On and On...

“Mmmm oh yeah lord! Mmmm well err brother Tony - do you know about consciousness? Well consciousness is accepting the fact that your Black –right? and from that revelation everything is cool. Now individualism is a white mans desire or something like that (well you dig what I’m saying you know what I’m saying?) Co-operation is a black mans need and when you know your Black then - you think black and you will black…”

From The pressure Horace Ové

Been laid up for the past few weeks, which has ultimately left me in quite lethargic state.  I’ve had some very tedious tasks to do which keeps guilt from snapping at my heels - but critical thinking? Not much of that… I knuckled down this week to looking at a text someone suggested after seeing my collages The Body in pieces: Fragments as a metaphor for modernity byLinda Nochlin. The book examines the articulation of modernity in art, mainly concentrating on 18^th and 19^th century painting; Starting with a lamentation of the loss of antiquity (the monument in pieces) - to artists like Monet and Degas among others, focusing on their use of cropping and aligning fluid impressionist brushwork with philosophy from the likes of Marx.

The notion of sacrifice is central to the story of St Maurice and this book covered this subject with references to the French Revolution and even Van Gogh’s fated ear incident. But what really caught my attention was her reference to Baudelaire citing fluidity and vapourousness as distinctive characteristics of modernity. Yes this is obvious and has been reiterated many times over the decades since. But it got me thinking about my work, and the question that keeps popping into my head from time to time.  Is it possible to talk about the Black or the ‘Black experience’ in relation to something other than the post colonial? Some years back I came across a debate where Stuart Hall asked the very question who modernism belongs to? And although the ‘Post’ of colonialism must in someway be linked to the to rise of modernism, the convention has always been to talk about these things quite separately – is this just a case of geography?

But Blackness as a thing (its hypostatisation - a new word I came across recently) is an invention of the occident, and one which itself has become very fluid – certainly it harder to tie it down then it was in the 60’s n 70’s.  I have felt uneasy at times focusing on the thing in its vagueness.  But it has (in a way) been my strategy to consider Black past its Post-Colonialness.

I think about the renewal of feminism in recent years, in a way that I think has a more global perspective. From this view one can regard it more functionally, which releases it from its ossified typecast.  Although Feminism never died, it has been given some revitalisation as a project, and fresh application in new contexts. I wonder if Black will continue to be useful or if it is already outlived its usefulness? In that sense it brings me back to my earlier work.

Now because I came from a sculpture background I’m always comparing things to form, to the object.  The re-appropriation of what might be considered at some point as outmoded, through nostalgic appreciation in the spirit of conservation or some kind remodelling or adaptation.

I’ve been kinda stumped, as my drawings, which offered an optimistic scientific newness felt rather trapped and isolated. They just existed but didn’t live; and some how I haven’t worked out the evolution. This is why I turned to an earlier Black invention, if not a modern one. Focusing on the objects depicting my saint, would allow a view through the lens of an archivist, coupled with insight I have gained as a maker. Having done this he appears as a mass of material – a shifting form, which keeps the story moving on…

Thanks you tube!

Layers

I found myself at the British Library this week, loving and hating the opportunity I had to track down virtually any book that’s been printed. I went there hoping that I could find some answers to my text problem. A problem – I haven’t really got to the bottom of really. Sometimes the idea gets a bit too big, too much to handle and although one wants to have layers of meaning and connotations. The timing of all these layers is critical to the momentum of the thing, making nods to all the things your artwork could be, can leave you with a mess on your hands. So initially the project was a very simple idea of making an equivalent to the relic. Then the process of making the thing itself started to take on a sort of ritual. At the same time I thought the object aptly stood in for Maurice in terms of the ‘suffering’ endured. 

