down by the water front

I Could Do That!

 

 

 

Grayson Perry : What makes us tick, creativity, demystification and over simplification

 

 

 

I have been hearing a lot recently about a stateside show that’s been airing on Bravo called Work of Art. Now I haven’t seen the footage but I get the general idea from conversations that it has more than a touch of reality TV style competition about it.

The artists are presumably chosen and then set tasks using various mediums to compete against their compatriots in a cash award prize set-up, complete with the well known Brooklyn Museum’s backing and subsequent endorsement of the winning artist.

 

Ho-Hum well one of my earlier posts went into the whys and wherefores of School of  Saatchi in December ; similar sort of set up celebrity art world big wigs and a handful of aspiring TV artists.

 

 

School of Saatchi TV programme

images from the BBC website

and a quote from the BBC listing

"Sam faces disaster when Saatchi deems his artwork too dangerous to exhibit. Matt takes on the massive task of building a full-scale caravan from scrap wood, and almost drives himself insane in the process. Eugenie discovers her artwork while walking down the street, but has to persuade the council to sell it to her."

 

 

The panel

Apparently the Bravo series has generated more interest and debate than Saatchi’s BBC venture (which was listed under factual on the BBC web??). It seems Bravo has more of a Big Brothery type of who-are-you-routing-for approach. With a web-message board teeming with opinions and rivalry, all in all the board as pure value-add entertainment in itself.

 

And in spite of the do-good we’re raising art awareness in a TV friendly way mantra from both productions. The bottom line is a reality show format that has been tried and tested from chefs to business *schools* ; get a load of willing contestants and throw them into the metaphorical (delete/add appropriate industry here) lion’s den.

 

TV ratings screaming at you.

 

 

 

So huzzah!! for Grayson Perry this week, again delving into what it means to be creative. A word he believes is being crowded out by bureaucratic buzz words from government and media alike with their creativity this & creativity that = GDP ratings (ie; international film, music and the like – the BIG stuff). And supposedly endorsing the have-a-go (defeatingly cruel??) lottery-like Britain’s Got Talent and the X Factor approach.

You don’t need expensive to run institutions for have-a-go, just willing guinea pigs to have a pop at the lottery.

I suppose this TV style presentation is sort of blowing away cobwebs of years of myths about artists with all that ingrained traditional rhetoric that people have felt in general; not being comfortable with art works, that they possibly feel alienated from because they don’t understand all the arty world speak that goes with *understanding* it.

Grayson’s Radio4 debate took him via Terry Pratchett, and psychologist Ray Tallis exploring;

“The myths of art and to show how creativity isn't a mystery, but at the same time it isn't necessarily easily accessible.”

 

Precisely so, all artists are different, all art is a personal thing from maker to viewer. And it is just the intermediary landmarks of bodies such as buyers, critics and the like who set the bench marks of how and what works evolve into the general consensus.

 

But creativity is a personal endeavour, not, I suspect that suited to reality TV. I said in my Saatchi Art School rant that really art is so personal; the expression may be physical but to try and force it through the narrow model of this style of TV just doesn’t resonate.

 

Art is not something instantly recognisable as entertaining, (no more than the day to day of most occupations). Maybe the finished piece but only in the very broadest sense of entertaining.

The R4 discussion touched on things like, the have a go - anyone can do it attitude, apparently extremely prevalent in the UK. And the fact that also, not everyone can be a brain surgeon, but people think writing, and art is easier than, say science, so therefore just to do it is enough. Not, I don't think, to put off or to suggest it's exclusive, but that the involvement can be pretty intense.

The reality is more on the lines of; you never really stop looking, listening feeding yourself information and imagery. For example, even on holiday you are storing things up all the time, or another one; you lose the thread of a conversation because you are absorbing something on the periphery. Something I get stick for a lot - "Oh! she's off again".

Ray Tallis summed the process as; the mechanisms in place to be creative can be a complex mix of the personal and a greater universal life full of incomplete meanings, a personal passion and a medium in order to make sense of it all.

 

Grayson Perry at The Frieze 2008

image courtesy Guardian Fashion at the Frieze

The article emphasising nearly everyone being dressed in black and Grayson looking uncomfortable.

