Art crime, Links, Politics, Writing / Posted by Rich
In the Observer this weekend there was an article about a new gallery with a slightly different approach to the dealer/artist relationship. The approach is not necessarily new (it harks back to the days of patronage) but could it provide support for artists in this age of austerity?
First of all I want to point out that I don’t begrudge the artists involved for taking this opportunity - to be offered an amount of money that would allow you to just be an artist sounds like a great way of nurturing talent and helping to develop careers. My problems with this system are as follows: Patronage, at least historically, requires some kind of reciprocation. Monarchs and religious leaders would patronise artists and in return they would paint or sculpt the works that best serve the ideology of the patron. Great works were created through this but they may not have always expressed the true views of the artist. The article makes it seem that the reciprocation here is financial - I’ll give you money and in return you make things that will sell. This also bothers me. The work is still being guided by the feeding hand, the artist is possibly not free to pursue their work in any form they wish. Or, to approach it from another direction, the gallery will only select artists whose work fits this sales model - eliminating many artists from even being considered. What they are also saying is that the only value that really matters is the financial.
Watch this short clip of Stewart Lee discussing arts funding cuts:
I think he has got a point about art having ‘an inherent value in and of itself’ and this is what we should be fighting for. Towing the line of making work that sells is, as Lee puts it, ‘engag[ing] on their terms’. Are you making concessions to the financial market that are at odds with what you want to achieve artistically? Are you agreeing that the only value your work has is that which it can be sold for? Of course some artists do make financially viable work that satisfies their creativity. What I’m arguing for is the freedom to not have to adjust my practice to make it commercial. Can a hedge fund billionaire see it in his or her heart to give artists patronage just because they like good art? The return from this would be good art - art produced in a creative environment free from constraints. Good art is a benefit to society, and I don’t just say that as an artist who would like to be able to make a comfortable living from his own work, I say it as a person who feels that if he couldn’t go to galleries, theatres and cinemas to see the work of people who make no compromises to follow their vision then I would probably give up. The message I would be receiving from such a safe and middle-of-the-road culture would be ‘don’t bother trying’. And if every artist gave up trying then culture would suffer. And if all art were produced through rich benefactors paying artists as production line workers then culture would suffer. It would be the X Factor of art.
If culture suffers then society suffers. We will always need new ideas, thinkers and creatives. This does have, as Lee states, an ‘intrinsic value… that has a trickle-down effect’ on society - high art informs low art, high fashion informs high street, and the inspiration is also reciprocated as ideas switch back and forth freely. To live in a society of culture controlled entirely by financial value is to live in a society that has given up.
News, Talk, Writing / Posted by Rich
Essay about my practice and art in general during the ‘age of austerity’.
Download the PDF
It was delivered as a talk at INTERROGATION: West Bromwich - a month-long project exploring the impact that artists can make using short, sharp interventions in the public realm.
UPDATE: An edited excerpt was published in a-n magazine in November 2010.
Diary, Exhibition, Review, Story, Writing / Posted by Rich
I heard my harshest criticism at the private view of Collusion on Thursday night.
I was taking a few photos of the work while people were milling around and noticed that there was a very bored-looking little boy sitting on the floor between the projectors. I think he was about 10 years old.
‘I’m bored. Can we go now?’ He said.
‘Not yet, be quiet.’ Said his mother. She was studying the work quite intensely.
‘I’m bored! You said there’d be a light show?’
‘This a light show, look at the projectors.’
‘It’s not, it’s boring!’ He waggled his knees and flopped his head side to side.
‘Why don’t you try looking? Try using your imagination?’ His mother asked.
‘I have looked. There’s a door, there’s a door, there’s a door and there’s another door. There’s four doors. I’m bored!’
I must try harder.
Art crime, Review, Writing / Posted by Rich
I wrote most of this shortly after the Turner Prize was announced and then I sat on it for a bit. After re-reading and amending a few bits I decided to post it:
I don’t normally feel that i have to justify my work, or art in general - my aim is to try to make the work speak for itself. However, the recent Turner Prize exhibition (featuring Goshka Macuga, Runa Islam, Cathy Wilkes and winner Mark Leckey) and ensuing (lack of) controversy has urged me to write something in response - particularly in light of the usual kinds of comments from a certain popular newspaper. things like: ‘ART ????? Looks more like a load of unmitigated trash to me.’ ‘How many of these ‘artists’ can actually draw or paint.. ?’ and ‘I haven’t washed up my lunch time crockery yet…..think that would be worth £25,000????’ I would like to address each one in turn:
‘ART ????? Looks more like a load of unmitigated trash to me.’
