Just wanted to add here the list of artists we viewed on the PPt for this session:
i.e.
Mike Bidlo
Fatimah Tuggar
Lawrence Weiner
Alan Kaprow
Gunilla Klingberg
Jacob Kolding
Jeff Koons
Santiago Sierra
Haim Steinbach
Andy Warhol
Daniel Pflumm
And finally to recap and recall the importance of that recent news of multiple suicides in Chinese factories producing the new iPads for UK markets.
This story, appearing just last week, maps well on to the story of art's making matched with the story of industrial productions, consumerism and service economies, all mapped by William Morris, Fordism, The Tiller Girls, Tamla Motown, Duchamp, Bauhaus, Koons, Steinbach, and dematerialised Conceptual art.
Santiago Sierra's recent, provocative works, in which the artist's 'making' involves direct uses and abuses of labour that mirror the exploitative systems of late Capitalism, are perhaps the closest we get to a current and critical artist touching on the contemporary manifestation of this issue, this story of art, making, production and consumption.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Believe In Your Hands - Making and Postproduction -3rd Post
Hi, thanks for a reasonably good turnout considering this time of the year and the excellent weather.
Glad we seemed to be reasonably engaged with this important issue, which is, to problematise and become vigilant about, the special responsibility we might feel, as sculptors, to the many modes of making, the Readymade, craft, industrialisation, and what Bourriaud calls 'POSTPRODUCTION'.
Given the enormous freedom we have as sculptors, making might be taken for granted but clearly becomes a CRITICAL concern i.e. something about which we feel we contribute an investigation, as specialists.
We made the point, during the session, that a sculpture student and a sculpture department may be unique in the world, in having this odd responsibility to investigate 'MAKING per se' -what IS making? How should we make? What does it mean to make THIS way & not that way? What values does the way we choose to make (or 'ready-make') add or detract from our work?
We covered that area relating to Craft as a crucial aspect of William Morris's concerns regarding encroaching industrialisation in the late 19th Century. We also noted the way the Bauhaus marked a changed role for artists in that here they subsumed some of their expression to adapt their creativity to design and mass-production.
Duchamp, the 1920s, Germany, Jazz, The Tiller Girls (as human echoes of production lines ) and Henry ford (Fordism) all helped illustrate the changing context of industrial consumerism within which art and particularly Sculpture operated in early modernity.
Interestingly, this led us into a discussion of music, which I'll briefly expand upon here. If The Tiller Girls represent the production line in an eroticised human form, then we might be able to discuss the phenomenon of Detroit (raised by one student) and the famous music that came from that city, as a sign that art is inevitably influenced by this kind of context. Detroit 'The Motor City' is the base of both Tamla Motown and some classic 80s and 90s Techno. A recent Radio show tried (quite convincingly) to make affinities with the steel mills of Sheffield and the original hardcore electronic sound of Sheffield bands like Human League and Heaven 17.
Tracing the last pages of Bourriaud's book 'POSTPRODUCTION' we finally mapped onto all this the demise of industrialisation, the rise of consumerism and Service Industries and a technological environment in which we are increasingly distanced from industry of any kind.
This is precisely the situation to which I believe the three new publications referred to in the first post below are responding i.e. making a plea for a society in which making reasserts itself as a crucial human activity.
You can follow up this Speculecture by looking again at Duchamp, the artists mentioned by Bourriaud (some contemporary, some from recent art history), by looking more closely at Germany in the 1920s, a place and time in which so much of modernity is forged, by doing the same with William Morris and The arts & Crafts Movement, or The Bauhaus.
As we also mentioned issues of making and Authorship you can pursue this theoretically via the classic Roland Barthes essay 'The Death of the Author', and numerous related texts that confirm or differ with Barthes' thesis.
Have a good summer, if I think of anything else I will add another post.
Glad we seemed to be reasonably engaged with this important issue, which is, to problematise and become vigilant about, the special responsibility we might feel, as sculptors, to the many modes of making, the Readymade, craft, industrialisation, and what Bourriaud calls 'POSTPRODUCTION'.
Given the enormous freedom we have as sculptors, making might be taken for granted but clearly becomes a CRITICAL concern i.e. something about which we feel we contribute an investigation, as specialists.
