Free gifts from artists – an attempt at deconstructing the obligations of sculpture.

Time for a new post. There’s always something unsettling about reading stuff written a while ago. Like finding some forgotten adolescent writing and only half believing that you could have been like that. The first few posts could be by someone else, but this is mainly because I was attempting to find my boundaries, by trying out whatever came to hand, and sinking into books and theory.
Since then I have had to earn some money, always a great leveller – In a way it suits me, because it fits with the way that I tend to work on projects – something akin to a brewing process;
Put loads of unlikely ingredients into the pot, dilute with generalities, boil with intense concentration, put on lid, and let the process happen, lift lid occasionally to add carbohydrates (careful not to disturb contents). Wait/do something else until you think you have forgotten about it, and no longer notice the all pervading smell. When the time is right siphon off some of the stuff and try it – If you are lucky it will be good for cooking.

So you see some completely unrelated work purely for the money is a great way of forgetting the real work – plus the all pervading smell of the stuff that is fermenting means that everything that occurs in the surrogate workplace, could provide the magic ingredient, the thing that could never have been planned.

Some themes are beginning to emerge – I have been working in a barn on a dairy-farm, along with 3 others, making a faux building for some press-launch photo-shoot. While there I have noticed the way that the people I am working with have very different involvement with the day’s tasks. A younger maker seems to suspend life during the work hours, and treats everything like a race. Another older maker is moralistic about the disciplines of work, he’s the one that times coffee-breaks, gives the impression that although like sour medicine, work somehow builds dignity and the sort of respect that he values. Yet another was once a go-getter, but a fairly unpleasant brush with bankruptcy, made him philosophical about suspending quality of existence to fund some notional better life in the future. The farmer moves things around all day, he is always at work, and yet he never leaves home, he plays with his kids while he fills the udder-wash container, there is no work/play distinction that you would notice. Then the clients arrive, they are shockingly young, with them comes corporate culture – positive strokes – primacy of paperwork – friendly management banter, a learned language that says far more than it seems. The ‘creatives’ (bored photographers), up talking everything, aware of their feint celebrity and using it well to get what they want painlessly. Then there are the cows, who feed, then feed some more – drag themselves to the parlour, and feed while they wait. Dead curious.

Playing with a filter of metaphor, we considered the sculpture as a forest. This is OK because it may well resemble one when we see it, and if it doesn’t, the exercise will produce some lively misunderstandings.
I ran through many forests that I have known (in my minds eye) and found that I preferred those that I have never visited, especially the semi-tropical dripping variety where the trees merge like the fur on a sloths back, shaggy and stinking.

What Sherwood forest has to do with all this, is explained mainly by the sepia gunge that we all too easily add to make things seem historical. Anyway, a brief flirtation with laying-in-wait, to accost unsuspecting passers-by, robbing from the rich and… well everyone really. And there I was back at the subject, ‘exchange’.

Something good came out of it though, my presence in the gallery will be centred on a location that I now consider my camp. Don’t worry I have had enough experience of theatrical installations in galleries to avoid taking it too literally, but it gives good purpose to the nature of my space, which was in danger of becoming an ‘information point’. Instead I can listen to stories around the fire (which in reality will probably be an AV display, that will also benefit from being considered a fire, rather than a desktop gui or a powerpoint presentation).

Hmmm perhaps I should lay-in-wait and shoot bullet points at people – seems popular these days.

I have just been scanning the small book that I carry and realise that the various threads to do with this project are romping away with me. Too much intriguing stuff keeps emerging, and although I am sure that they are mostly useful, it's about time that I tried to order something that can be relied upon as a structure. Seems that these fall into a few relevant areas, a dull sort of hierarchy list such as this:

Things that are related to the exhibit, as I understand it will be. Likely subjects for association and points of reference to other experiences.
Actualities: mass, materials, colours, textures, sound, smell, humidities and the reminiscences they trigger
Similar forms and associations – forests, caves, computer game landscapes, church architecture, fractal landscapes and line charts.

Things that relate to the venue and its characteristics: – nature of the space, crowds, solitude, informal drop-in, planned events, organised workshops, extraneous visual clutter, bloody signage, sunlight, weather, tourists shoppers and regulars.

Things that relate to sculpture as a phenomenon: – pure sculptural aesthetics, perception of mass, relationship with objects, understood structure construction and purpose, minaturisation, references to content, relation to site, conceptual implications.

Things that relate to my perceptions and motives in dealing with the project: – conflicts between what I think is expected of me and what I want to achieve, product/process dichotomy, remembering strengths, removing limitations of media, avoiding tricks, demystifying jargon, questioning through physical activity.
Keeping conceptualisation grounded through a realistic overview.
Play.

Well that is today’s list – It’ll be different tomorrow, but themes will emerge – so now I can get on with burrowing.

Re-reading my first post, I realise that I have glossed over the details that should come first on the agenda of someone publicising the event, and I feel vaguely guilty, however my primary agenda is not to publicise the event – others are paid to do that – but to give some insight into what I am doing.

In a sense I am being accurate in omitting the curatorial information, because I am thoroughly un-familiar with the exhibition that I am to act as artist Animateur for, or the work of Vincent its creator. In fact so far I have only seen about 8 small images and read a short paragraph about Vincent the artist.
The role that I need to adopt for this task is one of responding to Vincent’s actual work for this particular exhibition, not his reputation, career, or what esteem he is held in by critics. This role is best served if the exhibition is as much as a surprise to me as it is to anyone else.
Working this way is healthy for a variety of reasons:

1 It will make me think on my feet.

2 The immediacy of my first impressions will inform my responses directly – without being too stale or over developed.

3 If I’m tempted to behave authoritatively it will be based on my responses to the exhibition, and have equal validity to anyone else’s. my practise as an artist will inform me, but it will probably prove less interesting than say, a plumber’s or a florist’s.

4 I will not be able to resort to received pseudo-facts about the exhibition just because I have read them somewhere.

If you need curatorial information there might be some here.

If all this sounds confusing perhaps I should explain what I understand to be the task of an Animateur.

For me the role of Animateur is largely to energise peoples responses to the arts, preferably in a revelatory way. It is essentially concerned with the core activity of engagement with the Arts, namely ‘Discovery’ – it is gallery education writ large, in its broadest sense – That is, education before it becomes bogged down with dogma and notions of correctness, The kind of education that we all do everyday when we encounter valuable new stuff and re-evaluate our world view in relation to it.
Clearly the arts are pregnant with potential discovery, so much so that you could say someone would have to be comatose not to gain some insight or value. What should therefore be a simple task is in practice not so fluid, due mainly to the learned timidity, lack of ownership and in some cases outright fear that education writ small has instilled in many people concerning the Arts.

The job of the Animateur as I see it then, is to give total permission, to esteem the viewer as highly as the originating creator and to energise the discovery process to the point where peoples responses are on a par with the creators. Virtually reversing the roles of artist and audience. This way each encounter with the exhibition can potentially be as constructive, hopefully more so than the subject work itself. A timid inkling can be amplified into a brave deduction, an inconsequential insight, into a passionate engagement.

The first step towards achieving this as an Animateur (or an educator) is to never lead people to a safe place where you have all the answers and they appear to be empty containers, instead embark on an authentic discovery together, rely upon them, learn from them, trust them, they are bound to wiser in many respects.

I am aware that for some Arts professionals such an attitude can appear to threaten many golden calves that are held dear;
Artists are special, the audience will benefit from exposure to the work, excellence and expertise is important, critical ability is paramount, professional knowledge of the subject and context is essential.
If you look closely at what I have written, I advocate all of these things, for everyone.