I went to B&Q yesterday (AKA ‘hell on earth’ in our house) to get some MDF to make a couple of plinths for my forthcoming exhibition. I can’t recall the exact price when I last bought some around a year ago, but I estimate I paid 40-50% more yesterday. Not a huge sum in itself, but an example of how the cost of materials is another (increasingly) major issue for the practising artist. To boot, three ink cartridges in my printer ran out simultaneously yesterday.
Incidentally, I had looked into the cost of hiring to save me the hassle of making, and then storing, my own plinths. Wow!
Time can really drag when you are waiting for something. I am waiting for materials which have got caught up in the postal dispute, waiting for confirmation of meetings, waiting for an important email, waiting for other little odds and sods that seem to be holding me up in one way or another. Things like that can niggle more than they should sometimes. Ah, well.
I realised that I haven’t written about Artspace. It was formed in 1980 by graduates and lecturers from (what was) Portsmouth Polytechnic, and is now a vibrant group of some 40+ professional artists. Based in a former Methodist church, there are 28 studios in the building. Aspex (as in Art Space Exhibitions) was founded here before becoming an independent gallery and moving to its own premises at Gunwharf Quays. Art Space has since launched a new project space ‘GASP’.
I have a solo show here later this month (the PV is on the 20th November – please do get in touch if you would like to come along).
Next year is the 30th anniversary of the founding, so we are in the throes of preparing for that.
This year saw the first Art Space International Artist Residency, and applications for the 2010 Sponsored Studio Award have just opened. This is aimed at artists based in the Portsmouth area – full details are here in the A-N jobs and opps listings.
I had my first visit to Frieze yesterday, and it lived both up, and down, to my expectations. I could never get there on previous occasions, either being away or too tied up with other things, and I wanted to see for myself why so many people are so vocally either for or against. Even before I had arrived I knew one thing: it is too good an opportunity to see work by artists from galleries elsewhere in the world. The cynics must be terribly rich to be able to pop off to Lisbon or Vienna to see the work.
Nevertheless, in support of those that view these events as something of a circus is this: I noticed a that a guy manning one of the stands was noticeably bemused and more than a tad pissed off. Everyone was walking straight past, barely giving the work a glance. The work on show is ‘Great White Hope’ (Pasquale Pennacchio & Marisa Argentato), an almost completely stripped-out shop, empty shelves, bare walls and harsh fluorescent lights, a single copy of Playboy. As far as the crowds were concerned it was an unbuilt display – nothing to see. What exquisite irony. The guy on the stand should have been delighted for having the most successful work in the show. If you see him, give him a hug.
‘Come Together’, the group show I was in at CoExist, ended this weekend. I’m really disappointed I didn’t get to see it, but this coming week is the first that I have any free time since I got back. CoExist was founded by Amy McKenny and Emma Emmerton, and their new project space was set up in partnership with Metal Culture.
There is a real buzz around Metal Culture (it was founded by Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, and Sir Ian McKellen is a trustee. Their Southend centre was officially opened by the uncommon commoner Jarvis Cocker). Amy and Emma have worked incredibly hard at building CoExist and deserve every success. This was the inaugural show at TAP, and I am very pleased to have been a part of it.
Following the links on the Artists Talking home page, http://www.newartcriticism.co.uk/issue3.html I came to Andrew Bryant’s article ‘How to avoid getting eaten by a giraffe’ on Hit and Miss. I began to challenge some of his statements as I went along, only to find that he had already addressed some of the points I disagreed with. I suppose the older I get, the more impatient I become. Sorry, Andrew.
The article interested me because it seems to be as much about making the decision to do an MA, and on the way, deals with some of the issues I reflect on within my own practice. In some cases I have not yet reached a resolution, and in one or two instances (of perennial debates) I kind of look forward to never reaching a definitive conclusion.
I agree; teaching and learning can, by and large, be boiled down to facts, and skills. There are certainly grey areas: one can be shown (taught) how to open one’s mind, for example. No doubt one can be born with an affinity towards abstract thought, but some things have to be unlearnt.
Andrew says that “art is about … finding out what kind of artist you are in relation to all the others”. I do reflect on that, a lot. I ask myself: ‘ where am I in the context of contemporary art practice?’ In moments of doubt I have found myself comparing my work with other artists to measure my potential for success. But do you know, I don’t think it matters, in fact it cannot matter. To consciously position oneself within contemporary art practice is to stop forward progress. What other people do is not relevant to my practice. Individuation is key.
At art college I loved the synergy of talking with other like-minded people, the buzz, the excitement. I miss the company of creative others. It is addictive, and every now and then I get a fix. But I realise now that that in itself is not about the art, it is about the people. The buzz has no direct effect on my work. Like death, art is something we do alone.
continued in next post #5