(personally I think he looks great - but there you go!)

 

 

Grayson, has also made one thing very clear and he is passionate about it – that in order to create, it so totally helps to have knowledge, practical knowledge of how to make something – and this for too long has been snobbishly pushed by the fine art world into the poor relative corner of Craft.

 

Rendering craft as something you would encompass only if you were a) destroying any credibility as an artist proper and b) selling out (cos of course anything made from a craft technique will open up all the village fates and craft fares for you in one fell swoop and so critically devalue your work forever).

 

Grayson once opened a piece on social mobility saying he was sat in the Stedelijk when an invisible hand tapped him on the shoulder and said "What are you doing here, you oik? These places ain't for the likes of you." – he was waiting to meet the main curator to discuss his imminent one-*man* exhibition. His upbringing had ingrained a sense of art-outsider or working class - call it what you will - but the feeling of not deserving to be in certain areas of life because of the way you spoke or dressed, where you were from or educated. Class.

Thank goodness Grayson is also around to prove that pottery and fine art still do mix. And that the craft of making things has been so knocked in general that the very basics of knowledge are being forgotten.

All this goes right across the board with many different skills.

And some skills have been so finitely preserved they seem the reserve of a certain exclusive area of art - usually with prices to match.

 

Li Edelkoort has been of the same belief for many years and actively promotes any fine art and design that involves a basic knowledge of skills that are being lost. Not in a purist way either, with her, just like Grayson incorporating technology. But also from the reality of losing valuable knowledge.

 

So the TV-ratings-quest for numbers, through some misguided thinking on how the real world of creativity should be *fitting into* the more readily understood dog-eat-dog business models - is time for a re-think?.

These kind of cash award prize systems are nothing new in the Art world ; the Booker Prize says just that. A moneyed carrot and Establishment Endorsement, most throw their doors open for submissions of this type for a prize. But the art-as-entertainment, creativity made more accessible by gimmick renders the credibility nothing short of voyeuristic art-light TV.

 

Let’s have some substance thrown into the mix: With Art mystification and snobbery put paid and some real-reality tips on how creativity can be embraced and understood and made.

 

Back on Sunday.........

Objects of Desire

 

 

It's Rude to Stare

 

 

 

So, Gay Pride has been and gone and no I am not going to rant on about the luvvie Conservative political embrace. That in my book will only bear fruit when they (the C's) walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Nuf said.

 

No, gender across the board has been leaping out at me from all angles recently (no it’s not my hormones either) – I don’t think.

 

 

Male Model Davo

image courtesy Polly Vernon's Guardian article ; Thin is In

 

Anyway the specifics I have noticed are; the objectification of women, emaciated men getting even skinnier, boys on the dole or jobless losing their get up and go, replacing with sit down and smoke (blow); apparently it’s easier to give up to relatively soft options of computer games and blow than stick heads above the parapet and fail.

 

And, as one who was briefly dole-isized last year after being without work for 12 months, not to mention being a lone parent, out of a too young marriage with a small baby, on a Thatcher sized benefit in the 80’s. I kind of get it.

Not fitting the pre-ordained *family unit – mum at home with the kids* aesthetic of the time. So at once stigmatized for that, and not able to help myself because no preschool care was available unless privately paid for which bluntly means; get a bloody good job = not bloody likely being OPF in the middle of a recession.

I completely understand the demoralising aspects of trying your best to get out of that situation and being thwarted at seemingly every turn.

It’s not easy to take, especially from a position of back to the wall in the first place. But apparently some adolescent post-education boys in particular are *giving up* without even *having a go*.

Although having a go is easier said than done in your 100^th *failed interview* stacked up with 100 other *competitive applicants*.

 

 

It seems all genders and demographs are having a crisis of identity born out of different social aspects. And for the most part I have an inclination toward the obvious women’s stance on ‘bout time too (for men to see what it’s like to feel the effects of objectification).

But really it’s just a rubbish thing to feel anyway; why should anyone have that forced on them through society’s glaring gaze.

 

 

Where did this entire stereo type super-aspirational-object-of-beauty thing come from?. The feminine shut up and look pretty & macho big strong and forceful images that for how many decades? have been flaw-tested to the max to prove serious hidden social pathologies. And what is it now with this swing of polemic proportions?.

