Very interesting book on Pope.L called "Pope.L: Showing up to Withhold" - at least, the free sample on Google Play Books was interesting - I can't afford forty-odd quid for a copy, and I can't find a library copy... Several interesting snippets:
"part of the aforementioned tension can be explained by way of reference to what has been historically possible for black art in the u.s. there has always been, for artists of color, a conflict between a desire for formal play and individual expression versus a duty to legibility, audience and political efficacy."
Which again, speaks again to me about my own worries about expression vs legibility - is it more important for the work to express my authentic 'spirit' or is it more important for people to understand it's message? Clearly it's a balance, but for me, right now, that balance is hard over towards the side of legibility - I want to make art that hinges on meaning, so to hide that meaning to the point that nobody can reasonably find it, annuls the point of making it...
Of course, the work has to be compelling, and to be compelling it needs to be interesting, and to be interesting it needs:
- To present itself in an interesting, quirky, distinctive way
- To offer some meaning that is relatively easy to obtain
- To offer deeper layers of meaning that reward further analysis
However, should a piece be 'all about meaning'? Consider:
“In the case of pull!, pope.l sets out the clear goal of getting the truck from one place to another to make room for the experience of the unclear—to create a space in which meaning isn't determined, or refused, but made, lost, and remade”
This ties up a sudden deep insight I had literally in the shower:
To make every element of a work have a meaning is to turn it from 'art' into a mere puzzle - to change the viewers goal from exploration to 'solving'. By deliberately spiking a piece with elements that do not immediately have a 'meaning' (or which have only half-seen meaning), you nudge the viewer back into exploring, and offer them the chance to build their own meaning - rather than presenting them with a puzzle to solve for your meaning, you present them with a puzzle to solve for their own meaning. BUT you honour the promise to share elements of your own journey and exploration - maybe there is virtue in "bring your own meaning" art, but it's not for me.
The book further expanded on the idea of humour in art as a means to infiltrate:
"bringing such a private and banal activity to a public forum [turning an art gallery into a toilet] is at the very least funny—and humor, having a value in and of itself, is often an entry into pope.l's work. you laugh, thus opening yourself up to this thing that has an unexpected gravity—and now you actually might have to deal with it."
And I love the way that's put - by opening yourself up, you are forced to engage with the darker 'sting in the tail'.
Finally the book had some interesting things to say on 'labour' vs 'work':
"a lack of product differentiates the activity of labor from that of 'work,' which is practically and etymologically tied directly to the identifiable product it offers. while work can be considered accumulative and public, to be a laborer means to be limited—bound to a private and cyclical activity of necessity that is used up as quickly as it is produced. but what if the never-ending, never-beginning cycle of labor could be a valued choice or public activity?
But what if the“nothing”of labor has everything to do with the meaning of life? and what if meaning itself, like life, disintegrates as regularly as it is constructed? these are questions that pope.l might not have an interest in answering specifically, but i believe he poses them continuously in his work."
Which was mostly interesting because it left me thinking how much of my life as been merely 'labour' and how I've come to value true 'work' - every fulfilling thing in my life had some sort of identifiable output.
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