ARTISTS TALKING

# 17 [18 October 2007]

After my blog was published in a-n in September a response appeared in the letters page in this month's a-n. Dave Grimbleby didn't like my work, nor did he like "most of the stuff in a-n". This is my response which I am hoping a-n will publish in the next issue:

Though the imprecision of ideas expressed in Dave Grimbleby’s letter (a-n October) hamper meaningful dialogue, I do think he is attempting to raise a set of common-place misconceptions and ill-conceived objections to contemporary art.

Firstly, Dave is hostile to the idea that an artist might not be certain of what kind of artist they are. Since the Impressionists first recognised that representation was not a straight forward matter of re-presenting a stable ‘reality’ but that reality itself was subject to perceptive (ie social, political and economic) phenomena, artists have asked themselves and their viewers what, how and why? For contemporary artists, making work is precisely these questions made into process: Who am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Certainty, in fact, is the enemy of art. Art is one of the few remaining areas of contemporary life (colonised as it is by the reifying action of capitalism), along with psychoanalysis and philosophy, where true speculative investigation is not only welcomed, but demanded. To paraphrase Duchamp, artists must be in a constant state of re-invention or they are merely reproducing their own tastes, which are neither interesting nor relevant.

Secondly, Dave rails at all that is “wrong with so-called conceptual art of the recent (ie Saatchi) era”. Conceptual art as a distinct movement spanned the 1960s and 70s, though its forerunner appeared (again with Duchamp) in 1917, a full 68 years before Saatchi opened his gallery. If we are to take the two central ideas of conceptual art to be that the work is produced after the idea is fully formed, and that the work need only be described in order to be experienced, with perhaps the exception of Martin Creed (best known for his 2001 Turner Prize winning Work no. 227, the lights going on and off), there are no purely conceptual artists working today that I can think of. We have long since entered a post-conceptual phase. Art has moved on. Even Damien Hurst, the artist most synonymous with Saatchi, at his best produces work which is visceral, gut-wrenching and deeply disturbing. And in any case, isn’t it ironic that Dave conflates conceptual art with the businessman Saatchi when the former’s raison d’etre was to circumvent and even ridicule the increasingly commercialised art market and gallery system through the non-production of unique, saleable objects?

Having defined (or at least named) his target, our critic fires at it the following condemnations: “Colouring in”; “boredom”; a lack of “ideas” and “curiosity”; and “just a feeling of filling in things and time”. The implication is that colouring in is childish, it’s “what kids do in those books”. In other words it lacks skill and sophistication. The notion that technique is synonymous with quality was first put in doubt by the Impressionists whose paintings were criticised for being unfinished and crude. Picasso made it his life’s ambition to see and paint like a child. Duchamp drew a beard and moustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Jackson Pollock did big scribbles. I could go on. The point is that the valorisation of a high level of technical accomplishment serves only to idolise the ’Creator-Genius’ thereby excluding all others. It is a deeply redundant notion.

“Boredom”, as any parent or teacher will tell you, is a particular form of aggression. One is always bored with something and never just bored. “I am bored with this job/lesson/relationship/life...” means I am disappointed, and disappointment produces anger, which is a passion, which is something Dave sees as sorely lacking in contemporary art. Boredom understood in this way is a product of modernity, so when artists appropriate the language of boredom they are expressing their anger towards the mind-numbingly dull world they find (or don’t find) themselves in. Here (as throughout his letter) Dave has made a common mistake: he has failed to separate the artist from the work. Boredom is also a reaction to something one doesn’t understand and is therefore threatened by. Through complaining of being bored one is attempting to rubbish that which one finds a challenge. I would hazard a guess that Dave is ‘bored’ with contemporary art.

Next on Dave’s list of negatives is a lack of “ideas” and “curiosity”. Interesting that Dave dismisses conceptual art, the art of ideas, and then mourns a lack thereof. And curiosity is not a condition of modernity. As I have pointed out, modernity produces boredom, disappointment, rage. Curiosity was born with the Enlightenment and it died in the gas chambers.

Having thus dispatched with both my work and the “conceptual (ie Saatchi) era”, Dave aims his laser intellect at “most of the stuff in a-n”, cutting it down to size with the devastatingly precise critique “strangely sterile”, arguing instead for “passion”, “wonder” and “some deep spiritual or aesthetic underpinning” (what ever that might mean!). Whilst I cannot possibly enter into a discussion about “most of the stuff in a-n” I can perhaps cite one piece which may serve as a synecdoche. Coincidentally this piece also addresses Dave’s preoccupation with nature, and his perceived lack of it in contemporary art.

In a-n September 2007 (the issue in which my blog was published) Peter J Evans’ Feedbacker was expertly reviewed by Gabrielle Hoad. Waveformer, the piece specifically referred to, was a “pixellated image of breaking surf remade in three dimensions...from parquet-effect flooring”. I can see Dave’s point about sterility, nature made hard, cold, anonymous, but that was the idea wasn’t it? Doesn’t this treatment of nature, wherein even the construction material has taken nature through a complex process of domestication: from wood to parquet to parquet-effect, say more about the relationship between ‘rational’ modern humans and nature than, say, a large scale oil painting of a raging sea? A painting like that might satisfy Dave’s longing for technical prowess, for “passion”, but would it tell us anything about ourselves and the world we live in?

