Investigating My Contemporary Practice
Having investigated contemporary practice in a broken-down manner, what seemed a daunting concept has begun to make sense as I discovered relationships to my own experiences. I will Investigate contemporary practice further to respond to and uncover some of the ties across the breadth of my work.
As an Artist I follow my own passions, interests and experiences and work as intuitively as possible. This helps find truths that I am unaware of, in an act of discovery.
However, intuition can lead to me subconsciously forming systems of work which confine my ideas. I resent this as I don’t think that rules have any place within art unless integral to the artist, they restrict creativity and close off avenues that when explored can be breakthroughs.
Being committed to honesty in my work, I need to pursue ‘My’ art. As an artist I have the flexibility to be true to my own agendas and views, exploring often existing ideas from a new perspective.
Gerhard Richter, 1988, Dead from October 18, 1977 Series, oil on canvas, 35 x 40cm, The Museum Of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, USA
This impartment of a personal viewpoint can be seen in Gerhard Richter’s Dead from October 18, 1977 series “he felt some sympathy for the terrorists as misguided heirs of the idealism of 1968.” (Hopkins, 2000, p.215) In regard to his audience, blurring the images made viewers shift to focus on them, thus implying that these claims were incapable of being realised (Hopkins, 2000)
Sara Hood, 2019, Attitudes, mixed media, animation, film, YouTube, Lancashire, UK
Whilst often exploring difficult topics, when showing work such as my video piece, attitudes, I find myself taking a certain amount of responsibility for the authorship I am presenting. I try to engage in a way that is sensitive enough to make people think and solicit a response but not dictate the outcome for them. I believe that for me to convey authentically, I first must have had the experience so that I may then manipulate the audience into perceiving my perspective.
Studios are a space, integral to the artist using them whether that be a building, room, location, area of inspiration or otherwise, it is “The imagination chamber” (Broadey, 2019). Is the studio purely an extension of the artists psyche, or do the surroundings and the studio have an impact on the artist's work?
Does the space define the act, does the artist define the space?
Which is more important, creating the work or its journey after this?
The answer? There is none.
Artists are each individual and so is every part of their practice despite societies drive to give everything a box to live in. ‘By producing a stereotype, one ends up of course fabricating a stereotype’ (Buren and Repensek, 1979, p.55)
Daniel Buren‘s Studio, https://wouterdavidts.com/research/
For me it is a mental place. Creation is my catharsis and is a massive part of me managing PTSD which I find little help for elsewhere. I find that isolation is fundamental to my own practice, being able to immerse myself fully into my own thoughts and creative responses. Without this I flounder and so does my work.
In the communal studio environment or at home as the mother/wife/aunt I have to use music through headphones to create an audio barrier and avoid looking at anyone else to stay on track, which in two environments where everyone has insecurities and wants reassurance from seemingly stable members of the group managing to go any period of time without interruptions that break the flow is nigh on impossible.
For others isolation would stump their practice with something about the social, bustling aspect of the studio instead feeding their creativity and moving their work forward.
The other aspect I struggle to work without is a clear space, I find that I look for the things I cannot obtain in my head to work with in my space, quiet and everything in an order, clarity I suppose, and that which I try to create with my workspace is the self-same things I create artwork for. To find clarity and an answer to my ‘unfixable’ issues, although I may never discover it.
A key part in the working life of an artist are exhibitions, however in the past several decades, despite art making huge leaps in many aspects none more so than in the contemporary, galleries and exhibitions have not. They lag behind.
Work which has become the most socially relevant and strives to reach out to people on a visceral level that makes it more approachable and discoverable, is still regularly being shown in a stuffy outdated way. Even the modern white cube is aging rapidly and falling behind societal progress. This is no new issue; artists of all career stages face this conundrum and are increasingly vocal about it ‘art should do more than sit on its ass in a museum.’ (Oldenberg, 1999, P.41)
Claes Oldenburg, 2013, The Sixties exhibit, The Store, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA, MPR Photo/Jennifer Simonson
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, 1985, Spoonbridge and Cherry, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, USA Image via leisuregrouptravel.com
There seems no communal way to get around this, instead artists perpetually and singularly create relevant space for their work to be encountered. Older galleries were socialist endeavors, steeped in tradition and rules, newer galleries are capitalist ventures obsessed by the bottom line. This leaves artists like me with a conundrum, I don’t wish to feed into consumer culture or have my work idolised yet I need to make a living.