Can’t we learn from one genders meander into a dodgy eating/fashion/sexual objectification area and all the *fail* at the starting post, unwanted and unnecessary inferior complexes that helped produce.

 

Surely the Kate Mosses and Beckhams of this world have had their day or at least as far as the heady days of follow-me-down-a-blind-alley of super-skinny and/or macho footballer with six-pack in Armani underpants. Even if you look at the fashion world's slow and painful embrace of larger models, the message is still one of copy-cat aesthetics.

 

Mark Fast Spring Summer 2010 - a step in redressing the cat walk balance

image courtesy Mark Fast.net

 

Umberto Eco had a book out a couple of years ago called On Beauty. And, on holding an interview at the largest Conference hall at the Alhambra, Granada. I found I was lucky to get a ticket, it was packed. It seems a lot of people are interested in this thing called beauty.

His book and talk were about beauty or loosely the things we humans find aesthetic. He charted with film and photographs how certain styles and shapes of human form have changed through the ranks of aesthetically pleasing, through time continents and cultures.

Umberto Eco

 

One of the problems we seem to have now is an imbalance? of even more general homogenisation, in the west at least. A super-aesthetic cultural flattening with some aspects through popular media getting the most exposure, and so, seeming to be the aesthetic of choice we follow.

 

Media/Film/TV Star? Footballer? Footballers wife? Money for nothing? Money and fame for the next *best aesthetic* lifestyle choice, through TV and media hype, plus spin offs.

 

XFactor Sisi and Big Brother's Charley aspirational celebs?

 

This type of product placement beauty and lifestyle aspiration is certainly taking a knocking as these lottery like goals are now glaringly not as-reach-for-the stars-at-whatever-cost achievable (although it’s good to have a dream – but maybe one of your own making?).

 

For many these dreams will be fading as the slow boring and dulling reality of cuts and unemployment takes hold (and it does) it’s like depression (well it is a depression physically and mentally) it can dull your senses and your get up and go, your spark of life.

 

But it needn't:

 

All genders potentially have this scenario if not facing them, then facing someone close by and not least the NEETS (not in employment education or training – a vast number being in their teens and twenties).

A lot of perceptions of how things *should* be, whether it is how people look at others demeanour, attitudes and how these things face up in the mirror of societies *norms* – a personal reflection of many will be out of sync in such a dramatically changing world.

It takes time for society to change; apartheid ended during 1990-93, but when I talked with some white SA surfers in their 20’s, even ten years on they were saying it was their parents who were slow to change and it would take a generation to alter attitudes.

 

Women speak of feeling objectified still. Men are feeling the same only as something new. Young boys are feeling emasculated. Gays (inc LBT), especially young and not out yet, in a still obviously *straight white male* society are continuing to feel stigma, things are changing though, aesthetics will too.

 

Is all this stifling airbrushed out, one step too far from reality, too expensive to reproduce image mongering finally losing its manipulatory steam roller like effect on the zeitgeist at last?. Or is the Industry of Beauty on the whole impervious to a dramatic social change?.

 

Beauty is and always will be a fleeting, and yes, aspirational but also a personal thing. And on that basis it becomes an inclusive thing.

When times are bad many aspects of society fall on tried and trusted ways of expression and it is already heavily influenced by beauty industry's tight grip of reassurance through encouraging emulation of celebrity confidence, by buying into it with product - a win win for the industry. And in that respect the confidence of those who would otherwise test the tried and trusted can falter or just don't evolve. So those that do seem more pioneering, more open to scrutiny.

 

 

It’s perhaps good for society, now especially, for the beauty industry not to metaphorically point the finger and stare at difference; by effectively carrying on as normal – by pushing the usual aesthetics through aspirations.

And in doing so excluding and alienating many who will also be going through forced and abrupt changes.

 

Super-Aesthetic-Beauty is, as the saying goes only skin deep, and a person’s true beauty has a way of shining; if it is allowed to.

