspotter. He meets up with 4 friends every year and each displays the slides taken 30 years ago and also those taken last year. He spoke about how in the desired image for the collection was one of combined quality between locomotion and location. In pursuit of new acquisitions he was arrested twice in communist East Germany (when the Berlin Wall was still up). On trying to rationalise the Why? of the collection he spoke about wanting to capture the memory of an experience and then to be able to share this. This memory of an experience led to comfort and satisfaction and he talked about the pleasure derived from a tangible record. My Conclusions:

Collection & Context.

Continual process and movement.

Tangible, physical, tactile objects of memories and experiences.

Shared experience of display.

Predictable, repetition, control.

Freud's House

Went over to Freud's house in Finchley at the weekend. He only lived there for about a year of his life (he died shortly after leaving Nazi occupied Austria, in 1939) But importantly it houses his library, furniture and collections. His passion for collecting ancient artefacts, was second only to his addiction to cigars apparently- many small figurines were housed cabinets, shelves and noteably filling approximatley half of his desk- i'm going to refrain from talking about fetishism here or suggest that a historical item from some egyptian burial chamber is an absent phallus. Freud used his collection as a metaphor for psychoanalysis using it to show how conscious material wears away whilst the unconcious is relativley unchanging- i.e. in being buried, the artefacts in the room were preserved. There are very few things connecting Freud's collection together; the fact that the great man owned them is probably validation enough as to their criteria for being a collection, however they were all very old some up to 4500 years old, of either ancient near eastern, greco, egyptian, roman or chinese. The most interesting thing about this carefully accumulated, kept and displayed 'museum' is how subjective it is. Anyway, I think he's an interesting guy with an interesting collection- i hope i can say more later about it but this might be it.

Notes on... things i've seen

I went to the John Soane museum at the weekend as i heard he was a collector extraordinaire- there was books and marble everywhere, hanging off every wall- the place seemed to drip and it was awesome. I especially liked the way he catalogued stuff, every thing seemed to be in it's place and had little numbers on things- one room which caught my attention was one where the walls could either slide, or were hinged or something and behind the wall covered in paintings were more paintings- layers of collecting is nice. Links in nicely to my stuff with storage and display. I should also reflect on the bottom drawer exhibition we went to at John Soane's Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing. A great exhibition which looked alot at collecting and display and the way the objects we keep are interacted with. All the stuff from the loft was placed in 2 rectangles on the floor of the gallery and it was weird to see the collection in an order but not be able to be seen or investigated, it had been carefully placed but in piles or on top of each other to invite you to view from different angles- there were also photos from exhibitors homes on the walls- of the things they kept and had either stored or displayed. The pictures picked up tiny idiosyncrasies and detailed the subtle, interesting banality of the homes, they really gave a feeling as to the exhibitors character and what they found important.

I also went to Modern Art Oxford at the weekend- very good, (and some beautiful identity and poster work for the museum i have to say) It was curated well with no explanation as you went round and then a 15 minute documentary with the curator and the artists about the work- that's the way i like it. The work being shown was by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller and was teh sweet. My favourite piece was a sculpture called 'The Killing Machine' and it started with a big red button with a spotlight that you had to press to start it and then there was a light and a speaker moving around this big frame and these robotic arms began to observe and look investigatively at this reclining electric type chair. The music crescendo after a while and the robot arms began to attack the chair with pneumatic pistons- i make it sound whack but it was awesome- the music created this narrative effect, the robots seemed very real, or had personalities or whatever due to their form and also their lights which behaved like eyes, and the best part was the shadow which was cast on wall which was horrifically menacing and scary. Good art. It seems more relevant than it did at the time in relation to my project, when i think about pinning butterflies to boards and about the button at the beginning and the choice/ viewer initiated horror.

The Philosophy of the Overlooked: Collecting

I attended a talk at the ICA about collecting- something I'm pretty interested in and fancy doing a project around, especially after this talk. It started out with a film - 'possessed'- by an ex- Goldsmiths guy about hoarding which was fascinating and thought provoking. There were loads of interesting thoughts and quotes which could start projects off. My favourite however were as follows: Mike Presdee, a cultural criminologist and lecturer spoke about how rather that being pathological, collecting was ore transgressive. A collector abstracts an object from it 's intended purpose and almost fetishises it: a stamp collector does not intend to post letters. A collector interrupts the consume, throw, buy cycle by hanging on to the item of collection. Another interesting thought was raised by John Sellers, a philosophy lecture. He put the collector in a Venn diagram - between the hoarder, who harboured an uncontrollable need and desire to have and keep items, and the museum curator who orders, arranges, organizes and acquires through an intellectual interest.

Something else which interests me is the criteria and conditions for something joining a collection.

I hope to do more with this so watch this space i guess.