Hide on the promenade, etch a postcard
Nov. 26th, 2006 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI seem to have developed one of those annoying colds where if you're vertical you're constantly sneezing and blowing your nose, and if you lie down you can't breathe. Bah. I'll slump pathetically with a laptop, then.
On Saturday morning, ChrisC and I sallied forth across London to go to the Royal College of Arts to see the Secret exhibition.
A fortnight ago, I was wandering round the Tate Modern and musing over the nature of Art. Among other things, I'd seen a series of posters by the Guerilla Girls, a lobby group of female artists who are trying to overcome discrimination in the male-dominated art-world. Now, while I'm prepared to believe such discrimination exists and prevents female artists from showing their work in big-name galleries, it had never occurred to me to wonder before whether the art I'm looking at is created by someone male, female, black, white, disabled or able. If a picture is a good picture, it doesn't matter to me who painted it.
Later, I found a bunch of wooden models whose little card said that the artist (whose name completely escapes me) had designed them, but never visited the studio while they were made in order to "remove himself from the process of construction". Now, apart from that sounding like bone idleness, it also hadn't occurred to me that the actual process of creation might be important to the art-viewer. Did I view the strange white models differently because I knew that ? Well, no actually, but I'm a bit of a Philistine in that regard. I can appreciate that some projects, such as the infamous Shedboatshed, are more about the process than about the end result. But in general, I tend to look at the finished artwork and expect to be able to obtain all the information I need from it. I don't want an explanatory card telling me that the artist embarked on a two-year preparatory course of standing on one leg before painting the work with a stick of exorcised celery before I can appreciate the picture.
After my wanderings round the upper reaches of the Tate Modern, I met ChrisC in order toplay on the slides intellectually admire the current installation in the Turbine Hall. For those who are interested, I went down the tallest slide (from Level 5 of the Tate Modern to the floor of the Turbine Hall). The slides are tubular, with their top halves made of clear perspex. I'd had vague plans to wave to a friend on the way down (she'd told me she was watching from a Level 2 viewing platform), but actually the entire experience was far, far too fast for me to focus on the scenery whizzing past, never mind keep my bearings enough to work out where Katie would be. I enjoyed my slide, but sadly the construction has been done in 2'-long sections and the resultant 'bump' every time I went over a join was sufficiently bone-shaking that I don't really want to do it again.
Again, I'm not sure I quite follow Carsten Höller's artistic vision, but I do approve of a large-scale playground. When was the last time you found a slide designed to be large enough for an adult ? Other than the high-octane rides at Alton Towers and friends, there just aren't spaces designed for adults to play in. In fact, the whole idea of "adult play" has been hijacked and turned into something which wouldn't be suitable for a family audience. Paintballing and the like is all very well, but I think cheaper and less time-consuming ways of playing ought to be introduced for big people. Slides and swings and see-saws, made in large size. Anyone else up for it ?
Anyway, post-sliding ChrisC tolerantly listened to my attempts to muse on the importance of the creator of art, then told me about the RCA Secret exhibition, where a number of works are exhibited without the artist being known.
The Secret exhibition invites a wide range of people, from internationally acclaimed artists to recent college graduates, to create postcards. These postcards are displayed, anonymously, for a couple of weeks and then the free-for-all of buying begins. Everything is priced at a flat rate of £35 a postcard, and you have to show up in person to buy it on one of the sale days - only when you've bought it the postcard do you discover whether it was Damien Hirst or Joe Student. The RCA's full description of the set-up can be found here.
I think this is a great idea for an exhibition. Not just because it allows people to buy art at reasonable prices but because, even allowing for the cognoscenti who can spot a Tracy Emin at fifteen hundred paces, it forces people to buy stuff they like rather than buying a name. I appreciate, though, that the rest of the art world won't cotton on. I don't expect many high-price art works are bought by people who like them rather than by museums, or people who see them as an investment.
Sadly, the sale days of Secret were this weekend, which meant that by the time we got there a large proportion of the exhibition had already been sold - only about 10% of the two-and-a-half-thousand strong collection was still blu-tacked to the wall. Busy people in grey RCA t-shirts were trotting round un-sticking works which people had bought, packing them up in stiff brown envelopes, and handing them over to their new owners.
Many of the postcards were not, in my considered and terribly well-informed opinion, up to much. One was simply a piece of pink card with a hole cut in it. And not even a very good hole at that. Of course, what we were seeing was the worst (or at least, the least saleable) 10% of the display. Another year I'll know better, and will go earlier.
I believe (though am not sure) that the artists receive no payment for the cards - the money goes to an RCA student fund - so perhaps many people simply toss off something as quickly as possible, with very little thought to it. The online catalogue suggests that, while there was a lot of good stuff we didn't get to see, there was also a sizeable proportion of stuff which, well, you or I could do.
