Musings on criteria 'good' art, and on finishing "Seven Days in the Art World"

I found myself feeling conflicted after the exhibition visits during the low-residency. The simple reason being that I didn't really find them that interesting... I mean, the process of visiting was interesting, but the exhibitions I saw left me a bit 'meh'... One in particular was sparse and seemed to require a long explanation from the curator to make sense of it. I'm increasingly feeling that art should not require an explanation to be interesting. Without the explanation, I would say it was quite impenetrable. With the explanation it was only 'quite' interesting... 

At first I felt very uncomfortable about this, and confided in a few other students. I thought maybe I was missing something, maybe I was at 'fault'. The answers I got were a little evasive - there seems to be a phobia about coming out and saying that you don't feel something is good... I don't know if that's just our group, or a general art 'thing'. I guess you have to accept there is no objective measure for 'good', but that shouldn't inhibit the debate!

I spent a lot of time reflecting on the fact that I felt the art was 'bad' because it was impenetrable, but actually I like a lot of art that's pretty impenetrable. So what was different? I came to the conclusion it was a couple of things 1) it felt like you weren't being given all the information to be able to start to get meaning from the art (and the meaning in turn felt too specific to be 'coincidental' to the work) and 2) I didn't CARE.. I didn't even WANT to work out what it meant! And that's when it hit me... It was BORING! It was so pared down, there was nothing to work with... For me, at least, it didn't work... 

For me, 'good' art rewards your engagement... With insight, with intrigue, with great questions, or with beauty... It makes you laugh, or say 'wow', or 'what...', or sigh happily, or say 'huh!'. Ideally several of those things at once... Better still, several of those things at once, and then more of those things days later...

Of course, different people will get those things from different art, this is what makes something 'good' for me. That said, slightly gratifyingly, I happened on a review of the same exhibition a few days later that concluded it was interesting but didn't work as an exhibition as it was too 'sparse' and didn't offer enough. Yes!

I've just finished 'Seven Days in the Art World' by Sarah Thornton. Really interesting and engaging book. At the end, she answers frequently-asked-questions that she gets since publishing. She finishes with the question of what makes something art, and ends the book with this (I think) wonderful conclusion:

"The antithesis is not really between art and non-art. It's more a distinction between brave, eye-opening work and vapid, attention-seeking work. Or really creative exploration versus dull illustration. It's all art but it's not all good. Appreciation can be very personal. After looking at a lot of art, you ask yourself: is this intriguing? Deeply amusing? Do I want to spend time with it? Does it become more compelling the more I think about it?"

Love that! I need to read it again, commit it to memory, and apply it to my own work.

Rejected from the RA Summer Exhibition

 Not a big surprise, but still a bit of a disappointment (I'm probably more disappointed/discouraged than I admit to myself).

Trying a new process on "Awkward Thoughts", a "breakthrough" on process vs concept, and a temporary hiatus for this piece

 "Hiatus" is a lovely word, but for some reason I always say "hiasys" instead, which makes it even harder to spell since it's not a word. Nobody has ever corrected me on it, but then I guess they wouldn't, it would be inappropriate...

"Awkward Thoughts" has proved to be a very tricky piece, perhaps ironically, perhaps predictably. I set out on it knowing it was a bit kitsch, but thinking it was a good experiment, and rationalising that 'popularist' is often used as a denigration for 'accessible'. As detailed in previous posts, I quickly got into trouble - the format (people walking down a tunnel) didn't fit with the staging (someone seeing a butterfly). I set Tomgos and Tathos to work on arguing a good way forward, and practising having Tathos lead with spontaneity and emotional choices, while Tomgos watched, nudged, and tried to keep the think on track to the guiding concept. Trying to stay true to the ideal of being 'concept led', my (evolving) aim was to share something about the taboo that death can lead to changes in thoughts and habits that can actually be a positive experience - death is bad, but good things can come from it.

