Standpoint Futures Residency Programme

The good thing about a residency is leaving things behind. This is also the bad thing about a residency. In a way I feel as though I have brought with me, on this residency, material that I have, over the years, left behind- or at least neglected. For many years I have been collecting observations (in the form of mobile phone shots and also short text messages, saved also on my phone). I periodically download this material but only recently have I become aware of it’s accruing and increasing potential. With this residency I have chosen to think about this material – it is after all quite portable.

Looking at the images and texts in the studio I have become aware that it reflects my interests in a way I could not have pre-planned. The observations are almost always unpremeditated. These are things that catch me by surprise – usually when I am on my way to somewhere else and when my head is somewhere else. I think of these observations as significant as they pull me out of one state of mind and demand, however gently, my attention. They say something about my mind and something about the world. I have begun to realize this ‘work’ represents the start of everything I do as an artist.

I read a quote by Ruskin which I cannot remember word for word but it went something like:

What is the point of learning how to write if one has nothing to write about or learning how to draw if one has nothing to draw. But learning how to see – when one sees – everything else fall into place.

This is a real butchery of the original I am sure, but the point for me is that, from clear observation a path will become apparent. So for this residency I intend to look back over my recent seeing.



Leo Fitzmaurice begins his residency at Standpoint

Leo will be be at Standpoint from 21st Feb – 26th March 2011

There will be a public presentation of his work at the end of his residency Leo on the 24th and 25th March. This event will also include an artist talk.

Leo Fitzmaurice’s practice is concerned with materials and structures that hold information. Most often found by the artist within the public realm, Fitzmaurice reworks the materials to construct installations from objects that primarily functioned as information, such as flyers and leaflets. Altering the meaning of such material to create minimalist yet striking objects, removal rather than addition is most frequently the starting point.

Identifying these simple and banal materials that dominate popular culture, Fitzmaurice explores how we negotiate the material world by making it physically and conceptually apparent, through creating works that contain an unexpected and profound aesthetic.

Dispersing hierarchies of value and juxtaposing disparate objects, Fitzmaurice allows for no hidden meanings within some of his works. Instead, the spatial illusions contained within the collections of materials influences our expectations, thus questioning our initial perceptions.

Some text/essays exchanged over the two weeks of Anthony’s research trip in relation to Anthony’s practice and the initial proposal

Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics – Claire Bishop

An essay on ‘socially engaged art’ with the relationship between the institution and relational aesthetics.

Also see link for an interview with Bishop in light of the essay

http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2006/07/socially_engage.php

One Place After Another – Notes on Site Specificity – Miwon Kwon

One Place after Another offers a critical history of site-specific art since the late 1960s and a theoretical framework for examining the rhetoric of aesthetic vanguardism and political progressivism associated with its many permutations. Informed by urban theory, postmodernist criticism in art and architecture, and debates concerning identity politics and the public sphere, the book addresses the siting of art as more than an artistic problem. It examines site specificity as a complex cipher of the unstable relationship between location and identity in the era of late capitalism. The book addresses the work of, among others, John Ahearn, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Donald Judd, Renee Green, Suzanne Lacy, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Richard Serra, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Fred Wilson.

Air Guitar – Essays on Art and Democracy, Frivolity and Unction – Dave Hickey

Conviction, sincerity and humour in contemporary art. What would happen if art was to be considered bad, stupid and frivolous?

See review of book here

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bkrev/hickey-lat.php

Performance, commerce and objects

http://www.publicartscotland.com/features/14-I-Am-The-Space-Where-I-Am-from-Subversion-to-Citizenship

Post by Anthony Schrag

Part 2

Interestingly, one of the essays that was firing around was Claire Bishop’s Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics which related to this notion of social cohesion. To paraphrase her (quoting Laclau and Mouffe): “a democratic society is one in which relations of conflict are sustained, not erased”. She further clarifies using the words of Rosalyn Deutsche: “Conflict, division, and instability, then, do not ruin the democratic public sphere; they are conditions of its existence.” By this she means that the utopian ideal where ‘everyone gets along’ is an impossibility, and instead we must embrace these conflicts and divisions as a natural and positive part of a democratic culture. They allow different viewpoints, different histories, different perspectives – and these must be nurtured as a natural extension of a functioning societal framework. To erase ‘Conflict, division, and instability’ (I call it ‘risk’) is contrary to the very nature of democracy, and to attempt to do that touches on the difficult praxis as “socially engaged artworks as social engineering.’ – i.e., trying to engineer a community towards a relationship that might not naturally exist.