Then there’s the question of faith…

Some one asked me recently if I would invoke him, try and call on him for assistance. I can’t say that I even thought about it.  I don’t believe in deities in that way, and as it’s becoming more and more doubtful that he ever existed, I think the interest is more about him as a cultural figure, which fuelled imaginations of many artists. So this book in the British Library was dedicated to cataloguing surviving black Maurice’s. The ‘Golden legend’, which has several versions, is but a small portion of the text. Apart from being a catalogue of 300 objects, it also contextualizes how these objects came about – invevitably linked to the political wrangling’s of the time. Interestingly most of the examples came from Germany, which at around 1500 was pretty much most of the Holy Roman Empire.

Its like the project is going in two directions… In one way a book project could be an extension of that catalogue dealing with Maurice as an object rather then a person or metaphysical figure.  On the other it’s an interpretation of the Hagiography. I haven’t made up my mind yet and I don’t seem in a hurry to do so just yet…

Art?

CAC (Contemporary Art Collective) R.I.P Art 2008

I haven’t been blogging for a while. I have chastised myself for this, although I wouldn’t think of it as an artistic activity, its’ one the few sounding boards I have. My thoughts flow better when I hear them aloud or see them in front of me. In reality it will have to fit with the ebb and flow of life… you understand I hope.  The book idea is going slowly and I’ve had some visual ideas for it. Thankfully this will provide an opportunity to revel in process and material (hopefully) in a print room.  I can stop thinking about words, research and meaning for a bit, so things can just flow…

So while I’m going slowly the seasons kicking off, galleries putting their best foot forward, Freize Art Fair and the rest. I went along to a couple of talks at Tate recently by live artists Tino Segal and Spartacus Chetwynd.  It’s not where I’m at right now, but somehow I’m still drawn to a more demonstratively ‘active’ art space.  I find the making and use of props in Chetwynd’s performances attractive, but in hearing her speak, I thought she underplayed the academic grounding of her work. She seemed to prioritise a sense of fun and suggest that fun was entirely the point. I struggled to believe this, not that I think fun doesn’t have a place in art. Maybe we all know too much? Maybe we’ve heard about the equivalency of high and low culture, interrupting or sabotaging gallery conventions too many times. Certainly the installation gives more information, such as a text by Bertolt Brecht examining and valorising amateur theatre and her explanation about using Chaucer’s tales as a mirror to reflect morality of current times. If I believed it were only about fun - one could find it at a good club night or festival. Perhaps the difference is whether you’re out of your head or not. But in her talk she did mention Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of Carnivalesque, proposing the essential function of frivolity as a radical rethinking of society.

In response to a statement about art not wanting to look like it, Mr Segal reckoned his work was readily received as art - that perhaps built into the paradigm of what new forms can be, is the freedom to renounce the values of its’ predecessor. He had some other criteria to, but I forget now - I didn’t make notes…  But I discovered that the art institution and its characteristics are central to the framing of his work. His question ‘is it good art?’ is just as complicated and nuanced as the ‘is it art?’ question - very much dependant upon social and cultural circumstances and values. I have heard and read the term ‘anti art’ on many occasions in historical texts, but you wonder whether any of these gestures succeeded in destroying art as a concept.  If anything its’ become porous – an amorphous entity which could feasibly embrace everybody and everything. So maybe asking if something is art a pretty futile these days? I think artists are weary of the pedestal, of the quasi-religious or genius standing of (so called) ‘high’ art forms in relation to other creative ones? If the thing becomes too lofty then its struggle to live up to, we’re all human after all…

A reworking...

UTBA 2011/12

in 'No Now' at Space Station 65

Self made…

I have to admit that I was also a fan of the Grayson Perry ‘All in the Best Possible Taste’ on Channel 4 last month. Straight off the title takes me back to Kenny Everett as Cupid Stunt flinging his legs around with his plastic boobs bobbing about. 

But apart from the nostalgia, I thought Mr Perry had some really pertinent things to say about class and taste.  Despite looking at this through a purely English lens, if anything it enabled people to see parallels with issues resonating within their own circumstances.  For example, I like the idea of the plight of the ‘self-made’ middle classes being in-between without much of a yardstick to go by… the anxiety about how to live, what to consume, how morally upstanding to be – and all this with an awareness of privilege living in the middle. Then he presents the Upper classes as carrying the burden of preservation, upholding family heritage, culture and tradition. Honestly when you saw how some of these people lived - it were as if they were living in a giant sarcophagus. Perry talked about these issues very eloquently and depicted his perspective without mercy. I especially liked the lord of the manor as a dying breed, being hunted down by the nouveau riche.

