Edward Kienholz, 'Sawdy', 1971

In the Tate Liverpool this week I saw this piece by Edward Kienholz. The scale replica of a car door is mounted on the wall, and is made from materials including metal, glass, plastic and rubber, amongst other things. On walking up to the piece, the window is already wound down, and you look beyond it to work out what is depicted. The scene is set in America, and shows a group of white men castrating a black man, surrounded by four parked cars. The viewer is immediately implicated in the scene as you feel as though you are sitting in one of the pickup trucks, looking out of the window and watching this attack occur. The window of the car is mirrored, showing your own reflection and forcing you further to place yourself in the scene. The image is a dark side of American contemporary life. In my own practice I am interested in British contemporary life and the shared experiences of my generation, but from a much more lighthearted point of view. I like the viewer to see themselves in my work as though they could be looking at their own memories, and I think Kienholz has done this so successfully by creating a scale replica of a car, which we are all familiar with being in and looking out the window. It places you directly in the scene. Most recently I created a piece that was based on an experience of a music festival/outside gig. I wanted to create the feeling of being in the crowd, so I tried to make other crowd members life-size, as though the viewer would be standing behind them, having a slightly blocked view of the stage. I think I could have done this a lot more successfully by depicting the people in the crowd that would be standing directly in front of the viewer more clearly, and experimenting with altering the perspective so that they were more or less focused, depending on which worked best. I do like this technique of making work of memories as though it is from a person's eyes though, as it implicates the viewer in the scene. It is useful for my theme of collective memory, as it suggests that my work could be the memories of any viewer.