I have been troubled by the idea that I am not creating, but rather 'thrashing around'. I believed that to be a 'good' artist, you have a vision, and you work steadily towards that vision. Bad artists 'thrash around' trying stuff, until something good comes out, then they claim it. This led me to be very cautious about process art, and to lean very heavily on meaning. However, that pedestal has been slowly crumbling, especially with the realisation that I was probably putting the 'cart before the horse' - essentially coming up with a verbal description of what I wanted to do, and the 'illustrating it'. However, I think I have reached a break-through:

Bad artists thrash around till they chance on something good, then claim it. Good artist thrash around till they discover something good, guided by a goal of expressing something

Or maybe put more succinctly by analogy:

Bad artists wander (process) because they are lost, and occasionally happen on something good. Good artists wander because they know where they want to go (concept), but don't know how to get there.

Yes, I know, declaring anything a 'breakthrough' almost guarantees it will look hilariously naive in a month... Well, good!

Anyhoo, we last left the reader with Tathos deciding to move the whole thing outside onto a bridge. Having tried that, I felt I was making progress, but I couldn't make it work. A few things came out in the process that seemed to fit the concept - my face (a late addition), the butterfly (representing fragile life and new beginnings), and a flower (representing death, but also moral remains feeding new life). Trying to fit these things into the format was a pickle:

Yes! It's so bad! So then Tomgos and Tathos somehow worked together to do a very smart thing - they deleted everything in the picture that didn't work... And focused on simplicity. Left with just the faces (the flower conceptually works, but practically didn't), a new direction became apparent. The faces are like memorial mask or carvings... Could they be both stone, and alive? Could they be not on people, but beheaded (or perhaps, de-bodied)? Suddenly an exciting new direction opened up:

It needs a lot of work, but it feels very promising - simple, understated, clean... The flower needs to appear, but not a budlija, but something simple, probably a dandelion (why? Not sure, but it feels right). Of course I'll almost certainly stall and change it all again, but it feels like a really good direction.

However, before I do that, I asked Roz if I could do something with her 3d scan - it inspires me and I like the idea of working with Roz - her art is close to mine in some ways, and she's very experienced (and a lovely person!). Around the same time I saw an open call advertised in the UAL newsletter, called "This Homeland" and organised by the NHS, so I might try and do a joint entry for that...

Interim Show Learnings

More narrative reflections have already been covered (is it art, beautiful mess, is it 'acceptable' art), but here is our lessons-learnt and misc reflections

Tomgos:

• Nearly fell foul of lead-times, notably the printers - easy when it's just you, harder when you are relying on other people. Was simple enough to manage 'in my head', but any more complexity and real project management tracking might be needed
• Real art (not digital) is a pain to transport, a pain to store, and costs significant money (probably around £200 in this case, mostly on printing)
• Getting people involved early meant we had examples to encourage others, but also gave a good sense of how people might interact, and which cards might be popular
• The (relatively last minute) switch to push pins and cork-board saved our bacon somewhat - it gave a tonne of flexibility to move things, to expand outside the board etc
• Ordering unfoiled versions of the cards cost first (since the lead time was a lot lower on these) was a smart move, and worth the extra money - it meant we could send out the cards sooner, and was a good back-up had the foiled cards taken longer
• The piece require quite a lot of 'feeding and watering'- cards had to be restocked, the board had to be cleared etc
• Some basic research would have identified PostSecret, thankfully it wasn't too close to our idea, but it was a bit of close call!
• Everything looks tiny in a huge gallery space
• Getting in-person feedback was GREAT, and better than agonising over Insta view counts - how could we get this in other ways?
• People love the 'challenge' of the blank cards, and seemed to grasp what was required
• NOBODY stole the pen!