The programme got me thinking afterwards about heritage, and my place in its preservation or perpetration. I’ve always been quite cavalier about it. Not that I haven’t cared about it; I’ve always felt weary of feeling burdened. How much does one depend or use history to foster new narratives? It might sound like a strange thing to say, but sometimes it feels like you’re competing with history. I’ve been kind stuck on the ole Maurice tale - and I must admit slightly conscious of the B word, as for some it seems like old news. These are the extremes of this artist lark… you’re either obsessed with your work or just in doubt.

Black Splatter Movement

I came across I book about the month ago and haven’t wanted to take it back to the library. Information is Beautiful by David McCandless, its filled with data from the internet, crunched and formulated into highly aesthetic diagrams. Some of these diagrams and charts utilise figuration, some are abstract – but the the book is also about bringing together seemingly profound and trivial information on the same plane. Now he also wrote an essay on Postmodernism, which is processed web information like the rest of the book. I found it short and succinct and very optimistic (unlike other texts I've tried to read) but not completely naïve – if we embrace complexity, diversity and ambiguity there is a danger at arriving at no meaning – he calls it a grey goo.

While participating in the march last week, I was thinking about the temporary nature of collective political identity – I wasn’t going to see those people again but we banded together, under one cause for a moment and then dispersed… I’m jumping now, but I had also attended a talk the week before at INIVA. At some point in questions, the inadequacy of the term ‘Black’; used as broad brush to politically encompass very different ethnic communities was discussed. In a sense that inadequacy is what brought the International Institute of Visual Arts into being.

Anyway they found a way around that one – but in the end my little niece still has to workout whether she is black or brown – that’s a big distinction for a 6 year-old to make. To be honest I've always struggled with never being ‘Black’ enough. I'm working in 'watery' ambiguity but going back to McCandless it might more resemble his meaninglessness goo.

References

Abstract Expressionism historically has been posited as a heroic and pure ideal; certainly in relation to 50’s American manifestations – it’s almost like a bad rep that’s proved difficult to shirk. Apart from the political appropriation of the abstract, it’s always struggled with being esoteric, since many cannot recognise themselves or their values with in it. It gets me thinking again about consciously trying to make ‘universal’ artwork – I’ve heard this word a lot recently. I’m kinda sick of it, cus in reality we work in very small clusters of common interest. The very large ones cost a great deal to maintain – like our crumbling economic one.

Now I make black blobs on paper sometimes, I’m not sure how long I’m gonna make them. But I found myself at a symposium about abstract art a couple of weeks ago. I was intrigued to see how artists positioned within this field approached the abstract conceptually and methodologically. As I suspected it wasn’t simple, the exhibition that accompanied the event was a vague commonality between the artists involved. Each had very different perspectives and all were very conscious of being branded in way that felt limited. Naming is tricky as it brings you to a historical context, requiring confrontation, complicity or avoidance – take your pick. And of course that confrontation varies in relation to who it is, and where they are. So as a student of art, a teacher of it, as well as being black, a woman (and any other bandings I could fit under) abstraction in relation to expressionism is a tad problematic. I put my drawings on bulky old technology, in a time when ‘identity’ seems to be a debate left in the 80’s and 90’s.

One cup

TTFN Studio

It may seem like a strange thing to do, giving up studio but ‘post studio practice’ is more a acceptable mode of operation nowadays - I’m told.

Well... there still needs to be site for production. I make self-contained stuff these days, so I need somewhere relatively private to make it, and I'm lucky enough to have options. The ‘studio’ as a professional resource can become an affectation. Right now it just feels like burden, extremely expensive to run in some way or another.

