"Ways of Looking: How to Experience Contemporary Art" by Ossian Ward

 Finally finished reading the excellent "Ways of Looking" by Ossian Ward, recommended by the equally excellent Roz.

Ward writes in straight-forward language, and centres around his 'Tabula Rasa' approach to looking at contemporary art. Essentially he suggests you try to park your preconceptions and: 

• Time - take some time to really look
• Association - consider what associations, if any, are prompted between the work and your own life
• Background - if possible, consider the background and context to the work
• Understand - attempt to come to an understanding of the work as a result
• Look again - then look again and reconsider what you might have missed
• Assessment - finally reflect on your assessment of the work

I think it's as good of a formula as any, and I'd be happy to have it applied to my own work. I think with regards to the above:

• Time - one can only hope that people give time to your work - my suspicion is that is the weak pole in the tent - people seem to rush around galleries (especially big shows where there is a lot of work) and give everything the most cursory of glances... But maybe they are looking for something that catches their eye. I try to make sure my work has some element of intrigue to pull people in to look closer.
• Association - a lot of the work I find less successful offers no 'route in', and I think association can be an important tool for this - if you can give people something they recognise, on some level, you build the start of a reporte with them. When I talk about 'universality', this is part of what I am alluding to, I think. I feel more and more that art is a dialogue between the artwork (as a proxy for the artist) and the viewer, and that conversation needs to start with an interesting opening gambit.
• Background - obviously all art comes with context, but my hope would be to minimise the importance of it to understand the work - art that comes with a wall of text to explain it has failed a bit in my humble opinion

A nice feature of the book is that it comes with 'spotlights' on different pieces of contemporary art. I enjoyed seeing the range of art covered and a few pieces stood out:

• Tiger Licking Girl's Butt by Nathalie Djurberg - I think this stood out because I didn't expect to like it, but actually the mixture of lightheartedness with empathy and compassion really chimed with something in my art - I want to make art that is playful, but also compassionate and emphatic
• Take Care of Yourself by Sophie Calle - Interestingly, again, the element of play combined with deeply felt and painful emotions
• We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted To Be by Ruth Ewan - this touched me differently - the deceptively simple idea, the reflective title, the subtle delivery - I immediately found my mind racing away into a deep reflection on time, and the way we slice it up and use it to rules our lives
• Mike Nelson, generally, I have looked at his work before, prompted by Roz, but I saw different things in it due to my interest in the idea of the 'null point' and 'the secret life of spaces'. I need to think more about how his work relates to spaces, and using spaces as proxies for people and events
• Archeological Site ( with a Sorry title) by Guillaume Bijl - I love buried stuff, so that grabbed my attention! Plus the use of pseudo-science as presentation. I'm reading his writings and I'm increasingly interested in how he relates to spaces

Two things stand out from the above - the idea of spaces and learning more about that, and the fact they are almost all installation art. I really don't want to make installation art for a whole bunch of reasons, but I can see how sculpture can be a gateway drug! The more I day dream about my piece for the final show (working title "Open Casket"), the more I think I would do it as an installation if I had the space... As it is, I wonder if I can manipulate the space to make it installation-like - e.g. by forcing viewers to look down into the piece.

The book finishes with: 

There are also innumerable answers to all the questions about contemporary art and why our enjoyment and interpretation of any art, young or old, can come round full circle to enrich, inform, and complicate our lives.

Which seems to sum things up well!