Tathos:

• Filling in this list is so lame!
• Getting other peeps involved was FUN! Participatory art is a lot more fun and a lot less dumb than I thought
• Getting people involved took the art in directions we didn't plan! It came to life! The cards were designed thinking of personal sharing and mental health, but people used them in all sorts of unexpected ways - positive messages, political commentary, and lots of genuinely funny jokes about farting - and even the most spicy messages had some sort of thought in them
• Really fucking amazing to see the thing come alive and grow and evolve over the show - and the stuff posted influenced the type of stuff that got added... IT LIVED!
• Nailed the balance between my input and Tomgos's e.g. he wanted to do faces, which makes sense, but I got him to do hands, which is much more interesting and less obvious
• Proud we went out of our comfort zone, even if Tomgos was cacking his widefronts
• It was scary that people might reject our art and it might sit there unused for 3 days - imagine!!
• Making a series of pictures was actually kinda fun, and having a theme running through them made them better, it wasn't boring and lame like i thought it might be
• Making cards with no blanks was a mistake and a throw back to the initial idea that we should have dropped - people took them like we wanted, but they were confused they couldn't post them
• People REALLY had the urge to communicate - when the board overflowed, people posted on the walls, when the pins ran out, people doubled-up, when cards ran out, people improvised their own - it was like an unstoppable organic creature with a life of it's own
• The pin board was laughably small, but we lucked out as we could post on the wall, and the pin board sort of acted like a coke to slow posting and stop all the cards going straight away, and as someone said, the tiny board smothered in cards surrounded by all the cards on the wall was a beautiful metaphor for the space we give mental health vs the space it deserves
• OMFG the breeze! It was terrifying because I thought the whole shit heap would blow away, but it was BEAUTIFUL too, the cards dancing in the breeze on their pins, like they were pleading to be read and understood
• Still think this list idea was lame, but I guess it was sort of useful

Wish you WEREN'T hear? Paranoia or institutional prejudice?

Just reflecting on my piece "Wish you were hear" at the Interim Show and some odd vibes I got from Central St Martins. My piece imagined a world where mental health was normalised, and people might routinely send postcards with messages about their mental health. The piece featured a postcard rack with eight different designs, some of which had blanks, allowing people to add their own message. The piece invited people to take the cards and either keep them or fill in a message and post it on an adjacent pinboard.

My fears that people might not interact, where wonderfully unfounded:

In total, 188 cards were posted, and a further 366 were taken away! The messages ranged from silly, to rude, to very funny, to deeply heartfelt. Despite my fears, and despite being in a public space open all night, only one person drew a cock (thereby fulfilling a bet I had) and nobody stole the pen (which is really surprising to me!). 

People who interacted with it loved it, and said so. People found it funny, engaging, and moving. People said they felt a strange sense of shared trust... It was everything I could have hoped it would be, and a lot more that I hadn't imagined (full reflection and write up coming soon!).

And yet, I can't escape the feeling that Central St Martins and the staff hated it. 

I am very prone to paranoia, especially when it comes to art... But I got a very strange vibe that they were embarrassed by it. I got the feeling they found it messy, and not art. My paranoia was fuelled by a few things:

• None of the staff seemed to want to visit it or talk about it (but then, perhaps that's standard practice? Talking about anyone's art seems weirdly taboo)
• None of the staff seemed to want to go anywhere near it (but then, it was tucked away from the main area)
• None of the photos of the event featured it (but then, lots of art wasn't featured)
• One member of staff who was responsible for the area it was in seemed keen to avoid catching my eye (but they were probably busy)
• The only member of staff who had to come to the piece simply said "wow" (but they were in a rush, and actually they did look at a few cards... And actually there was a large picture of a cock in the middle of the corkboard at the time!)
• And it was given a prominent position, just in front of the one of the entrances, and I had more space than a lot of exhibitors could have dreamed of...

So probably just paranoia... But my piece was definitely 'off-brand' for CSM, and perhaps 'off-brand' for the art world as a whole - it wasn't clean white walls and a few objects tastefully placed with little foothold to offer the viewer in understanding it - it was a riot of humanity, it was messy, it was loud, it was quite vulgar - in short it was 'fucking inappropriate' and therefore I can only declare it to be a huge success :)

Fuck off BBC Maestro

 

A jolly little joke to sell your shitty content, but actually not so funny for my two kids who are not mum-havers. But hey, enjoy the fun y'all

A wall of glorious human imperfection

TATHOS (voice crackly like a phone line): Hey... Tomgos?

TOMGOS (confused and sleepy): Tathos... Wha... What time is it?

TATHOS: Our postcards are a wall of glorious human imperfection

TOMGOS: If you call me in the night again I'm going to block your number