Knowing that I was going to give it up (for a spell-ish) gave open studios a bit more meaning. In some respects its allowed coming to terms with the black studio project. It’s been as a kind of analogy for being bounded by a convention of ‘art education’ or 'art practice'. I've had the same studio for looooong time. Its become an institution in itself. If context is half the work, then it makes sense to change it every once and a while. Lets see what happens…

Noise

As a slightly younger person, I couldn’t do anything without music– I always considered my life as one big mix tape. Being a little older concentrating takes a bit more work, so less noise… But the studio always has some kinda noise; I’m not talking about power tools here (although I’m partial too them on occasion).

I recorded bout 6 or 7 hours of video while cutting the hairball, at times the process was meditative, other times frustrating and I will admit - even a little boring. Labouring seemed to be a big part of it, I dunno, maybe as a substitute for skill. I used to be really obsessed with skill, but that kind of preoccupation felt limited for me. I was really ambivalent about the ball, one day I would go in with the intention of making it ‘right’- another day I would go in to fuck it up. That’s a big milestone, as I’ve always been rather precious about the things I’ve made.

UTBA Sphere 2011 (still)

Big thanks to Paul Jones for technical assistance

So I made a trio of pieces, the remains of the ball, a speaker sculpture and a virtual animated projection of the elusive ideal. The sound piece and its delivery system had gone through some evolution. Lets say it was another good exercise in recycling and making do.

For open studio I wanted to pay homage to the space, I planned to take break from it. Actually I’d become too attached to it, its been like a home. There were some really beautiful (some might call) corny moments like listening to Jimmy Scott during a thunderstorm or a drum lesson ricocheting down the adjacent corridor. It got me thinking whether the speaker piece could operate somewhere else (like the bags I made so many years ago) - or whether site specificity would prohibit its existence or relevance in another space and time…

Sneak preview of 'Attempts to get Inside the World'

Attempts to Get Inside the World

I have a little object (or should I say remains of an object) in this exhibition/conference - 'Attempts to Get Inside the World' explores the experimental, the sketch, process... Two weeks of talks, screenings and performances and more check out link for details...

Processing...

Extremes

Talking to a friend about the ‘state of things’ usually takes us to talking about the art world – then grumbling about it too. Usually I say something, he always tells me I can’t say.

Watch me a reductionist at work lol…

Tracy Emin @ Hayward June 2011

I meet two kinds of artist – the ones that ‘have something to say’ and the ones that ‘don’t have anything to say’. Generally I believe this is more to do with what is deemed ‘appropriate’.

I went along to the Tracy Emin show last week, hadn’t really looked at her work extensively. She was one of the characters in the art world that seemed both revered and despised in equal measure. She always seemed to say the most inappropriate things, but had the confidence to do so. Yes the work is self involved, and I wonder whether she clung on to her misery in order to make it. Poor Tracy - she might have been happier after all if she had that baby – who knows. Surprisingly I did enjoy it on the whole, especially the blanket pieces, which hint at the ambitions she might have had when she tried to be a ‘painter’. Educated arts professionals are encouraged to produce many layers and levels of meaning through their work. Emin represents an extreme, which might appear trite but exists never the less. And her experience is something that many people are intrigued by or relate too jugging by the amount of visitors in the Hayward.

As an artist working for some years with sensitivity to the site, functioning within the conventions of the white cube is an extreme. Black on white or black in white, is the only way I can articulate this right now. But within a world, which is rapidly growing smaller by the day. ‘Black’ as a cultural construct is loosing its coherency, accuracy and meaning - the thing is becoming nebulous. I’m thinking about this in the terms of sociological and anthropological theory, which accompanied the studies of many black artists. If you’ve spent a lifetime analyzing who says when its time to stop? I was asked the other day if I was becoming too ‘clinical’? When I first tried to inhabit the gallery I tried to transform it to get rid of the bleach. Then having some time away from it brought the realization that my product could not stand up to the ravages of the ‘weather’. So I’m looking at it like this, I’m breeding my own ‘culture’ and it needs particular conditions to survive and hopefully thrive…