Politics: How can creative practice be effective politically?

In my own studio practice I am currently grappling with ways the work has the effect of communicating what I believe are global political issues of urgency; relevant to all humanity.

What has resonated for me within the readings of Hito Steyerl and Michael Taussig is the concept of the ‘affect as effect’ within art as implicit; a protest having the potential to effectively result in political change!

I would argue that it takes many cases in point to cause a positive shift towards change; the ‘art-space’ offers a forum to communicate with an audience who is receptive to being challenged. 

Hito Steyerl’s essay ‘Is a Museum a Factory?’ discusses “affect as effect” (31) with reference to “Andy Warhol’s Factory” (p31)

Steyerl claims that the affect of Warhol’s Factory was the revolutionary effect of simultaneously merging popular American culture and art, “unofficial forms of creation” (p31) entered a new stage. Further more Steyerl states that Warhol’s Factory became a “model for a new museum in its productive turn toward being a “social factory.”(p31) As a result – concepts of ‘private and public’ space were rethought as modes of visual exchange consequently expanding the factory’s captive audience.

In contrast Michael Taussig’s ‘The Language of Flowers’, I believe alludes to “affect as effect” as a system to create political undertones within the art.

Taussig analyses the history of natural and botanical imagery within the art of different cultures. He investigates the idea of ‘An art in nature to an art of nature’ by considering the artist’s subversion of the natural laws of nature to conceal and then reveal its significant meaning.

Colombian artist Juan Manuel Echavarria, series of work ‘Corte de Florero’ Taussig states is “reacting against the stupendous violence in his country”. (p99) Echavarria depicts “humanized flowers” (p99) by animating botanical specimens with human characteristics. He intentionally gives the work suggestive titles “names are of consuming importance to the work…” (p101) Taussig asserts that the artwork masterfully engages the viewer in a more meaningful conversation than what s/he would initially have “and this is of the same order of artifice that makes the actual mutilation of the Corte de Florero so powerful too.” (p100)           

Refferences:

Hito Steyerl "Is a Museum a Factory?" e-flux journal reader 2009, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009, pp.28-42

Michael Taussig, 'The Language of Flowers", Walter Benjamin's Grave, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 189-218.

Economies: How does creative practice sit within systems of power and exchange?

Anthropologist James Clifford’s book “On Collecting Art and Culture” (1998) gives a critical analysis of Twentieth Century Western cultural practice and the tradition of collecting objects of “art-culture” (215)  

He cross-examines Western ideas of the “good” verses bad or the “obsessive” practice of collecting, within the historicity of “ethnography as a form of cultural collecting.”(p231)

Clifford claims that it is perceived “the good collector (as opposed to the obsessive, the miser) is tasteful and reflective.”(p219) because  s/he’s is a pursuit of purpose “It’s taxonomic” (p219); serving a social obligation to record and preserve human civilization in order to educate future generations of their cultural past.

Clifford connotes that the “obsessive” collector’s activity is perceived “negatively marked as fetishism.”(p217) s/he is engaged in “a gathering up of possessions in arbitrary systems of value and meaning.” (p217) The ‘obsessive’ is driven by a personal desire to satisfy ownership of an object(s) which are wrongfully horded in a kind of possessive manner and kept as private collections.

My own childhood memories of visiting the Auckland Museum are negative; somewhat depressing and frightening. I experienced the cabinets as prisons of empty ‘vessels’ clinically and coldly displayed. The ‘objects’ appeared sadly displaced from their original existence, their vitality extinguished and reduced to the function of some sort of perverse public entertainment of ‘naval gazing’.   

Clifford believes we need to critically rethink and analyse current western places of cultural-art display and exchange. He appears to think that the current affect of collections is an experience of alienation.  Clifford’s reference to the American Indian student discussing values of tradition within their own culture: - “We live for today and never forget the past.” (p251) suggests significance in understanding their past is remembered with a sense of currency. It’s about recognizing its ‘life-force’ and connecting past and present simultaneously. History is not dead or defunct. It speaks of who we are as humans and gives our personal life meaning and vigor.  

When I also consider Isabelle Graw’s “Beyond Dualistic Art/Market Model” (2009) and her discussion of the “artist’s artist” (p84) whose art by virtue resists becoming an object of ‘ownership’, therefore the work exists as the artist intended and within the context that it was intended, perhaps then this type art work can be seen to escape the sad fate of my ‘museum cabinet’.  

References:
James Clifford, "On Collecting Art and Culture" in The Predicament of Culture:Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Cambridge. MA Harvard University Press, 1998,pp. 215-251

Isabelle Graw, High price: Art Between the Market an Celebrity Culture, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009, pp.81-94 & 112-116

Place: What does it mean to have a creative practice here in Aotearoa New Zealand?