 

 

And I have also to highlight this quote from the previous post  Li Edelkoort mentioned in her interview to Desigboom:

“Very early in our courses we have been working on social problems,
people who have leisure first, which is unemployment, which is streetchildren,
so it keeps coming up all the time, that to have freetime it's not necessary only positive,
in our institute I think that there is a great feeling, that we must as well design
for minorities, problem groups ... and not just working on beautiful chairs and lamps”.

 

 

Beautiful design with real people in mind – me thinks ‘bout time too!

 

 

 

Back Sunday.....

 

 

Scissor Sisters

 

 

 

Cuts,cuts and cuts

 

A few years ago fine art institutions all over were embracing a forward thinking idea of combining yes combining science with art – actively encouraging students to go out there and get scientific with their work.

That did of course lead to no end of highly sensitive health and safety issued pieces being thrown up left right and centre and probably single handedly prompted the health and safety surge and backlash a few years later.

Remember Hirst’s foray to the US with his cow? no pickling allowed without quarantine or no formaldehyde or something, but stopped in its tracks at customs under *was it art or was it food* and subsequent H&S problems with BSE and rotting corpses.

Even the lecturers got confused; one classically curated the final touches to a degree show and was told to take it down – she had blocked the fire doors – well that’s not scientific faux-par more ummm a lecturer-on-a-bad-curation-day, but hey! still pushing at the boundaries if only a door!

 

Those were some kind of days - it seems as a big planned cut is looming on the horizon for public sector Science in general and the Science Museum in London.

They have just put on a huge promotional show along with The Royal Society and The Arts Council, for Science and the Arts called See Further Festival which is being held at The South Bank Centre until 4th July

 

images courtesy See Further Festival

 

 

 

Cuts in science – an area that many would say is the main-stay for our economic future.

But hold on a minute. Only a slight observation here but this was collaboration no? a festival  where the scientists  and creative’s both came up with the ingredients; and have already been doing so for almost all creative and scientific input for most of the museum, if not just the promotional show.

 

 

If on a daily basis we were to try and hypothetically remove artisitc creativity from our world (this includes all our senses; taste, visual, touch, smell and hearing, and the creative industries that pioneer them) we are left with the basics. Cuts in Science will mean cuts in design, fashion, art and anything it touches.

Science also has an aesthetic side in application.

 

 

I still don’t get the way the arts and sciences are shoved into categories of good, bad, mediocre in terms of economic sense – they all make sense – they all rely on each other.

Not which departments (or museums) are spending more than others.  Science and technology do cost – we also have a heavily monetized industry - pharmacy for one, which is basing its future on our trending consumptions – so much so that we now need them – they have made sure the supply and demand is covered.

 

Is it maybe time that these industries put something back into public nurturing of these subjects, museums and event-interest gatherings ?

Some do; but as a rule when a field of research has so heavily and beneficially affected the economy of one particular industry shouldn’t they have some commitment to re-invest at a grass roots level?

This would be all the more balanced if re-investment went across the *groups* but science does touch so many areas this could only help.

 

It has a knock on effect both ways and to cut science is to cut design, is to cut art and all visual and aural media.

 

 

 

 

Liquid Crystal ; Living cells and Flat Screen TV's

 

It can’t solve all the woes nor balance everything in this public and private sector trauma; but surely a re-investment to the hands on hand-that-fed-it-in-the-first-place, from the industry would make some sense?

And here is a link to Susan Watts blog in which she discusses these and other issues surrounding the future of scienctific research.

 

 

Back Sunday.....after an ouch heavy dentist sesh, so I promise it won't be about teeth, even if the next greatest work of art ever is !

 

 

 

The Art of Noise

 

 

 

 

The Art of Noise or rather film and sound; art with no dialogue, analysis/lecturing and Douglas Gordon's look at Zidane in his 21st Century Portrait of pure sound

 

I am going to the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam sometime at the end of August – to semi witness their reinvention of the old building into a bigger space under its new direction by Ann Goldsmith.

I like these kinds of spaces because you get a wide cross-section of the public and so stop them becoming overly reverential that often kill's genuine response.

I know some people really don’t like the fact that children can go and have a tantrum while mum and dad take in a Mondrian. But on the whole I think it is far better than the super-hushed and stark don’t cough or sneeze scenarios that can bear down in these places.

