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 20^th 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 20^th 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 21^st 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!