Arjun Appadurai’s book, ’Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation’, makes a significant contribution to contemporary social-cultural anthropology. He proposes a radically new and alternative framework for the cultural study of globalization.

“Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”, is a critical analysis of the “politics of Global culture” (p37) within the modern world, one which in his opinion, must be “seen as a complex and overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing centre-periphery models.”(p32) Those already in existence, fail to comprehend a fundamental truth of “disjuncture” and its link to a present day global reality.

Appadurai uses concepts of the “image, the imagined, the imaginary” (p31) as tool to guide our understanding of ‘self’ within the modern world.

He purports that “the world we live in today is characterized by a new role for the imagination in social life.” (p31) “Imagination” Appadurai claims is vital in its role for “something critical and new in the global process: the imagination as a social practice.” One which is not self deluding; that is neither “mere fantasy” (p31) nor “simple escape” (p31) but rather what is offered by Appadurai appears to be a message of “hope.” (p43)

His argument fundamentally claims our global future is dependent on… “Our very models of cultural shape will have to alter as configurations of people, place, and heritage lose semblance of isomorphism.”(p46)

Appadurai states “The past is now not a land to return to in a simple politics of memory. “(p30)

In comparison it’s interesting to consider the research of another cultural anthropologist, Epeli Hau’Ofa and his essay “Our Sea of Islands”. Hau’Ofa offers a differing analysis and critique of the contemporary global environment. One which he purports previously had excluded “Oceania” which he refers to as ‘world enlargement.’(p6) The premise of Hau’Ofa argument is dependent on a return to Oceania’s cultural heritage; their “ancient truth,” (p16) as a means forward. Hau’Ofa states that Oceania’s indigenous ‘identity’ of ‘self’ has been negatively affected by cultural disjuncture. He acknowledges, nevertheless that global expansion has had a “liberating effect on the lives of ordinary people of Oceania” (p10) which profoundly expanded the world “on a scale not possible before” (p10)  

I believe how we imagine the world and how the “imagined world” influences the image of ‘self, to be significant to creative practice within Aoteroa New Zealand. We are a nation of increasing multi-cultural diversity, and perhaps for many of us, personal knowledge of our own cultural heritage is reliant on our imagination alone. Our geographical position offers liberation from the weight of cultural history for many of us. For others, it is a source of conflict of Identity. Both interpretations raise extremely pertinent issues.

However the concept of a constructed ‘self’ has a history in art. There is an innate human desire to make sense of our existence. Perhaps therefore, the function of the artist has never been more important. If we could conceive part of our role is the conscience of contemporary society, persistently evaluating and re’evaluating the world.           

References:

Ajuin Appadurai, "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Culture Economy", Modernity at Large: Cultural Diamensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press,1996, pp.27-47

Epeli Hau'ofa, "Our Sea of Islands", A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea Of Islands, Suva, Fiji: The University of the South Pacific, 1993, pp3-16.

Art now: What is the theoretical horizon within which contemporary practice is understood?

“Art and Object” an essay by art critic Michael Fried (1967) published in Artforum was regarded as controversial. In fact Fried himself stated “This essay will be read as an attack on certain artists (and critics) and a defense for others”. An “attack”, because Fried critically picks apart the genre of minimalist art, for which he coined the phrase “literalist” art. Fried examines literalist art against that of modernist painting and sculpture, to argue “What is it about objecthood as projected and hypostatized by the literalist that makes it, if only from the perspective of recent modernist painting antithetical to art?”

Fried uses the literalist’s essential theory of “objecthood” to unhinge its own argument. His claim that the theory of “objecthood” does more in fact to reaffirm modernist painting and sculpture’s relevance by proving their value beyond operating simply as objects as with literalist art. Fried suggests that there seems to be something else; an extra element present in modernist painting and sculpture which holds our interest and this Fried insists is the point of art.

This ‘extra element’, ‘something else’ I refer to, also occurs in the in the book “Thinking through Craft”, by the Academic Glenn Adamson (2007)

Included in chapter 3:-“Skilled” we are given the scenario in the studio of “the famous potter Bernard Leach.”

I believe Adamson presents a valid point in arguing for the importance of ‘skill’; that is the skill involved and/or required in the craft of making. What I feel is relevant within this complex discussion surrounding ‘skill’ is that the point within the craft work of Leach, is not merely in its functional or literal object value.

This can be illustrated in the statement by the potter Bill Marshal, deemed in the profession as “technically the best thrower in the pottery”. In his evaluation of Leach’s work he remarks, “Bernard can’t throw worth a damn. But he makes better pots than any of us”. This suggests some other phenomena affecting our experience of and interaction with works of this calibre.  