This (to my mind) is a good postcard - the actual drawing may not be beyond me, but the conception is rather lovely. Similarly, this and this are things I could easily replicate, but would not have thought of. Some things, however, like the pink hole above or this - even with the best will in the world, I just couldn't find any reason to think anything good about them. On the plus side, they were both still there when I visited, so nor had anyone else at that point.
However, I feel I should put my money where my mouth is. Can I really produce a postcard which is any better, or more interesting, than those ? Can you ? I feel Venta's Secret Rip-Off Exhibition coming on in the new year - anyone fancy making a post card for it ?
On Saturday morning, ChrisC and I sallied forth across London to go to the Royal College of Arts to see the Secret exhibition.
A fortnight ago, I was wandering round the Tate Modern and musing over the nature of Art. Among other things, I'd seen a series of posters by the Guerilla Girls, a lobby group of female artists who are trying to overcome discrimination in the male-dominated art-world. Now, while I'm prepared to believe such discrimination exists and prevents female artists from showing their work in big-name galleries, it had never occurred to me to wonder before whether the art I'm looking at is created by someone male, female, black, white, disabled or able. If a picture is a good picture, it doesn't matter to me who painted it.
Later, I found a bunch of wooden models whose little card said that the artist (whose name completely escapes me) had designed them, but never visited the studio while they were made in order to "remove himself from the process of construction". Now, apart from that sounding like bone idleness, it also hadn't occurred to me that the actual process of creation might be important to the art-viewer. Did I view the strange white models differently because I knew that ? Well, no actually, but I'm a bit of a Philistine in that regard. I can appreciate that some projects, such as the infamous Shedboatshed, are more about the process than about the end result. But in general, I tend to look at the finished artwork and expect to be able to obtain all the information I need from it. I don't want an explanatory card telling me that the artist embarked on a two-year preparatory course of standing on one leg before painting the work with a stick of exorcised celery before I can appreciate the picture.
After my wanderings round the upper reaches of the Tate Modern, I met ChrisC in order to
Again, I'm not sure I quite follow Carsten Höller's artistic vision, but I do approve of a large-scale playground. When was the last time you found a slide designed to be large enough for an adult ? Other than the high-octane rides at Alton Towers and friends, there just aren't spaces designed for adults to play in. In fact, the whole idea of "adult play" has been hijacked and turned into something which wouldn't be suitable for a family audience. Paintballing and the like is all very well, but I think cheaper and less time-consuming ways of playing ought to be introduced for big people. Slides and swings and see-saws, made in large size. Anyone else up for it ?
Anyway, post-sliding ChrisC tolerantly listened to my attempts to muse on the importance of the creator of art, then told me about the RCA Secret exhibition, where a number of works are exhibited without the artist being known.
The Secret exhibition invites a wide range of people, from internationally acclaimed artists to recent college graduates, to create postcards. These postcards are displayed, anonymously, for a couple of weeks and then the free-for-all of buying begins. Everything is priced at a flat rate of £35 a postcard, and you have to show up in person to buy it on one of the sale days - only when you've bought it the postcard do you discover whether it was Damien Hirst or Joe Student. The RCA's full description of the set-up can be found here.
I think this is a great idea for an exhibition. Not just because it allows people to buy art at reasonable prices but because, even allowing for the cognoscenti who can spot a Tracy Emin at fifteen hundred paces, it forces people to buy stuff they like rather than buying a name. I appreciate, though, that the rest of the art world won't cotton on. I don't expect many high-price art works are bought by people who like them rather than by museums, or people who see them as an investment.
Sadly, the sale days of Secret were this weekend, which meant that by the time we got there a large proportion of the exhibition had already been sold - only about 10% of the two-and-a-half-thousand strong collection was still blu-tacked to the wall. Busy people in grey RCA t-shirts were trotting round un-sticking works which people had bought, packing them up in stiff brown envelopes, and handing them over to their new owners.
Many of the postcards were not, in my considered and terribly well-informed opinion, up to much. One was simply a piece of pink card with a hole cut in it. And not even a very good hole at that. Of course, what we were seeing was the worst (or at least, the least saleable) 10% of the display. Another year I'll know better, and will go earlier.
I believe (though am not sure) that the artists receive no payment for the cards - the money goes to an RCA student fund - so perhaps many people simply toss off something as quickly as possible, with very little thought to it. The online catalogue suggests that, while there was a lot of good stuff we didn't get to see, there was also a sizeable proportion of stuff which, well, you or I could do.
This (to my mind) is a good postcard - the actual drawing may not be beyond me, but the conception is rather lovely. Similarly, this and this are things I could easily replicate, but would not have thought of. Some things, however, like the pink hole above or this - even with the best will in the world, I just couldn't find any reason to think anything good about them. On the plus side, they were both still there when I visited, so nor had anyone else at that point.
