Counterwork

08.02.11

This Is How They Do It

Random exhibition title generator.

02.02.11

New PDF

New to download and print: Work 2006-10

27.01.11

Our Style… Progress

Designs for the scenography for ’Our Style Is Legendary‘ are progressing.

I’ve devised a small number of screens which are blank on one side and then have items of scenery on the other. The actors can manipulate the screens to create locations from the play, and different sized spaces - from open areas to smaller, intimate spaces right up close to the audience.

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11.12.10

Orwell

’In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.’
George Orwell

09.12.10

The Missionary Position

I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’
- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1974

29.11.10

Don’t Patronise Me?

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.

31.10.10

EVIL ROBOT INVASION 2010: Updated

My costume for this years Evil Robot Invasion. This year we are collecting for Amnesty International. If you would like to make a donation please visit our Just Giving page.

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17.10.10

£30,000,000 Of Forgeries

’Christie’s caught up as £30m forgeries send shock waves through the art world’
Observer

‘Panic is spreading through the art world following the discovery of forgeries among major 20th-century paintings sold in recent years by leading auctioneers and dealers worldwide, including Christie’s in London.
‘More than 30 paintings, thought to be by artists including Max Ernst, Raoul Dufy and Fernand L‚ger, have been unmasked as forgeries, the Observer has learned. The fakes have duped leading figures in the art world into parting with at least £30m.’