I assume this person is referring to Wilkes’s work. This is not criticism - it is an opinion. And a badly made opinion at that. There were various other comments about artists dumping ‘a random assortment of items around a room’ and calling it art. I would like to know who really thinks they know exactly what art is? What does art look like? Even as an artist myself I don’t claim to know what art looks like, I can’t always recognise it (sometimes I think something that isn’t art is?) - I don’t think it always has a look. I also take offense at the generalisation that ‘random’ items are dumped around a room. From what I saw the items were very carefully arranged - often in pairs or with a visual relationship apparent between forms, colours and possible uses. This view that it ‘just looks like trash’ suggests to me that these people do not bother to look at things carefully, they do not bother to take a little time and most certainly know very little about art, about the many different ways it can be made and the many different ways of looking at it, understanding it and enjoying it. Even if you come to the conclusion that you don’t think it is very good, at least respect the fact that this is someone’s work. They have given time, thought and energy producing this. You have given nothing in return but a throw-away remark. (Pun optional).
‘How many of these ‘artists’ can actually draw or paint.. ?’
Art does not start and stop with drawing and painting. Whether you can draw and paint or not does not decide whether you are an artist or not. I would agree that a certain amount of skill at something is necessary, but this something can also be knowing what colours can do to the eye and mind, knowing how to build a room in such a way that it conveys your desired intention upon those who enter it, or knowing exactly how far apart to place two items. An artist can be a person who organizes things and people in order to achieve an end. Being an artist is being someone that makes things happen, and these things in turn affect those that experience them. You don’t have to be able to draw or paint to do this, you just have to be able communicate.
‘I haven’t washed up my lunch time crockery yet…..think that would be worth £25,000????’
This demonstrates an immense lack of understanding. Much of what often makes something art is intention - sincere intention. You might have just done exactly what Wilkes did and put a pair of jam jars side by side with a battery standing up in each but this does not make you an artist. And it’s not because you didn’t do it first either. If you are thick enough to think that doing what an artist does makes you an artist (and worthy of a prize) then you deserve to be outraged. Making art is a careful process - even if the final work is executed quickly there is much development, practice, trial-runs, thinking. Yes, thinking can be work. The Turner Prize does not imply that the work is worth £25000 - it is a prize. You do not win a prize for not doing the washing up (unless the competition is about who is laziest). The prize is awarded to an artist who has made a significant contribution to art in the previous year. The exhibition is representative of that year; it could be one piece from it or many. This attitude really annoys me. Art is worth something - it is the product of work, it takes time, and there is an intrinsic value attached to a person’s creativity. But, according to certain people, only certain, established, art can be worth large sums of money (and only up to a certain amount too; the question of how this value is arrived at is a whole other piece of writing). The people making these comments don’t really seem to be able to make a value judgement other than ‘I don’t understand this, therefore it must be worthless’.
What I feel these kinds of people fail to understand is the purpose of art, it’s relevance to culture and society. Art not only responds to popular culture (particularly in the case of leckey) it also creates it. The visual languages used by artists have a trickle-down effect on the visual language of society and culture as a whole. The way everyday things look is influenced heavily by the things that are exhibited in white-walled galleries and other art spaces. Designers continually look to works of art for inspiration. TV shows reference artworks regularly. Mostly I hate the lazy attitude. People often complain that art is elitist, that it is difficult and impenetrable. To this I say ‘yes, it is. And it should be.’ If it was easy it wouldn’t be art, it would be a soap opera or a stuffed toy (although these things can be used by artists). What I mean is: art requires work on the part of the viewer too. You don’t have to be a scholar, a historian or any kind of expert, you just need to be open-minded, read a little and give the work a little time.
The next time you see a super 8 movie of a woman tipping a china cup off a plinth just spare a moment, think about why it was made, how do the images affect you? If you don’t like it think about why? Don’t just dismiss it, and above all don’t think ‘I could do that’, instead think ‘Why aren’t I doing that?’
Dreamlog, Writing / Posted by Rich
i dreamt that we had robbed bank. or a train.
we had our getaway all planned.
we had a big lorry full of loot that we were going to drive to a hanger, put all the stuff on a plane and fly away.
it all went wrong though.
the police were in hot pursuit (why is pursuit so hot?)
when we got to the hanger it wasn’t quite how i remembered it.
the plane was on the roof?
we crammed as much stuff into our rucksacks as we could manage and climbed up onto the gantry that ran along the wall.
the ganrty was very narrow with no railing.
to get to the ladder that led to the roof we had to cross the narrowest part.
there was no way we could do it with our bags, but we didn’t want to give up our loot.
so we sat there, five metres above the police and their sharp-shooter teams. the hanger filled with spinning lights.