‘The etymology of ‘exhibition’ includes the unveiling of a sacrificial offering, and visiting a museum can be related to an act of mourning’ (Meecham and Sheldon, 2000, P.195)
This isn’t where I want to end up, my work currently seems more documentarian/archival than sculptural and I find myself wanting people to interact and explore, not just remember and reflect upon them as if considering a life past, as is so easily done in the wrong setting under the wrong circumstances. We are heading into an era where artwork seems more relevant when it is encountered in everyday life, site specifically and in the real world with relevance to whoever stumbles upon it.
Research is one avenue of discovery I often embark upon. This plays a large part in my artwork, I was interested to see that this was equally as important to Artist, Elizabeth Price in her exhibition ‘A Long Memory’ at the Whitworth gallery.
Elizabeth Price, 2019, Colliery Archive, Photographic Archive, The Whitworth Galley, Manchester, UK
To have the archive which made up the heart of her research and final video was an intensely beautiful experience. This archive is “scientifically purposeful and strangely melancholy” (Price, 2019) Not only was it a stunning collection it was beautifully, even artfully curated and displayed. I responded with adoration and frustration at the fact I could not explore the archive itself. It was like a glimpse into a beautiful box where you know there is more waiting to be seen and found.
I find myself using mountains of reference material in my work which in my current work has resulted in me amounting a large amount of information that I have archived in a similarly neat manner using set sized cards and a typewriter, similarly here I have found myself growing more connected to the archive than the end output.
Zoe Leonard, Fae Richards Archive, Photography, One National Gay and Lesbian Archives, LA, USA, as part of the show, “Memoirs of a Watermelon Woman,”
Another example of an archive which this time blends into an idea of false documentation is ‘The Fae Richards Photo Archive, 1993-96' this deals with a fictional biography of a successful, black, lesbian women's life ‘the archive photographs are sufficiently plausible for the viewer to be uncertain whether this is a pastiche or real’ (Cotton, 2011) whilst this appears a complete falsehood, a fiction, maybe even a deception, I don’t feel that any documentary or archival collections or works differ far.
Photographs and video footage are particularly susceptible to this editorial bias as discussed by Photographer and theorist Allan Sekula ‘photographic meaning is relatively indeterminate; the same picture can convey a variety of messages under differing presentational circumstances.’ (Sekula, A, 1976-8) There is always, at the very least the curation of events, images, items or ephemera which imprints the artists own bias onto it. Every single edited or curated documentation is tainted with human input and furthermore on the output. I embrace this within my own work and instead see the curatorial side of my research to be an incredibly important part of my creative decision making and something which can unexpectedly dictate the avenues I explore.
Elizabeth Price, 2019, The Woolworths Choir Of 1979, Video Installation, The Whitworth Galley, Manchester, UK
Absorbed by the colliery images I was also moved by the videos Price presented. The one which resonated most was Woolworths Choir, there was a level of mastery and manipulation going on which whilst I was aware of it, I still found myself sitting in designated spaces, moving with the films and being taken on a journey. The audio was incredible, the mix of the audio, video and lighting created a tantalising suppression and heightening of different senses. ‘I’m interested in music and the voice because it brings a very different sensual and emotional register to the work’ (Price, 2019) Even if I had not resonated so strongly with the topic of mortality and flippancy coiled tightly I had no choice with the sensual manipulation but to be physically and emotionally moved by this work. This has moved my project along and begun a thought process taking me down the route of creating a firm feeling within the audience of my work.
Whilst creating as an act of catharsis is a main driving force for me, I do engage with the idea of the audience and their role in my work. Without invoking an audience, the piece exists purely for me and thus its life is limited enormously. ‘There is no non performative artwork’ (Hantelmann, 2010) Hantelmann highlights here that simply by viewing you are engaging and similarly with paintings sculptures, performance sand social art, it ceases to be if it is not in conversation with a person.
If an artwork is never viewed, experienced or engaged with then in reality that artwork ceases to be. Only in memory and feeling are things kept alive, inanimate, un-engageable objects are the difference between items and art.
Michael Asher, 1974, Untitled, Installation, Claire Copley Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
This can be seen most clearly in Asher's untitled work in the Claire Copley Gallery, 1974. Here the audience is the artwork, without them there is no piece. There needs to be voyeurs, investigators and thinkers for it to become real and exist.
Sculpture has the ability to encapsulate an idea, feeling or emotion in an object, which becomes more than that, it becomes a physical tangible catalyst for the audience to form a relationship or conversation with. Similarly, to the way I have been working, Michael Dean starts with words, writing to which he then gives physical form.
