John Latham

I went to the Tate Britain the other week to see the John Latham exhibition before it closed down as I was told he worked a lot with books, which is what I've been using in my own work recently. Latham is seen as an important figure in contemporary art as he challeneged the notion of what constitutes art and embraced the idea of using philosophy and science in his work which went beyond the traditional boundaries of fine art.

"The books are a highly effective metaphor for this state of coming into being.......Like humans, books contain a kind of genetic code that dictates their character"





I could relate to Latham's work by the way he used found objects, in this case books, and by manipulating them, changed their purpose and use. However, when reading about each peice, I found it hard to take into account why he had done what he had done. His approach to his work seemed a lot more scientific than what I'm used to and his reasons where very complex and too much to take in. From I could understand, his ideas were very profound and intense and while they were all quite interesting and fascinating ideas, I couldn't really identify with it as much as I wanted to which was a disappointment. His much more scientific and philosophical approach to his work restricted my understanding of his reasons behind what he had done and it was quite frustraing as this exhibtion had been highly recommened to me because of its content. However seeing the technqiues he used and the way he actually went about constructing everything, it was good inspiration for my own work and ideas so the trip wasn't a total waste.