Inasmuch, I am interested in developing a “public artwork” that does not necessarily “cross the divides” but recognizes the divide as a natural and sometimes positive geography of any culture. Indeed, as a site of constant refugees and as a border-town, Shoreditch (and Hackney) invokes this image of division. Additionally, the word ‘Shoreditch’ most probably comes from the Old Saxon ‘Sewer Ditch’ and was probably a stretch of sewer water that divided regions; split one side from the other. The projects I am looking to do when I return in June/July look at the Regent’s Canal as a metaphor for “divisive state”, and attach a few mock-ups/suggestions for your enjoyment and/or giggles. They’re rough sketches, and I’m still lurching around for their true format; how to manifest their existence as something that is ‘live’ and not a bit of ‘performance art’.

And that’s where you find me today: bumbling around in the dark, sewer waters of division, performance, public art and fear. But this is a good thing, in all this fumbling around in these new and uncharted waters, I’ve seen a whole new menagerie of creatures to catalogue and potential beasts to tame.

Setting the tone (or: ‘good art takes courage’)

Post by Anthony Schrag Part 1

Being the first resident, I feel there’s a lot of pressure on me to set the right kind of tone the Futures programme 2011 via this Blog: I was hoping for “conversational/witty” blended with “thought-provoking/engaging” with a soupcon of “intelligent/insightful”

However, due to the nature of both a residency and my working practice, you might have to settle with: lurching, unsure, cautious and bumbling. But, don’t despair, gentle reader: often the most interesting things come from bumbling fools, and our fumbling in the dark might give us an opportunity to find something new in all that blackness.

Personally, I’ve never been afraid of the dark, I was always more scared of the teeth of the monsters that I could see, rather than potential maws of imaginary creatures. But fear and courage do seem to come into this residency. Any opportunity to develop and grow comes with stepping into the fearful waters of uncomfortableness and learning how to swim again. .

Flipping through the notebook I’ve been using since I arrived here two weeks ago, I found a scribbled note saying: “”. I’ve no idea what that means or what specifically it pertains to, but it is double underlined with the force of meaning: as if there was a pressure of portent in that sentence. I’m reminded of the Marina Abramavitch quote: that which you are scared to do, is exactly the thing you should do. And while I hesitate to mention that (and her) in case it should prejudice you to thinking I am some sort of ‘performance artist’ rather than just an ‘artist who works in a live context’ (there’s a difference; a BIG one…I shall return to this in a moment), it does act as an interesting guiding statement for the Futures Residency: the future, after all, is a place only built with courage.

My proposal aimed to look at my generally ‘performative’ socially-engaged and ephemeral practice and its relationship with objects – those lasting and sturdy things that exist in galleries and museums. How do they exist as separate entities from their ephemeral moment? As my initial proposal asks:

Who are they for? Where do they go? How do they have meaning beyond the moments of interface? Are they relevant outside of their immediate contexts? Often, I feel that the ephemeral nature of my projects is sufficient and meaningful for participants, but I would like to examine how to transform the research/events for gallery-based or museum-context exhibitions. And even whether this is a valid pursuit within a socially engaged practice?

The excellent conversations I’ve been having with Residency Coordinator Matilda Strang and Curator Fiona MacDonald touch on the these questions, and during the two weeks of this research period I’ve read more theory and been pushed deeper into those unfamiliar waters than I expected; many essays have shot between our email inboxes; conversations over tea and cake (oh, so much cake…) and passing discussions in the gallery, all building on the framework of the questions in my proposal.

Some of it has begun to explore the between ‘performance’ and ‘live art’ in that (I feel) a performance (generally) suggests a history of theatre; it is something rehearsed and has an inherent power structure that requires we ‘look someone doing something’ – much like we look at a painting or a sculpture, regardless of its ‘liveness’. In contrast, I try not to have a ‘something to look at’ in my work: rather ‘something to do’ and have an open-ended discussion; a sort of democratic engagement when all participants (including and especially me) has no idea of what will happen.

As my residency looks into the Public Realm, I am curious to develop socially engaged works that are meaningful to a community, and specifically to the community of and around the gallery: Hoxton, Shoreditch and Hackeny – communities that come with specific sets of issues relating to class, racial divisions, poverty and a lack of social cohesion.