Let us begin with art Central Saint Martins! My art school. The place that for the next three years will feed and stimulate my art practice and, I hope, be the most important resource to me as an artist. Artist Michael Craig-Martin talks about the importance of art school in a conversation with John Baldissari, “It seems to me that the most important thing about an art school is that it’s the creation of a sympathetic ambience in which people feel comfortable and free to act according to their own instincts. You have to make a place where people feel at ease to be who they are and bring what they have naturally , in themselves to bear.” (P42 (2009)) As an artist being surrounded by other artists, having a studio and talking to the tutors is the most important driving force within me. It allows my work to “be“, there work to “be” and all of us to create something that can definitely be called and defined Art, no matter what it is.
Central to being at Central Saint Martins is the idea of it’s history and archives. Being a student at this present time is hugely influential on art practise itself. At a time of political uprising and distress art can be hugely influential and influenced by the active. Opening up CSM’s archives gives insight into how students reacted in the past to political direst. Anthony Davies (25th Nov 2010) the current archive investigator at CSM talked about the A course and how CSM first reacted to the prospect of examination and grading by introducing a rather strange and it would seem far removed form of assessment. Now as the very prospect of education is threatened by the governmental cuts CSM’s as an institution can change again thus producing new and exciting work and discussion. We live in a country where British Art is very much defined by its government and nationalistic status thus currently bringing the birth of a new era or movement.
“Is there a possibility we we’ll now have a genuine protest art prompted by the full force of the Con-Dem cuts?… It really, really, really, really could happen!” (David Sheppard(2010))
The studio is a busy, thriving space full of passion and drive. Talking to tutors who had been to CSM when it was an art school angered me as we as artists seem to have lost control of our practise in university form. This lead me in my work to question what we were becoming. Were we passionate or just after a degree and “WHAT HAPPENED TO ART SCHOOL?”
Even so making art political isn’t the only option. Doing it successfully is hard and when we try and question “art politics” we can become pretentious. Of course I am referring to my own work and at first I was ashamed of this (my pretension) but on reflection it became obvious, I was only trying!
“One quality of pretentiousness is a willingness to at least have a stab at something, for better or for worse, and you can only accuse someone of pretentiousness if you can identify both what is being aspired to, and just why it is that the person in question fails to make the grade.” (Fox, D. (2009). Class Act. Frieze Magazine)
Being at CSM and visiting galleries around London, coupled with my own mistakes has made me realise I can make “Art for Art’s sake” … in the end, art exists in the art world and this is its main purpose! If I mistakenly become pretentious in the process of trying to create something else or have some kind of ethos I haven’t failed!
Moving away from politics - stepping into the Saatchi from the bitterly cold and grey outside is like entering an oasis of light and freshness. The building allows a breather from the polluted city, illuminates the world and reveals how great contemporary Art today can be. Newspeak: British Art Now II presents a vibrant environment full of colour, gesture, movement and structure offering a displaying a vast spectrum of taste and technique and really most importantly allowing the space and visitors to the space to be saturated with life and immanency.
The second part of the current Charles Saatchi collection offered, as usual, much inspiration.
Artists included multi media sculpture Steve Bishop whose work I love. “Christian Dior - J’adore (Mountain Goat) 2008” is a mixed media sculpture using a taxidermy goat and a giant perfume bottle carved out of stone. It seems to have a spirituality about it or at least for me is a comment on the spiritual. Steve Bishop is quoted as saying “ Taxidermy
is as much of an object as a coffee cup or any other thing. But they are white (the goat) and there’s an idea of purity involved.” (Saatchi Gallery, 2010 ) The purity (or possible perceived purity)(when presented in as separated from death ) fascinates me in my own work especially when displayed in an almighty or above way. I am interested in how road kill seems in the moment - wiped a way from a real, physical world . Taxidermy (becoming ever more fashionable) presented in this objectified way also offers a comment on humanity displaying our own object hood, what we are both physically and spiritual.