 Fried quotes the artist Robert Morris regarding his view, on how art should aim to communicate -” Whereas in previous art – “what is to be had from the work is located strictly within (it), “the experience of literalist art is of an object...”. This seems interesting with regards to my previous point about the idea of an extra element present; or at play within a work creating a shift that I will suggest when a work becomes something to be evaluated; or comprehended as art?      

Something that I found most interesting in Fried’s essay was his shift in tone during the conclusion. For what had begun as a rigorous critical “attack” develops a tone more sympathetic to the literalist’s plight.

Fried finishes by saying - “concepts of literalism and theater have specifically motivated what I have written. More generally, however, I have wanted to call attention to the utter pervasiveness- the virtual universality-of the sensibility or mode of being which I have characterized as corrupted or perverted by theater.” We are all literalists most of our lives. Presentness is grace.”

Fried’s conclusive words in “Art and object” appear driven by a desire to sustain belief in literalism as an ideal theory? If in fact he was convinced. However his review would prove the literalist’s “espousal” failed to convince him. For when Fried analyses the fundamental essence of literalist’s art, that which is “Objecthood,” he finds fundamental faults… “The literalist espousal of objecthood amounts to nothing more than theater and theater is now the negation of art.”

Glenn Adamson Thinking Through Craft, Oxford: Berg, 2007, pp.69-101.

Michael Fried "Art and Object" Artforum, vol. V no.10, June 1967, pp. 12-23

Theory and practice: What does it mean to work with theoretical material as a practitioner?

In response to the question and readings of Thierry de Duve and Chris Kraus, I will make a statement which I feel is relevant to my response and which resonated from their work.

I believe that before one can claim to be an art practitioner, one must initially establish a method of art practice. This requires a level of consciousness about the motivation and conviction for making art. Secondly the necessary process of identifying the ideas inherent in the work follows; conceptual components.  A ‘position’ or stance is relevant or current in the contemporary art world.  

 I felt that the issue of assuming a ‘position’ for one’s practice was also alluded to by Thierry de Duve and Chris Kraus. Perhaps more importantly, that to clarify a ‘position’ within contemporary art is to understand that the system and context within which the artist operates is a fundamental cache. To clarify their ‘position’, an artist should understand the historical context into which their work fits within a particular genre, and what responses the work might provoke. In Kraus’s words “anything that might be read as actual art in the contemporary art world” (p-147). The artist’s position when challenged demands astute comprehension and knowledge of the context of the work and its conceptualisation.

 Kraus’s “defeated” student gives an explicit account of the danger of naivety, simply ‘making’ while ignorant of intent and therefore awareness of how the work may be critiqued.

 Kraus’s message is direct and blunt. Ignorance of the effect of one’s art is unacceptable in the art world. Knowledge is power, or as in the incident of Kraus’s student, who could have validated her “art” had it be known to her “that anything is permissible in the contemporary art world so long as it is pedigreed, substantiated, referentialized”. (P-147)

I will relate Kraus’s article to the later question of what the significance is then of theoretical material for the creative practitioner. Or, in light of Kraus’s student, what alternatively might be the implication of the absence of theoretical material. If we understand theory as denotation; to verify and challenge the practical nature of art.

For me, theory is the contemplation and speculation which precedes the action of my ‘practice’. It enables me to understand, verify and challenge what I do and the context within which my practice exists.

As a creative practitioner working within an art institution, I find it interesting to examine Thierry de Duve’s “diagnosis” of “historical ideological paradigms” (P-30) including that of “the present day situation” (p-26).

 De Duve believes that there is a fundamental problem or conundrum within the complex nature of art teaching. De Duve’s account seems cynical. He claims that there is currently a “crisis” (P-31) that he cannot offer a “cure” for.

He goes on to state that “significant art is art that overthrows, displays, abandons or subverts rules and conventions” (p-25). He then advocates that a truly successful student is one that “… displayed awareness of what art-making is about.”(p-25).

 I tend to agree with De Duve’s assertion. Although I myself work within a set paradigm which evaluates my practice against its own prescribed pedagogy, I do not feel restricted or that it is a constraint within which  I“ willy-nilly have to work” (p-30) . When considering how theory (material) works for the creative practitioner within an institution, I return to my earlier statement; theory is the contemplation and speculation which precedes the action of my practice.

I believe therefore that the method of working with theory serves as the means for an ends. To understand how knowledge serves to assert a ‘position’ of empowerment within the context of one’s practice. It gives me license to practice. To know how to break the rules you must understand also how they work!