However, I feel I should put my money where my mouth is. Can I really produce a postcard which is any better, or more interesting, than those ? Can you ? I feel Venta's Secret Rip-Off Exhibition coming on in the new year - anyone fancy making a post card for it ?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 02:52 am (UTC)this does raise some interesting thoughts for me about whether the nature of art lies in the abstract conception or in the concrete creation of an artwork, and indeed in where the boundary lies (if indeed there is a boundary) when one moves from things like painting or sculpture to things like stories (i nearly typed "writing"!) and music. we tend to automatically assume that physical works of art are produced by the artist, but then mass reproductions of an artwork are generally still considered to be art... does the artistic essence lie in the cognitive conception of a piece of art, in the creation of a piece of art (where that can be differentiated from the former), or in the response which a piece of art evokes in its audience ? arg, this is veering dangerously close to the whole thorny issue of the "what is art?" question !
in the case of the models in question, i'd argue that the interpretation of the abstract design into physical tangibility is also part of the artistic process, unless done entirely by automation (in which case i don't see that it makes any difference whether the artist gave the machine the instuctions in the studio or from hundreds of miles away), and so whoever actually made the models also deserves part of the artistic credit for them ?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:37 am (UTC)I don't think so, because if they're being told exactly what to do, their job is just craft rather than art. (Although maybe that's getting too close to the thorny issue too ;-)
A book can't be realized without a firm of printers assembling it, but we don't have any trouble assigning the "author" the whole of the artistic credit.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:45 am (UTC)I don't think that, say, the craftsman who realised an art work surpass the conceptualiser, but I do think they should be mentioned. So the little card should say: Rodin's Dozy Bugger, and mention in smaller type the name of the casters who physically made the bronze.
It's not an equal part, but it is a part none the less.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:34 am (UTC)The distinction in my mind is that if the artist had hired a different caster to do the casting, the result would have come out pretty much the same: so the caster's contribution is not an artistic one, any more than the book-printer's is, but a facilitatory one.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 02:54 am (UTC)...oh, and yes, count me in !
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 09:11 am (UTC)I get really cross at bone-idle lazy sods who pass themselves off as the artist when they didn't do any of the work past "conceptualization". Ok, so Antony Gormley didn't create every single one of the models in Domain Field, but he did some of them, at least. He contributed to the group effort. But, should Domain Field get broken up and sold off piece by piece the ones done by him are going to be worth more than the ones done by some kid from a Gateshead art college. Why? Isn't the kid as much an artist as Gormley is? This sort of thing makes me shout, to be honest. Why aren't the workshop staff at least as much artists as the original designer? They have to interpret his design, make changes, scale it up, adjust proportions, change the colours to something vaguely resembling a pantone palette. Don't they deserve recognition for what they did while the artist was drinking tea and appearing on Richard & Judy? Grargh.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:11 am (UTC)As for art, I'm pretty much entirely in agreement with you. At 6th form my art criticism teacher was absolutely lovely and really did her best to make me care about artists and context rather than just art. For the most part I remained uninterested. However, she did succeed in persuading me that there's actually a continuum between static art (like a painting or sculpture) and performance art (like the KLF burning money). That's why something like ShedBoatShed works for me - because the dynamic nature of the piece is part of the art.
Of course it could be that some artist would like to declare their own gender or ethnicity or absence-during-creation to be part of their work of art. Fine. But that falls into the category of art-I'm-not-interested-in. The debate over what is art is only interesting insofar as it applies to good art. The divide between bad art and not-art isn't worth discussing.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:34 am (UTC)The thing is though that if there is such a card, and you do read it, that then inevitably then becomes part of the context in which you see the artwork. You accept that for Shedboatshed, but really it's true for the other things too, just not in a way that's interesting.
This doesn't just apply to conceptual art (although I guess it's essential to that) -- an Old Master may seem different if you read the card and are told that it was painted for some convent as a penance for the artist having seduced one of the nuns.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:36 am (UTC)What are you going to do with the postcards? I can't imagine they'll sell for very much without the big names behind them ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:47 am (UTC)The obvious: sell them for not very much!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:56 am (UTC)Sometimes context is interesting to me, but generally I'd rather see more pieces and spend time looking at them, rather than at information about the first set. The major time I want it is to try and help me make predictions about what else I'll like and to trya nd work out why. From the obvious "I want to see more by this person", to "Seems like landscape painting in this part of the world at this period was doing some interesting stuff". Same with music, I reckon - I was listening to some very early Deep Purple a couple of weeks back (benefits of staying with Jezzidue) and trying to figure out timings between them, Hendrix and the Doors.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:47 pm (UTC)I liked making my advent calendar and need more excuses for doing artsie stuff than my constant cartoons to illustrate grammatical points to my long-suffering students...
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 04:45 pm (UTC)Mrs Davison never thought a right lot of anything I did, either.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 10:22 pm (UTC)