Dave’s demands for “passion”, “wonder” etc, are in fact a yearning to return to a different time, to a less complex time, a time when nature was a place of spiritual wonder, a time of relative innocence. But it doesn’t exist any more. What Dave wants, which is what a lot of people want, is to be entertained: he wants escape. But art is not about escape. That’s what Hollywood is for. Art is about responsibility, the ability to respond to the world we find ourselves in. And how can we expect to respond with any semblance of integrity if we are unable to see, without illusions, the complex reality of our world? We have artists to thank for showing us that world.

The “colouring in” to which Dave is specifically referring here is my obliteration of a council tax reminder notice with a red biro. See either my blog on www.a-n.co.uk/projects_unedited or a-n magazine Sept 07.

# 16 [31 July 2007]

Through Artshole I found out about these exhibitions in Brick Lane called Art in Mind. They are offering 3m of wall space for a week for £250. They cover all the expenses of hanging and advertising. It's a good space and a good location. It's an opportunity for artists to advertise themselves. My response was to make a donations box and ask for donations to cover the cost of showing. I have sent two drawings illustrating the proposed idea. I have made it clear that the work is not an attack on Art in Mind specifically, but that it is just a comment on the way the system works and how frustrating it can be for artists who haven't got any money. They haven't got back to me yet.

# 15 [23 July 2007]

You all know how dedicated I have become to my work. But things are getting desperate now. I really don't know what to do with myself. Nothing seemes to work any more. It's terrible. Really terrible. I can't begin to tell you how terrible it is. I'm going to finish myself off and be done with it. I'm going to swallow a gallon of formaldehyde and have myself pickled. Or cut in half lengthways and displayed in seperate cabinets: the divided self. I'm going to have myself set inside a concrete block and dropped on Anthony Gormley's studio. I shall cut off my ear and shoot myself. I'll take any measures. Do anything, anything, just to be free of this wretched torment.

# 14 [23 July 2007]

Here are some more pictures of dead things and some more pictures of me as a clown. I feel utterly shit about them. I'm not sure why I am doing them any more. The clown pictures are photographs of and about the transformative power of art. When we do art we step to the side of our lives and view them from a different pespective. From the perspective of art, whatever that is. And this can be theraputic.

I talked recently about how each work is different because it is addressed by and responds to ourselves in the moment of its making. If I am to respond honestly to myself I must take into account my history. My history now includes having made photographs of myself as a clown. This means that I can no longer simply do the same thing over and over again because the doing of it before has changed me and so my art must respond differently.

I suppose all I am talking about here is that slump when nothing is happening for you and you start to dissect what you have already done. Some ideas can sustain you for longer than others. Some perhaps are born and die almost immediately. I think I have taken my last clown picture. As for the dead things, well as long as they keep dying I will probably keep photographing and collecting them for now.

# 13 [18 July 2007]

Things that have died in my flat is developing. I'd sooner it didn't. I'd rather things stay the same. I'd much rather not be an artist at all. Just why do I have to do this? I have now started collecting the things that have died in my flat and freezing them in my freezer. I can't help feeling like a fledgeling serial killer. Don't they start with animals and graduate onto humans? Any way the thing is I am no longer satisfied with photographing the dead things where they have died just on my digital camera without a macro lens. I think the impact of them as objects (readymades) is not being fully realised and that if I were to use a macro lens so that you could really see what's going on they would look much better.

The trouble is this is always where things get tricky for me. When new and exciting ideas move into the next stage of development where they require more planning and generally more effort to be realised. I start to wonder then why I am doing it. You see maybe the fact is the series of things that have died in my flat has served its purpose and if I am to set them up in the studio and record them in great detail with a macro lens I will be just going through the motions in order to produce. In other words my mind is not on the process any more its on the product. But then on the other hand is this resistance an excuse to avoid more conscious thought going into the work?

It all comes back to responsibility (I mean in the Derridean sense, where responsibility is precisely the ability to respond). I was having a conversation tonight about this. The conversation was actually about self-representation. It came up as I was talking about work and about how because I hadn't told the boss what I really wanted changing in my department I was now resenting the lack of change. And this is all because I didn't honestly represent myself at the time when they asked me.

With art you have a responsibility to represent your ideas. If you don't they start to resent being overlooked or brushed under the carpet. You can't ignore these things. If you are an artist you just can't ignore them. They won't leave you alone otherwise. They just won't. And the more you ignore your ideas the more their resentment drowns out the already quiet voices of other ideas. Gah... this is woolly thinking and I am not resolving this. I am just too tired to properly focus here. I'm not saying what I really want to say. There: I'm not properly representing myself. And I am resenting (resisting?) the knowledge that I haven't done a good job. I'll come back to this.