We made the point, during the session, that a sculpture student and a sculpture department may be unique in the world, in having this odd responsibility to investigate 'MAKING per se' -what IS making? How should we make? What does it mean to make THIS way & not that way? What values does the way we choose to make (or 'ready-make') add or detract from our work?
We covered that area relating to Craft as a crucial aspect of William Morris's concerns regarding encroaching industrialisation in the late 19th Century. We also noted the way the Bauhaus marked a changed role for artists in that here they subsumed some of their expression to adapt their creativity to design and mass-production.
Duchamp, the 1920s, Germany, Jazz, The Tiller Girls (as human echoes of production lines ) and Henry ford (Fordism) all helped illustrate the changing context of industrial consumerism within which art and particularly Sculpture operated in early modernity.
Interestingly, this led us into a discussion of music, which I'll briefly expand upon here. If The Tiller Girls represent the production line in an eroticised human form, then we might be able to discuss the phenomenon of Detroit (raised by one student) and the famous music that came from that city, as a sign that art is inevitably influenced by this kind of context. Detroit 'The Motor City' is the base of both Tamla Motown and some classic 80s and 90s Techno. A recent Radio show tried (quite convincingly) to make affinities with the steel mills of Sheffield and the original hardcore electronic sound of Sheffield bands like Human League and Heaven 17.
Tracing the last pages of Bourriaud's book 'POSTPRODUCTION' we finally mapped onto all this the demise of industrialisation, the rise of consumerism and Service Industries and a technological environment in which we are increasingly distanced from industry of any kind.
This is precisely the situation to which I believe the three new publications referred to in the first post below are responding i.e. making a plea for a society in which making reasserts itself as a crucial human activity.
You can follow up this Speculecture by looking again at Duchamp, the artists mentioned by Bourriaud (some contemporary, some from recent art history), by looking more closely at Germany in the 1920s, a place and time in which so much of modernity is forged, by doing the same with William Morris and The arts & Crafts Movement, or The Bauhaus.
As we also mentioned issues of making and Authorship you can pursue this theoretically via the classic Roland Barthes essay 'The Death of the Author', and numerous related texts that confirm or differ with Barthes' thesis.
Have a good summer, if I think of anything else I will add another post.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Believe In Your Hands: The Act Of Making POSTPRODUCTION - Friday June 4th
Hi, just to say that, in addition to the agenda below, this afternoon I want to discuss and illustrate the last pages of Bourriaud's 'POSTPRODUCTION' -in terms of our current relationship to making. I will supply photocopies for those who don't own the book.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Believe In Your Hands: The Act Of Making - Friday June 4th Wilsons 1pm - 3pm
Three recent publications (details below) point to a current time in which making by hand is becoming an increasing concern for us, not just as artists but for society at a cultural and even philosophical level.
The question seems current but is a classic question of modern art and life, dating at least as far back as debates about the invention of photography and the social visions of William Morris, who wanted to evolve a more crafts-based society to counter the threat of the industrialised age with its mass production and what Marx called ‘alienated labour'.
Fast forward a little and we of course encounter Marcel Duchamp again, his 'Readymades' wre offered up as an answer, from art, to the growing American century of Capitalist production lines. The period between the first and second world wars –when Duchamp’s key works were made – also saw new engagements between artists and technology, noticeably at the Bauhaus, who’s director, Moholy-Nagy could have a painting made by means of telephoned orders to a remote manufacturer.
Another of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis once said: “there are no mistakes”. This statement is relevant to what we aim to discuss in this session because Davis was talking about the way that a masterful artist might come to believe in their hands, allowing and trusting their body to lead the way with their art, and to thereby relegate thought to an unwelcome interruption of a more complete dialogue between artist and tool, process and medium.
A visit to the Picasso Museum in Paris would quickly confirm that intuition, a kind of visual courage and dexterous audacity, were indeed highly valued in art of the 20th Century in a way that has – for recent generations – perhaps been sidelined by considerations of conceptual value, social relevance, irony etc.