Olivia Plender’s “Masterpiece Part 4- A weekend in the country” also interested because of it’s content and seemingly kitsch format, “Plender’s graphic narratives are designed with the stylised glamour of Pulp fiction covers.”(Saatchi Gallery. 2010) The work drew the audience in on an intriguing level! As an art student it made me question what it is to be an artist and how does it make me feel? Through careful characterisation in the work Plender made the reader or viewer (me) realise what it was that connected me with art. Art makes me feel good! It Is in my blood! Art doesn’t have to be high brow and popularity or pop culture doesn’t make it bad!
In contrast, although not part of Newspeak collection, Richard Wilson’s 20:50 is completely and utterly transcendental. The work, a permanent feature of the Saatchi reflects “Art for Art‘s sake“. It is not trying to say anything profound it is just trying to be. The work is a very real substance, “oil“, yet what it becomes in memorising and epic; a reflection on oneself and the surroundings, a mirror to reality and it would seem a mirror to ones soul.
Being an artist is about living as an artist and documenting my life in some form.
The exhibition Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera recently shown at the TATE Modern really bought to light how I was not alone, “Since it’s invention the camera has been used to make images surreptitiously and satisfy the desire to see what is hidden” (Simon Baker, Ann Coxon and Katy Wan, 2010) . The
Documentation is one of the main roles of the artist. To show, to feel, to record REAL reality or to create a new one. I carry a camera all the time and consider the photos I take a major part of my practise. The world around me through the eye of a lens is “my world“. A different, still world.
Philip- Di lorca’s “Heads“, the first works in the exhibition looks at humanity itself. The exhibition focuses on people’s reaction to the camera however in contrast viewing the exhibition reveals how the camera allows us to see the “secret“ of people The artist isn’t just recording but shedding light and interest on the world.
London is chaotic and huge . The daily grind a constant stream of information for me to process. In a lecture on Beginnings (Dr Jo Mora,
2010) chaos and clutter in the working environment was brought up as a positive thing. The lecturer talked about how some people work effectively in chaos (Francis Bacon and his messy studio)! I sometimes struggle to become neat and tidy but in reality I know I work best or at least have more inspiration in an environment surrounded by clutter. Out on the streets London becomes a resource referring to people, buildings, weather, performance or emotion. A quote from Zoe Leonard about looking, “The deeper I look, the more I realize that in looking into these shop windows, I am also looking out at the rest of the world. I think this is a unique moment to document, and an important one to archive. I know the world will never look quite this way again, and I feel that I want to look closely, to hold it near.” (2010) emphasises how important the urban environment can become in understanding and seeing OUR world. Leonard mainly photographs New York in her work ANALOGUE but the concept is worldwide.
My practice is constantly related to themes of Transcendence as a universal theme. A recent artistic performance at the Barbican theatre by theatre company Complicite called “Shun-Kin” really shed light on my work. It cast a look at technology, something that is constantly at war or working with the artist.
In this case the use of technology in the work was very important as it emphasised its very existence. My work heavily links with theatre and the narrative of performative. Part of my practice is words, monologues or poems thought of in a spoken way but ultimately written down. The fact that Shun’kin was subtitled meant that sound as in “voice” was written (through technology) not spoken but the power of the mind (of the audience) overcame this … as how I imagine in my writing! Entering the world of “Shun’kin was like entering a void of questions. The stage was black, the writing neon green, the sound intruding and otherworldly and the stylisation penetrating. The act of storytelling distanced the audience whilst forcing them to question the issues it raised. The very issue of humanity. Are we real or simply just puppets? The issues that resonate amongst artist in all the work I have talked about whether it be in politics, in critic, transcendental, documentation, or whatever…. Why and HOW?
London is vast, huge, readily available and uncompressible into a few pages. I found it hard to capture London as a resource and even harder to conclude with its usefulness or effectiveness because this is obvious. Instead I will finish with London romanticised. London as a city. A magical city:
“The special quality of the city, when he arrives there on a September evening , when the days are growing shorter and the multicoloured lamps are lighted all at once at the doors of the footstalls and from a terrace a woman’s voice cries oh!, is that he feels envy toward those who believe they have once before an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time.” (Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities, p1)
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