# 12 [18 July 2007]

Artists Newsletter have been reading my blog. They emailed me to say they wanted to publish a section in the magazine and that they wanted to pay me for it and did I mind? I didn't mind a bit. It made me very happy. Happier than you can imagine. My relationship to my art is precarious, fragile, illusive. I don't know if this is the same for other people but it is like this for me. I.S. said, "Would you expect it to be any other way?" I suppose not. My point is that being asked - not you asking someone; them asking you - if something you have produced can be used in their publication, is a massive confidence boost. So thanks to A.N. for that.

I never imagined anyone would care to read my blog. I never even thought the people at A.N. would read it. So it has come as a bit of a surprise. And the thing is I've become self-conscious and I suddenly don't know what to write. I once saw a toddler in a shop window clearly doing a shit in his nappy. His face was red and he was really concentrating hard. He had obviously gone behind the display to conceal himself in order to carry out this creative act. He had no idea he was being watched by passers-by in the street. When he did become aware of us he froze. He was unable to perform.

Through doing something I would have been doing any way I have gained recognition, whilst at the same time, the very fact of being recognised has made it more difficult to do the thing that I was doing in the first place. I suppose the thing is to remember why I was doing it. I was doing it because it's what I do. Why did the toddler go for a shit? Because he needed to. People do art for the same reason.

# 11 [16 July 2007]

Art is a solution to the problem of existence. Art is an ongoing series of solutions to the ongoing problem of existence. Each art-work is a specific solution to the specific problem of my particular existence in that particular moment. That's why each work is different, because we are never the same twice. And that is why the consumption of products (by which I mean all products including cultural ones) is not a solution, because they are not specific, not to anyone, anywhere at any time, ever.

# 10 [15 July 2007]

I made another clown picture yesterday. I had an unhappy conversation on the phone and it left me feeling depressed. Its funny though, since starting this 'series' I now automatically catch myself moments after I go into one of my kind of depressed slumps, I catch myself doing it and I freeze, and I take a mental, internal, body-picture of my posture so that I can recreate it for the camera. The process of this (I don't know what to call it) body-picture takes me out of myself and reinserts me into myself in an embodied way. I start to feel my body rather than my feelings of depression and despair. The next step is to reach for the red nose and the camera...

I am starting to think about photography as therapy. (I know Jo Spence pioneered a lot of this kind of thing so I need to take another look at her ideas.) It is not a small realisation I am having here. Now that I have realined my practice away from the image towards the process in an effort to find out more about what kind of work I should be doing, I am begining to think about the theraputic potential. And this is beginning (literally beginning, as in beginning right now this second) to make me feel the necessity to question my relationship to art altogether...

# 9 [14 July 2007]

I love Christian Boltanski. I love him because he didn't know what he was looking for in his work he just felt sure that if he kept doing it with commitment it would find its own way. Boltanski said all of human activity is absurd but only art admits it. He sometimes allegorically presented this by creating fictional selves and even producing 'Missing' posters and such like, documants claiming to pertain to this person 'CB'. He wrote a letter 60 times over claiming to be suicidal and sent it to potential patrons. He did this he said to distance himself from his despair. Art can do this. It can help us to get a new perspective on ourselves. Humour does this too. We all know about the tears of the clown. Boltanski appeared as a clown in his own work. So did Bruce Nauman. And Cindy Sherman. And as of today so does Andrew Bryant.

I felt depressed two times today, once when I got up and once when I got home from work. Instead of just sitting there despairing as I often do, I made a different dicission. I put a red nose on, and recreated the scene for my camera. By doing this I took myself out of the position I was in and put myself in a different one in relation to myself. It instantly helped. And it has given me material to post here tonight and to think about art and life in the process.

# 8 [14 July 2007]

I've been drawing on money. This one's a tenner. It's not quite up there with Damien Hurst's diamond encrusted platignum skull but the message isn't totaly dissimilar. Money has no value in and of itself and can be exchanged for anything. As Marx said, money is anonymous, it has no specificity. It is precisely our specificity that makes us human. In a capitalist system it is hard to retain your specificity in relating to yourself and others1. Like people, art in a capitalist system is valued because of its specificity. It is not reproduceable. Even when it is reproduceable (as in the case of Warhol, Duchamp, minimalism etc) the specificity of its auther replaces the lack of specificity in the object. Here I have devalued the money by defacing it whilst simultaneously bringing value to it through transforming it into a unique art object. The title, Alchemy, may seem a little obvious, but it is ironic of course. I only wish it was actually lead and not graphite.

1 Just a little footnote here about King Midas. We all know he turned everything to gold with his touch and of course this meant he couldn't touch his food as it became inedible, his friends and loved ones were turned to gold too. This is what an unfettered global capitalist mode of production does to us all: we are reified by it, turned into money, and this makes us anonymous, which means, literally, without a name.