 

And as a side; no I don’t particularly like museums current trend for creating *theme park* art exhibitions, the kind that actively court ticket sales through a route of art-o-tainment. But did also like the fact that while passing through Louise Bourgeois’ retrospective hearing a little girl of about three comment on her Amoeba sculpture, saying it was like mashed potato, I left enlightened!

 

Louise Bourgeois : Amoeba

"'At the dinner table when I was very little, I would hear people bickering - the father to the mother choosing to defend herself. To escape the bickering around me I started modeling the soft bread with my fingers. With the dough of the French bread - sometimes still warm - I would make little figures. And I would line up these little figures on the table and this was really my first sculpture"

Louise Bourgeois, May 1999

 

The last time I was at the Stedelijk was to see Douglas Gordon who again started a mini debate around one of his video installations Hand and Foot. When a couple of women started with “Oh no! not another video installation” rant as they thought art-proper was to be interacted with in a static form as moving image imposes itself. So receiving the image rather than engaging.

 

I never understood that argument; I saw the work in its whole, complete with sound and engaged one to one.

But I have always thought that too much information before engaging with a work to be dictating or pre-empting the viewer response.

This bore out again this week on re-seeing Douglas Gordon’s film  about Zinadine Zidane.

 

A 21st Century Portrait.

image courtesy psfk.com

The one where he filmed the footballer for the full 90 minutes of play between Real Madrid vs Villareal in 2005.

 

Gordon had 17 cameras trained on Zizou for the whole of game, without dialogue.

 

Sound was included, absolutely, yes: And if you have not seen it, the resulting engagement was a quite completely absorbing affair because there was no real dialogue just the roar of the crowd the background noise of a commentator when it switched to a screen view of the match, and back to the thud of the ball and the football boot.

In fact I became super aware, while watching, that the lack of commentary or the usual TV engagement with the game made this voyeuristic look with background noise and image, a more basic primal experience. Along with the fact the footballers rarely communicated verbally other than a spoken gesture, made the perceived experience very intuitive; always looking to see where the other players were a constant mental update in real time.

Playing as a team but a lone player also cut off from sound but surrounded by the sound of the crowd.

 

Zidane also was quoted in type half way through as saying when he was little he used to run up to the TV to get as close as he could to hear and see the match. When he played in the street he always had a running commentary gong in his head; he said when watching on TV it wasn’t what the commentator was saying just the tone of his voice, the noise of the crowd that conjured the whole atmosphere and excitement.

And also while playing on the pitch he could hear what he wanted, he could shut out the big sounds and could hear someone close by cough or move in their chair.

 

I will leave a link here of the full Google film-video because if you are into artistic film and or even football this is  a very atmospheric piece and can only really be explained by watching it:

 

 

Zidane - A 21st century Portrait

 

 

And this video although much shorter at 7 minutes includes Zidanes quotes above with the only music in the whole film by Mogwai.

 

 

 

 

 

But I recommend the full film as the music plays a different role when you surround it with the other images and sound.

 

 

So the viewer making their own mind up while engaging in a piece of work whether moving or not, and interacting on that basis alone?.

Even post analysis is a detractor from one to one engagement whether in a crowd or not. And although analysis is inevitable, is the engagement *pure* really what art is about?.

 

 

 

Brian Clough Statue, Nottingham

Brian Clough of *old big head* fame:

Never one to mince his words or to cow his thoughts summed up this kind of engagement in an interview with John Motson in the 70's

Motty probably never really recovered!

 

The lads very kindly asked if I wanted them to move for the photo - I thought Cloughie probably wouldn't want that kind of imposition so stay they did!

 

 

Brian on post-match pre-match TV analysis

“.....yes John I’m talking about people like you. You, your team, your producer – you’ve never played professional football and yet you come on here week after week and lecture us after a match on how it should be played”

“....yes I used to be on the show as a panellist – as a critic – and far more qualified than you or any of your colleagues”

“Saturday night used to be an enjoyable family night in watching Match of The Day, I'm speaking as a layman – as a guy who pays your wages through his TV fee, he comes home to watch a bit of football, and we’ve got you lot lecturing us, not enough football and too much talk”

 

Classic!

 

 

 

 

 

Back this Wednesday.....