CURA 300
STATEMENT OF INTENT
The most beautiful thing about modern art is that it has built into its own potential the capacity for destroying itself. Nothing keeps renewing itself the way that art does. The fundamental beliefs in art are constantly threatened and as a result it is constantly changing: and so art and anti art are really the same thing.
(Taylor citing Barry, 2005,p25)
CONTEXT:
The role of curation is evolving and changing. Harold Sneezman (1933-2005) kick started the curated art space revolution with the exhibition When attitudes become form at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1969. He recognized the nature of art that surrounded him demanded a less traditional approach in its delivery to the public. (Kunsthallebasel, 2007)
Today, as the art of curation continues with the Sneezman model and reacts to “the pulse of the times” (Alexander, 2011) into the realms of un-chartered territories a debate between the roles of the artist and the interpretive gesture of the curator is under scrutiny. The borders between the disciplines of artist, curator and institutions are collapsing.
What lies beneath the rubble? What kind of practice could emerge out of the ashes in a post modernist fracture. Could the construct of the 19th century artists studio become the construct of the 21st century exhibition space?
“I think art’s biggest potential is in its ability to produce ideas beyond the ideas contained within it, or the intended ideas, etc. A good curator can harness and direct those types of discursive potentials.”
(Ribas,59)
It is within this collapse that my Statement of Intent lies.
I do not carry with me the more traditional and historical baggage associated with curation. As a practicing ‘real time’ aspiring artist/curator what is intrinsic to all art work is the process of creation the results of which are often un-predictable and un-certain. It is a process that has a history of being hidden from view.
If we take Auguste Rodin’s Flying Figure (1890-1891) as an example of a schism in art practice between the finished object and un-finished processual object, its surface is littered with knife marks, air-pockets, ridges and bubbles, it is branded with the marks of formation with clear evidence of the artists input.
The viewer is not stopped at the ‘surface’ or immersed in a historical event. Instead one is confronted with a surface that manifests the boundary between the internal anatomical structure and the external results of the artists manipulation of the material.
INTENTION:
It is one of my intentions to expose this process in a contemporary setting with contemporary materials in an exhibition. An act of curation fused with the act of creation that responds to the site, the situation, the other art works, and the “emancipated” spectator.(Ranciere,2009)
Un-certainty, spectacle, scale, construction, liveness, collaboration, performance, rogue and unexpected elements will contribute to the process of creation being the art work and not the product. The construction stops, pauses, when the exhibition finishes. The process will be documented and recorded throughout. Some of this material will contribute to the catalogue and contents of the next exhibition and so on and so forth. Each exhibition/construction will inform the next process driven art work.
THEORETICAL POTENTIAL UNDERPINNING THE STATEMENT OF INTENT
Exploring the potential of collaboration, installation and sculpture as a powerful vehicle through which social constructs can be challenged highlighted and dismantled.
To potentially create an active subject who is empowered by the experience of physical and symbolic participation who will then be able to determine their own social and political reality.
Authorship of the work becomes egalitarian and democratic. Collaborative creativity emerges and produces a positive non- hierarchal social model.
The work will explore issues around Marxist thinking and may relieve the “alienating” and “isolating” effects of Capitalism. (Blundon, 2000)
‘The annihilation of space and time.’
(Massey,1991,quoting Marx,p24)
was a term first coined by Marx. It has been superseded by an accelerating phenomenon ‘time-space compression’ which refers to movement and communication across space, to the geographical stretching-out of social relations, and to our experience of all this. (Massey,1991, p24-29)
My intention is to create a live interactive construction in an on going curated gallery space that responds to Martin Hiedeggar’s and Doreen Massey’s and alleviating Karl Marx definitions of place promoting the dynamic, inclusive possibilities of communication relations in an age where the definitions of social space, curation and the fragmented role of artist is yet again being joyfully examined.
PLAN:
- Theme : Time and the temporal length of an event.
- My explorations into time will be my engagement with the materials and the space in ‘real time’.
- To photograph and measure the intended exhibition space.
- To create a site specific curatorial/ artist information pack with a floor plan and measurements.
- Create a thorough list of all materials, including sizes and lengths and the tools I intend to use. I will endeavor to keep the the materials true to their own forms with as little intervention from me as possible except through attachment and connection. The creation of dust and debris will be kept down to a minimum.
- To dismantle the work in Studio 11 and transport these materials to the exhibition space.
- To engage and collaborate with the space in all its various connotations, including the emancipated spectator, through the construction of the site sensitive structure.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, D,. (2011). Remembering Contemporay Art. The Walker Centre [online video] 6th MAy 2009. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=96IfkRp141E#! [Accessed 16th January 2013]
Blundon,A., (2000) Karl Marx works : Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 [online]. Marxist.org. Available from : http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm
[Accessed on 21 January 2013, 16.37].
Kunsthallebasel.ch (2007) Kunsthalle Basel · Exhibitions · Archive. [online] Available at: http://www.kunsthallebasel.ch/exhibitions/archive/58?lang=en [Accessed: 19 Jan 2013].
Massey. D,.(1991) A Global Sense of Space. Marxism Today, [online] June 1991. Available at: http://www.unz.org/Pub/MarxismToday-1991jun-00024?View=PDFPages [Accessed: 21 January 2013].
Ranciere. J,. (2009) Translated by Gregory Elliott. The Emancipated Spectator London : Verso.
Ribas , J. and Sheridan,. (n.d.) You Kant Always Get What You Want. Art Lies: A Contemporary Art Journal, (59), Available at: http://www.artlies.org/article.php?id=1651&issue=59&s=0 [Accessed: 19 Jan 2013].
Taylor, B. (2005) Robert Barry interview with Ursula Meyer (1969) Art Today. London, England: Lawrence King Publishing