I have to admit to a strong sense of resistance to the content of this project, at the beginning, as again, there was, I felt, a significant divergence away from practice and process – and it pains me that I have begun from that perspective again. But over the subsequent course of this project I have begun to realise that there is benefit to ‘looking from the outside in’ and viewing the artistic landscape from a slightly removed perspective that is, maybe, one or two steps back from that of a practitioner deeply entrenched in their practice. And having begun to leave my frustration at the course changes in the wake of the passing weeks, I am beginning to see a few tiny lightbulbs of inspiration (cheap Christmas tree lightbulb size) snap on.
The problem I am still navigating remains one of me siloing the exercises and not being able or aware enough to identify the learnings possible from all the writing, and then being able to create or drip-feed them into practice. For instance, the task ‘How to Write About Contemporary Art’ can be experienced purely for what it is, learning how to write about contemporary art. And then that raises the questions, well I’m a practitioner, when am I going to need to write about contemporary art? Taking that stand builds resistance and resentment – I want to create, paint etc. But by the end of the project, it’s apparent that being able to write about your own as well as others’ practice, is a way of giving a powerful voice and visibility to the grassroots layer of artistic practice, one that brings discourse to wider audiences in an accessible fashion and that challenges the hegemony of the privileged, powerful upper echelons of the ‘Institute of art’ that the general public tend to consider as the ‘Art World’.
That exercise has also helped me understand that by writing about art, I begin to understand more about that art: the writing is a complementary dimension to the artefact, that adds more layers, diverse understandings, and inspirational revelations. It opens up discourse. It has raised the question in my head of where is the meaning of a piece of art – in the artist’s mind, or in the writing from historians and critics. In a sense, by personally writing about art I am manifesting the intersubjectivity that exists between the artwork, the artist and myself. But I need to be cognisant that there are specific times when I should give expression to that intersubjectivity and there are other times when a more analytical, denotative approach is preferable.
I found the research task, ‘Tell me more’ particularly useful for stepping away from my personal perspectives and finding the ‘nub’ of a written discussion. The skill here, I found, is in understanding the written piece. That sounds rather obvious doesn’t it, but reading something doesn’t equate to understanding it. There is an art to the practice of reading needed to extract an understanding from a piece of writing, especially when the text itself is shaped by a deep, passionate, erudite understanding of the work/ artist. This is reading that needs to be slow, methodical, aware and repetitive: I found I had to re-read pieces several times to gestate on what was being said, to interpret meaning, to be able then to distill that into 100 (ish) words! It is in these distillations of comprehensions though, where I am beginning to see opportunities and inspirations for my personal practice. When the writing is ‘flowery’, ‘showy’, overtly intellectual (thinking Cabinet magazine here), I find little resonance, because I am struggling to locate the meaning.
There is plenty of encouragement within this Project to explore different modalities to write about art, yet I still find myself struggling to look beyond my rather pragmatic style. That’s in part due to my not being able to effectively determine the different tones and approaches being used, but also due to the sheer amount of styles, approaches, modalities we have been exposed to these first three projects. It’s been overwhelming trying to keep up, to find an approach that resonates. The review of Michael Craig-Martin at the RA is pragmatically descriptive, yet lacks a more personal framing and (I have recently be told – correctly) a discussion of the aesthetics and the materiality of his work.
I felt compelled though to be more playful with the pitch for an experimental piece. Exploring the different artist-led publications opened my horizons (and helped me understand how disconnected I am from what I am referring to as the grass roots arts scene) and I saw the opportunity to draw from my previous experience in the theatre industry. I wanted to use the form of a play, to present a story of artistic creation, how the line in all forms (metaphorical, pragmatically etc) could be regarded as the foundation of all artwork. Drawings are the application of some form of line. Paintings are constructed with marks which are essentially lines laid down with brushes – I’m not going to argue the logic here. I saw this story as a multilayered piece, starting with what is essentially a blank canvas that sees the arrival of a single, simple mark. The canvas is being watched, within the play, by an audience of the great art historians and critics, and throughout the play they discuss the potential of this single mark, using examples from throughout art history, from cave paintings to contemporary art, to show what this mark, this line, has been and could become. This is a play with infinite acts as the line has so much in its past and promises so much in its future. The prologue acts as both the beginning of this play but also the pitch to attract readers (and investors attention).
The last element I want to reflect on is the artist statement exercise. I am going to echo the comments that introduced my response to that task. I feel it is too early to introduce the requirements in the wholeness they are presented in that exercise. We do need to be able to write artist statements, but many of us, myself especially, do not have a fully-formed-enough practice to be as articulate as the exercise reads we need to be aiming for. I am only just beginning to get a sense of what my practice and interests may be, I cannot write a statement about that yet!? There needs to be more leading with this important element, drip feed the different aspects over a wider range of projects, don’t burden me with the awareness of having to write different versions for different audiences. Focus on helping to begin to write just one first – strip out the wider considerations for the time being.