My mind keeps coming back to something Yoko Ono posted on her Twitter account. It seems to be about the idea-roots of her famous instructional paintings, such as ‘Painting to See the Skies’ and ‘Painting to See the Room’ (both 1961, both published in her book Grapefruit). These “paintings” actually consist of brief instructions that involve making a hole in the canvas and viewing the world through it. Ono wrote:
The inevitable happened when I opened a hole in my painting: the reality which came through the hole outshined my “design” on the canvas.
This resonated with me very deeply. I experience the world very intensely (I suppose almost religiously), and I have often struggled to reconcile my compulsion to record, recreate and represent with the inadequacy of my attempts. I suppose that in many ways I am disinterested in second-hand experience. Consider the way that writing – truly great writing – can connect with and illuminate our inner world, becoming a linked, holistic experience in its own right. This is what I want from (my) art.
Yesterday I walked to the riverside, and sat next to the place where the boats leave for the Isle of Man. There are only a couple of sailings per day, so it was a peaceful place with lots of outward & upward space for thought. The sky and the water were deep, deep blue, and there was a bright breeze that made the water dance & sparkle. Everything seemed very alive. I thought about the curious dissonance between this wide-open and giddily, maddeningly glorious world and the gallery, which is often the exact opposite of alive. “Stultifying” was the word that came into my mind – to stultify can mean to impair, invalidate, to dull and inhibit, to negate. And I do feel that certain spaces – authoritative, stifling spaces – have a very dulling and diminishing effect upon artworks. There are a few major contemporary institutions in Liverpool with this kind of space, wherein nothing can live. On top of this, many of the independent/artist-led spaces are (by virtue of what artist-led ventures can actually afford) just ugly and unpleasant, which can sometimes have the unfortunate effect of making the exhibited work seem a little tawdry.
So is the gallery a necessary evil for the artist? Should one build one’s work-philsophy around the idea that it must someday take a solid form & sit, curated, in a whitewashed room? Is that the only conceivable outcome for an idea? Must the artist be object-fixated and public-focused?