Nevertheless, as the new books referred to above (and detailed below) seemed to demonstrate, something about the rapid developments of virtual technology (which take manufacturing even further out of our hands and reduce us to generic mouse-manipulating monkeys gazing into the computer vending machine) is causing reactionary ripples which ask us to reassert the values of manufacture for the 21st Century.
What special contribution can Sculpture and Sculptors as fine artists make to this debate?
In this session - our last together as Level Two - I want to open up this question as broadly as possible, and hand it over to you to apply to your summer projects.
We will discuss theses issues and look at some contemporary artists who address them.
I will also provide a reading list:
The new publications referred to above are:
The Case For Working With Your Hands by Matthew Crawford
The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton
See you there!
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
The Changing Image of the Artist -seminar reflections
With an unfortunately diminished class we nevertheless managed to at least open up what I have come to believe the third most important aspect of an artist's training and awareness 'the Image Of The Artist'.
The other two would be (1.) the manufacture or practice that we nurture and refine, and (2.) the contextualisation and broadcast of our works and positions as artists.
The reason the Image of the artist is of such importance -and perhaps of increasing importance) is that it encompasses all of our other preconceptions about art and ourselves as artists.
We could say that every decision made in the studio or in the proliferation of our works and reputations as artists depends upon an underlying understanding of the current and historical image of the artist as well as the image we have of our selves as artists.
Crucially, the question of the image of the artist kicks in to that crucial zone -preconceptions, as it is the vigilant awareness of our habits and preconceptions (lazy and complacent thinking) that distinguishes us from other professions and walks of life e.g. mere quirky craftsmen and producers of novel garden centre ornaments.
During the presentation I used extraordinary figures like Warhol, Caravaggio, Beuys, Koons, Ana Mendieta, Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst, Jackson Pollock, Ryan Trecartin, Gustave Courbet, and Matthew Barney to posit the idea that the really significant and important artist not only renews and innovates the artwork, and not only troubles and challenges contextualisation, but, above and beyond all this, also transforms the image of the artist.
Perhaps we should not have such lofty ambitions as to aspire to such greatness and historical significance as the artists I have named, nevertheless, if what I assert is the case then consideration of the Image of the artist must be a crucial aspect of any undergraduate curriculum and something we can be aware of, research and maintain vigilance about in every aspect of our lives and works as artists.
When I say that certain artists transform the image of the artist I mean that they change what we mean by 'artist' and this changes the trajectory of every subsequent aspirant artist.
The diminished audience -always de-spiriting for a tutor- made the dialogue a little stilted and one -sided but there were some good challenges and contributions from the students. One of the questions raised was whether a Televisual popularisation of the image of the artist -as in the recent Saatchi TV competition - maintains a conservative, safely commodifiable and acceptable image of the artist -with the resulting conservative effects on the society that artists could be energising and revitalising.
Another important point we glossed over, raised but were not able to really deal with in depth, was the question of whether we get the artists we need or deserve in that the image of the artist is possibly transformed by artists (Koons and Duchamp are good examples) as a response to changing socio-economic conditions. If so, given the enormous transformations we are currently undergoing, both economically and socially, it would appear to be disastrous to train artists according to any complacent image of what we think the artist IS or SHOULD BE (according e.g. to a 90s style market-led model) and far more appropriate to instate an atmosphere of courageous speculation, sewing a seedbed of wild possibilities from which the artists of the next generation can arise without being hampered by the prejudices, self-interest and limited ambitions of a past (and exceptionally conservative) generation.
In summary, the Image of the artist is of paramount -not marginal -importance in the considerations of artists, art students and tutors if we truly believe in the value of art as an exceptional profession. to ignore or diminish it is ultimately to limit both our imaginations and the possibilities of our practices -i.e. limiting what we are able and allowed to invent and make, show and discuss.
Friday, 23 April 2010
26/04 1pm-3pm The Changing Image of the Artist. LEVEL 2
Hi to LEVEL 2, hope you are all back in UK after battling volcanoes etc.
This Monday, 26/04, 1pm-3pm, we will meet for the PM Speculecture at Wilsons.
The theme will be: The Changing Image of the Artist.