Michael Dean, 2016, Sic Glyphs, Installation, South London Gallery, London, UK
Unlike my current experimentation his work has a figurative nature. Whereas mine deals predominantly with the feelings and underlying essences of words his brings a relatable life to them. These sculptures are entities on their own to be viewed and rationalised, I however look to take a more site-specific approach and wish to emphasise my work by the conversations it can have in a more specialised setting.
This combined with keeping the integrity of the materials used in construction of my forms will, I hope, resonate more with people who engage with them. Up until now I have been working unintentionally with sitelessness, this on reflection is leaving my work lacking. Combining elements of site-specific engagement, audio sensitivities and authorship is where I intend to go next.
Anthony Gormley, 1998, Angel Of The North, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England
I have taken heed of site specific works such as Anthony Gormley's Angel of the north which in a gallery would be purely objectified, but with its current setting and scale it has become a symbolic and gestural landmark, known countrywide and proudly welcomed by its townsfolk as a part of their culture.
Working onto a canvas or paper is an intense experience for an artist, with tools to be used and colours to be contemplated first. It is not as fluid as merely beginning crafting with your hands as much sculpture entails. There is still an immediacy but there are also more decisions to make and being intuitive with a painting is more academic in a way.
The artist oversees creating a projection of their thoughts and feelings onto a blank space. The personal nature of painting is a part of the artists psyche and maybe even soul, if you believe in such things, captured in the movement, choices and result. Each image is a hyper focused event, moment or idea, worked into for hours on end to get to a place where the artist feels their mentality at the conceptualisation of the image has been reached. The process if often ritualistic and personal.
Mark Rothko, 1960, No. 14, oil on canvas, 114 1/2 in. x 105 5/8 in, Rothko Collection
Unlike sculpture where viewers tend to look upon, paintings tend to draw the onlookers in, in through a window into their world, their mind and more importantly for the escapists, out of their own minds and worlds. Rothko describes this experience, the symbolic opening and sharing of minds as having ‘faith in his ability to produce miracles when they are needed. Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.’ ‘The picture must be for him, as for anyone experiencing it later, a revelation,’ (Rothko, art in theory 1900 – 2000) With the passion behind such an act as painting, the image can never be simple, it has life imparted into it by the artist.
The realisation at this point is that conceptual art, although it sometimes feels intuitive to me, is in fact a much more mentally challenging process than I consciously realised. Having scrutinised my own work in so many areas I can now see the complex thought process I go through and feel that although I spend what I though was far too long contemplating and formulating ideas, this in fact is what keeps pushing my art forwards and helping me to reach further potentials I may not yet have conceived. An in depth analysis of the life of art, its life after creation has also changed my outlook, forcing me to contemplate the future of my practice.
Bibliography
Books
Altshuser, B (2013) Biennials and Beyond – Exhibitions That Made Art History: 1962-2002, Phaidon, London
Archer, M (2006) Art Since 1960 New Edition, Thames and Hudson, London
Bishop, C (2005) ‘Activated Spectatorship’, Installation Art: A Critical History, London, Tate Publishing, pp. 102-127
Buskirk, M (2004) Authority and Authorship In The Contingent Object In Contemporary Art, M.I.T. Press, Massachusetts. Pp. 19 – 58
Buskirk, M (2005) The Contingent Object Of Contemporary Art, MIT Press, USA
Cotton, C (2009) The Photograph As Contemporary Art, Thames and Hudson, London
Fineberg, J (2000) Art Since 1940 Strategies Of Being, Lawrence King, London
Frascina, F and Harrision, C (1982) Modern Art And Modernism A Critical Anthology, Harper and Row, London
Gaiger, E and Wood, P (2003) Art Of The Twentieth Centuary A Reader, Yale University Press, Great Britain
Harrison, C and Wood, P (2003) Art In Theory 1900 – 2000 An Anthology Of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford
Hoffmann, J (2012) The Studio: Documents Of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Hoffmann, J (2014) Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, London: Thames and Hudson
Hopkins, D (2000) After Modern Art 1945 – 2000, Oxford, London
McCorquodale, D, Siderfin, N and Stallabrass, J (1998) Occupational Hazard Critical Writing On Recent British Art, Black Dog Publishing Limited, London
Meecham, P and Sheldon, J (2000) Modern Art: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, London
Mirzoeff, N (2000) An Introduction To Visual Culture, Routledge, London
Murray, C (1997) The Hutchinson Dictionary Of The Arts, Helicon Publishing Ltd, Bath
Ratcliff, C (2000) Out Of The Box, Allworth Press, New York
Wood, P (2004) Varieties Of Modernism, Yale University Press, London
Journals
Bari, S. (2019) ‘Louise Bourgeois’s I Do, I Undo, I Redo’, Frieze, (200), pp. 138–139
Beech, D ‘Include Me Out’, Art Monthly, 315: April 2008, pp. 1-4
Buren, D (1971), ‘The Function Of The Studio’ In: October, no. 10 (Fall 1979), pp. 51-58
De Wachter, E. M. (2019) ‘BACK AND FORWARD: How archival collections are being re-animated via new technologies’, Frieze, (203), pp. 46–47
Diehl, T. (2019) ‘Max Hooper Schneider’, Frieze, (201), p. 185
Gossett, C. (2019) ‘Bruce Nauman’, Frieze, (201), p. 183
Jerkins, M. (2019) ‘UNBOUNDED LIFE: A new collection of works by the late US novelist and filmmaker Kathleen Collins shows an artist seeking to become free in ways that most women never achieve’, Frieze, (201), pp. 30–31
Joselit, D ‘Painting Beside Itself’, October 130, Fall 2009, pp. 125 - 134
Kalmar, S. (2018) ‘HOW SHOULD A MUSEUM BE? Publicly funded institutions must respond to the emergencies defining our world today’, Frieze, (197), p. 24
Mereweather, C (1997) ‘Archives Of The Fallen’, In Grand Street, no. 62, 36 – 47
Morris, K. (2019) ‘Going Back Home’, Frieze, (203), pp. 194–198
O’Kane, P. (2012) ‘On Making Art’ In: Art Monthly, 360: October 2012, PP. 1 – 4.
O’Doherty, B ‘Inside The White Cube: Notes On The Gallery Space, Part I, Artforum 14:7 (March 1976), pp. 24-30
Sekula, A ‘Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary (Notes On The Politics of Representation)’ In: The Massachusetts Review, Vol 19, No. 4, Photography, (Winter 1978), pp. 859-883
Walsh, M ‘I Object’ In: In: Art Monthly, 371: November 2013, pp. 9 – 12
Online Resources
Brakell, S (2012). ‘Perspectives: Negotiating the Archive.’ Tate Papers, Spring 2008, available at: tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/09/perspectives-negotiating-the-archive
Elizabeth Price Interview, Part One, London, 4 May 2016, https://vimeo.com/166516474
Elizabeth Price Interview, Part Two, London, 4 May 2016, https://vimeo.com/166231315
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/movement/site-specific-artenvironmental-art
Exhibitions and EventsAttended Since Sept 2019
Ancient Egypt Gallery, World Museum, Liverpool
Butt This Is Important, Seagull Freedom Gallery, Blackpool
Elizabeth Price, Whitworth
English National Ballet, The Nutcracker, Live Drawing Workshop, Liverpool Empire
Ideas Depot, Tate Liverpool
Keith Haring, Tate Liverpool
New Work By Jacqui Hallum, Walker Art Gallery
Politics On Pots, Walker Art Gallery
Rosalind Uncut, Invitation by Artist to View Work Privately, via a password online.
Artworks
Anthony Gormley, 1998, Angel Of The North, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England
Claes Oldenburg, 2013, The Sixties exhibit, The Store, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA, MPR Photo/Jennifer Simonson
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, 1985, Spoonbridge and Cherry, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, USA Image via leisuregrouptravel.com
Daniel Buren‘s Studio, https://wouterdavidts.com/research/
Gerhard Richter, 1988, Dead from October 18, 1977 Series, oil on canvas, 35 x 40cm, The Museum Of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, USA
Elizabeth Price, 2019, Colliery Archive, Photographic Archive, The Whitworth Galley, Manchester, UK
Elizabeth Price, 2019, The Woolworths Choir Of 1979, Video Installation, The Whitworth Galley, Manchester, UK
Mark Rothko, 1960, No. 14, oil on canvas, 114 1/2 in. x 105 5/8 in, Rothko Collection
Michael Asher, 1974, Untitled, Installation, Claire Copley Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Michael Dean, 2016, Sic Glyphs, Installation, South London Gallery, London, UK
Sara Hood, 2019, Attitudes, mixed media, animation, film, YouTube, Lancashire, UK
Zoe Leonard, Fae Richards Archive, Photography, One National Gay and Lesbian Archives, LA, USA, as part of the show, “Memoirs of a Watermelon Woman,”