NCEA

Visual arts - external exemplars Level 3 2017 - Sculpture

The resources below contain examples of candidate work submitted in 2017 for assessment for the Visual Arts Achievement Standard 91459 Produce a systematic body of work that integrates conventions and regenerates ideas within sculpture practice. The purpose of this resource is to assist art teachers prepare their teaching programmes and their students for assessment.

It is important to note that this is a 'Moving Image' presentation. Please refer to assessment specifications for AS91459.

Moving Image Exemplar: Merit

This moving image submission presents a range of performance and sculptural activity around a critique of the portrayal of beauty for young women within social media. The submission starts with a crude casting technique of the candidate’s face so that the form is distorted and purposely misshapen. The candidate then lampoons the use of make-up by garishly applying make-up to the form in a comical if not futile manner. This method of making is then used to allow for an interactive installation to take place where the audience members are asked to write their definition of beauty on the plaster make up test tubes. The candidate then presents a very engaging performance work where lipstick is applied to a fellow performer holding the lipstick in her mouth. The action is then repeated by the performer onto the mouth of the candidate. The sense of others imposing make-up procedures with limited control is an engaging metaphor for the imposing advice of social media.

The next work is a suggestion of a video composition that is ambiguous in its context. The candidate does not present the work as a finished video installation. This work reads as a video montage experiment that was not fully resolved. This close-up face manipulation performance is further explored in two subsequent works that are presented as video documentation. The last two works are considerably more ambitious and engage in a sense of vulnerability and exposure that is akin to the social media that is being critiqued. The documentation of the candidate self-tanning relates well to the previous beauty regimes surrounding lipstick application.

The final work is a charming lampoon of a make-up vlogger that the candidate has found online. Real footage of the vlogger is spliced together with the performer creating a deadpan comedic version of the make-up tutorial. The performer succeeds in exposing the absurdity of this kind of online material. With some better context of how these works exist as video documentation of performance or as video installation the candidate would have provided the evidence of a depth of ideas that is starting to emerge in the submission.

Although the candidate presents honest documentation of performance within a school environment the background sound is sometimes distracting and unhelpful to the reading of the work. All elements of video need to be considered when presenting moving image work. Candidates must ensure that video work is contextualised for examiners by providing documentation of the format that the video work is being presented in. Site and duration are critical to understanding the context of time-based art practice.

In order to gain Excellence this candidate would have needed to critically select ideas and methods from a wider range of established video and performative practice. The work of Janine Antoni and Pipilotti Rist would have assisted this candidate in thinking about how performance can be presented as video nature of performance.

Excellence

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Panel 1 (JPG, 1.5MB)	Panel 2 (JPG, 1.2MB)	Panel 3 (JPG, 1.3MB)
Entire Folio (JPG, 3.3MB)

This visually astute submission engages in photographic devices to document sculptural investigations that in turn become part of the central proposition about surface materiality and viewpoint. The candidate exploits the relationship between the three-dimensional and two-dimensional representations of landscape as a surrealist device. Photographic surfaces become the subject matter and material of sculptural assemblage. Assemblage of logs and traditional painted landscapes are initially combined to create small yet eloquent sculptural activity. Representations of landscape are also investigated through viewpoint in outdoor installation. The candidate then utilises these devices to bring together real elements of nature and the sculptural photographic representations of nature. Reflection as a concept is evaluated in different materials and devices in a range of small sculptural investigations that set up the third panels larger installation work. The narratives around the sky falling are poetically interpreted through sculptural installation that synthesises a range of established sculptural practice. The candidate references both contemporary photography practice that deals with optical illusion in viewpoint as well as traditions of photographic installation such as Gabriel Orozco’s 1999 installation Photogravity. The middle of the submission references the paper construction work of Peter Callesen which is then extended into installation with large scale photographs and organic material from the landscape. The documentation of the final theatrical installations also references the work of Boyd Webb in the engagement of revealing above and below surfaces in nature. The candidate has presented an ambitious body of work that critically analyses its intent and generates new possibilities within a central proposition. The use of scale and site allows the candidate to quickly consolidate a depth of ideas within their sculptural practice.

Merit

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Panel 1 (JPG, 1.2MB)	Panel 2 (JPG, 1.3MB)	Panel 3 (JPG, 1.5MB)
Entire Folio (JPG, 3MB)

This submission starts with a clear proposition of examining line in both describing space and structuring space through intersecting lines or grids. The work renegotiates objects in terms of a range of linear constructions. Sometimes the objects become part of the grid and other times the objects create a grid. The candidate then creates lines in space with the arrangement of different sized rectangular cuboids that reference pathways or roads. This is then logically translated into the lines on maps and the cuboids themselves become wrapped in maps. In this sense, the submission explores combinations of materials and analyses links within and between the phases of working. The figure from the first interactive performance is substituted for a formal arrangement of cuboid forms that reference the body as map. This is then re-examined in the final performance where the sculptural object is articulated by the performer in the same site. The location for the performance work on the last panel is purposefully selected to reference the gridlines of a map and provides the candidate with an extension of the notion of the body as landscape. Unfortunately, the candidate does not include any contextual information in terms of labelling of documentation with duration, scale or even small description of the instructions to participants in the work. A small amount of text information can assist examiners in understanding vital context within a performance or time-based work.

In order for this candidate to be awarded Excellence they would have needed to synthesise ideas in the field of sculpture to critically inform and refine their own work. Artists like Sol Le Witt, Thomas Schütte’s architectural scale works or even Yin Xiuzhen’s suitcase works would have assisted this candidate in thinking about how best to approach the notion of mapping space with geometric form, memory and location within sculptural language.

Achieved

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Panel 1 (JPG, 1.2MB)	Panel 2 (JPG, 1.1MB)	Panel 3 (JPG, 1.2MB)
Entire Folio (JPG, 2.8MB)

This submission presents a range of linked sculptural practice that explores ideas within the central material and subject matter of books. Traditional sculptural verbs are used to initiate several formal investigations. Books are stacked, folded and wrapped towards more complex reconstructions with the material. Panel 2 sees the candidate start to bring different paper folding conventions to create a more considered approach to developing ideas. These ideas are re-formed and extended in a series at the top of the last panel that allow the origami birds to become characters from the stories within the books. The candidate then introduces apples as a material and character from within the pages of the books. After experimenting with covering the apples in pages of the book, writing on apples and remaking the apple out of book pages the candidate employs the narrative of Snow White to direct the thinking for the final assemblage work. This is a good example of basic regeneration of ideas where the candidate employs an experimental approach to testing out ideas.

In order for this candidate to be awarded Merit they would have needed to recognise the success of the origami process and scale relationships established on Panel 2. They would have also benefitted from examining specific sculptural conventions that engage with paper and books as a material. The work of Yvette Hawkins or the paper cut work of Peter Callesen would have helped this candidate understand the appropriate conventions to investigate within this area of sculptural practice.