Money seems to be my overriding thought at the moment…mainly the fact that I have none, severely limiting my thinking in a number of new and irritating ways.
After talking to a friend, I decided I should at least measure up the wood for the unwanted items cabinets before concluding I could not afford it. Yesterday saw me cheerfully arranging masking tape on the floor in an attempt at crude furniture design. When eventually satisfied that this was a sound concept to continue with, I worked out that the cost of the basic frame alone would be £300 and hurriedly left the studio in a sulk.
So, it looks like its back to the cardboard boxes idea with a hint of Christophe Buchel and a large dose of underfunding.
Funding has also affected Beacon. Despite gaining Arts Council funding, it will not arrive in time to fund the East Midlands Venice Biennale Pavilion and budgets are also making it more challenging to arrange Kelly Large's project. Kelly plans to create a concentration of colour throughout Sleaford by giving the 3500 teenagers high-viz vests as they leave school. Even at 50p a vest, this cost becomes enormous! How amazing it must be to have a limitless pot of money to create art with!
Perhaps it is this lack that drives me to despair of consumerism? The collection of unwanted items is steadily growing, creating a real sense of claustrophobia in my home and studio that I want to translate into the gallery space; a monument to nihilism and the replacement of god with purchasing and possession. In theory this means that however I arrange the objects, it does not matter: the objects are as meaningless as life itself and the only way, according to Nietzsche, to give life a meaning is to act as though your life is art itself. Simple enough, all I have to do now is stop worrying!
