At my latest stay as a guest-resident at x-church Marcus Hammond and I organised a small gathering for artists. I imagined it to be something equivalent to a jam session in music. Not that I ever participated in one. But jam is nice. It is sweet and gooey, and at its best sticky and messy. We ended up titling this inaugural event rather obscurely ‘Salon Slum’. To be truthful, I have been part of various artists’ groups and networks but have never participated in a salon before. This left me a bit confused as I associate the word salon with a specific kind of cultural happening that was popular at the turn of the Century that is from the 19th to the 20th. Actually, I nearly forgot but I even have a friend who wrote a book all about salons in Vienna around the Fin de Siècle.
As far I understand, these gatherings were predominantly organised by powerful women usually from an affluent background. In some way, it could be said that they loved the bohemian life style of creative thinkers and doers without engaging in the financial challenges of a truly self-employed existence. One person I am particularly hung up about is Alma Marghareta Maria Schindler, the daughter of the painter Emil Jakob Schindler, was not only a socialite but also a composer, author and editor. Yet her creative aptitude is not the reason why she stands out to me. Berta Zuckerkandl-Szeps, another hostess of an influential salon, was also active as a writer and journalist. Alma Schindler, however, not only provided a platform for the top creatives in Vienna but she seemed also to engage in a particular form of talent spotting. So was she involved with Oskar Kokoschka who took their break up so hard that he got made a life size ‘Alma’ doll that he carried around with him wherever he went. She also was successively married to Gustav Mahler[1], Walther Gropius[2] and Franz Werfel[3] and through these relationships sort of elongated her name. At the end of her life, she was called Alma Marghareta Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel.
But really this is not the point I ought to be exploring. There might be a much more interesting yet not necessarily easily to be answered question hidden within the proposition of a salon in relation to these all too mighty women. Bluntly put, Mahler and the likes of her instigated exchanges between diverse art forms. So would a salon not only bring together sculptors and painters, but also writers, poets, critics, musicians, composers, and architects. These gatherings are likely not only to have led to marriages but also to frank exchanges of ideas provoking sometimes the founding sparks of future collaborations. In short, the purpose of these social and professional gatherings, perhaps a slow living version of today’s networking events, is likely to have been to provide ample space to mix and meddle with each others’ conceptions and ideas.
Yet the question is where what Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel and the other grande dames organised to take place today at an acclaimed art space such as ICA in London or Arnolfini in Bristol would that then be classified in terms of socially engaged practice or relational aesthetics? Or would they call what they do performance art in reference to the 1960s happenings culture? Where the activities of these socialites in reality decoy art practices?
Having said all that, I finally have taken part in a salon and I even helped to organise it. I am for sure not a mighty lady nor have I lived all my life without having to worry where the butter comes from for my bread. But what I like, and I guess Marcus as well, is instigating and that is what we tried to do. We invited artists from very different practices. Some live only around the corner, others came from further afield. I won’t go into too much detail because, in a way, this was more a launch event and every artist just brought something along to show and share. To me, talking about art is usually never straight forward and overall rather messy business. Yet this very quality also makes us and things more often than not stick together in previously unimagined ways. It is not easy to say what actually happened at this first Salon Slum. Yet to give you at least an idea, I will briefly indicate what the participating artists presented without going in too many details and entangling myself in off the mark interpretations.
There was Joana Cifre Cerda, a performance artist, who showed her first experiments with sculpture. Stuart Marshall present a new short story where he explored, in my opinion at least, a fusion of sci-fi with the gothic genre. Mary Ward-Lowery let us listen to a complex audio play that she had produced for the BBC. Clive MacLennan’s small set of photographs chosen out of his fast and ever expanding archive on Gainsborough was simply amazing and a humbling reminder of how temporality is embedded in any place no matter how big or small. Kevo and Sam performed their very first collaborative sound piece. Exciting and mesmerising! Kevin Ribis read a deeply moving poem that still resonates in me. Fenia Kotsopoulou showed photographic experiments but from a different nature altogether. Her images were one offs made with homemade plant dyes and intended to fade away into oblivion. Daz Disley showed us an experiment where he separated a strand of pixels spanning over 7000 images. This involved a turn table, a laptop with a plugged in lens, sugar crystals on sticks and, for me at least, incomprehensible programming skills. Duncan Chapman got equally nerdy and demonstrated how he constructs a vocal ductus entirely through programming. Marcus talked about his durational process of creating a painting and I finally began to understand why I really like them. I just showed a bit of work and talked about what I try to do during this residency. I hope it made sense as I still feel my way along. We also were very spoilt at this evening by Steffan Plumtree, the new chef, who made a very special buffet for us.
It is now over a week that the inaugural Salon Slum took place, nonetheless I keep thinking about what I saw and heard. I only can say that things happened for me and more than likely for the others as well.
Look already forward to the next Salon Slum!
P.S.: Lots of other interesting and thought provoking things happened at this residential stay. I will talk about them in another blog.
[1] Mahler died 1915.
[2] They got divorced 1920.
[3] Werfel outlived her by over 20 years.