A book by Kris and Kurz, titled: 'Legend, Myth and Magic In The Image of The Artist' concludes with the suggestion that artists pursue what the authors call 'enacted biography', which I interpret to mean, the sense of living out a famous destiny or a life and lifestyle worthy of note i.e. not living a life, but living out a biography.
Another book by Wittkower -'Born Under Saturn' -assembles a range of citations to illustrate the idea that artists might be 'saturnalian' i.e. moody, dark, blown about m by the will of the muses etc.
When we think of the image of the artist Jeff Koons' earlier self-portraits might come to mind, or, alternatively that of Rodchenko in his overalls, Ana Mendieta's body-shape burned into the ground or Ryan Trecartin's You Tube farces etc.
There are an enormous variety of examples and this allows us to presume that the image will continue to change and that we have a part to play in changing the current image of the artist.
To do that we might need to think, to picture and shape the current image and consider whether we aspire to that, or challenge it perhaps, whether we could possibly fit it, or must necessarily forge a new image of the artist as a vehicle for our own practice and identity.
On Monday I will make a brief presentation of a paper designed to provoke a further discussion on this important theme. I will again use a historical approach to loosen current and contemporary preconceptions about our responsibilities in this regard.
To prepare you could look at the sources above, or simply re-think about sources and resources you already use (such as 'Art In Theory', 'Art Since 1900', Bourriaud's writings, 'Unmonumental' etc. all through the 'filter' of the image of the artist.
In Freud's important writings 'On Art and Literature' -collected by Penguin- you can find one his account of Leonardo. Meanwhile, the classic Vasari text 'Lives of the Artists' continues to be an important text with which to be familiar, particularly as the Renaissance saw so many significant changes to the image of the artist with which we still contend today.
This Monday, 26/04, 1pm-3pm, we will meet for the PM Speculecture at Wilsons.
The theme will be: The Changing Image of the Artist.
A book by Kris and Kurz, titled: 'Legend, Myth and Magic In The Image of The Artist' concludes with the suggestion that artists pursue what the authors call 'enacted biography', which I interpret to mean, the sense of living out a famous destiny or a life and lifestyle worthy of note i.e. not living a life, but living out a biography.
Another book by Wittkower -'Born Under Saturn' -assembles a range of citations to illustrate the idea that artists might be 'saturnalian' i.e. moody, dark, blown about m by the will of the muses etc.
When we think of the image of the artist Jeff Koons' earlier self-portraits might come to mind, or, alternatively that of Rodchenko in his overalls, Ana Mendieta's body-shape burned into the ground or Ryan Trecartin's You Tube farces etc.
There are an enormous variety of examples and this allows us to presume that the image will continue to change and that we have a part to play in changing the current image of the artist.
To do that we might need to think, to picture and shape the current image and consider whether we aspire to that, or challenge it perhaps, whether we could possibly fit it, or must necessarily forge a new image of the artist as a vehicle for our own practice and identity.
On Monday I will make a brief presentation of a paper designed to provoke a further discussion on this important theme. I will again use a historical approach to loosen current and contemporary preconceptions about our responsibilities in this regard.
To prepare you could look at the sources above, or simply re-think about sources and resources you already use (such as 'Art In Theory', 'Art Since 1900', Bourriaud's writings, 'Unmonumental' etc. all through the 'filter' of the image of the artist.
In Freud's important writings 'On Art and Literature' -collected by Penguin- you can find one his account of Leonardo. Meanwhile, the classic Vasari text 'Lives of the Artists' continues to be an important text with which to be familiar, particularly as the Renaissance saw so many significant changes to the image of the artist with which we still contend today.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Art & Immorality 2nd Post
If you've been anxiously searching the Speculectures blog for a further post before tomorrow's PM session, I'm afraid the prep time was hi-jacked by the preparation of an Essay Briefing document that we also have to do in that session.
Nevertheless, I WILL collect some notes and possibly quotes in the morning and discuss IMMORALITY in the session as well as the essay.
Please look at the previous post and come with your own ideas on the theme and we'll have something to talk about and LEARN!
Nevertheless, I WILL collect some notes and possibly quotes in the morning and discuss IMMORALITY in the session as well as the essay.
Please look at the previous post and come with your own ideas on the theme and we'll have something to talk about and LEARN!
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