the first of some photographic snaps taken on a recent visit to see the Snap 2012 exhibition (Art at Aldeburgh Festival) at Snape Maltings... first up, situated close to the car park - L'age d'Or (green) by Gavin Turk
it has the inside/outside dimension, audience interaction and the inevitable question & answer flow of ideas about 'time & place' with an 'Alice in Wonderland' charm. children and adults like this.
why did i think this would be painted bronze? it's painted wood...
some peeling paint...
another view of the large door...the white panel (with viewing window) is by Matthew Darbyshire & Scott King (it's unclear which part is Matthew's contribution to the work, assigning the view through the windows?) and it is one of a series of four faux or imagined texts attributed to notable writers or artists, 'Ways of Sitting' (a humorous play on 'Ways of Seeing'):One current trend in Conceptual art is quite beyond satire. This strand of art is built from disparate and insignificant historical minutiae, that is re-presented as 'knowledge'. These artists scour Wikipedia in search of 'rare' but 'cool' information; once they've discovered some suitably (and understandably) obscure facts, they re-present the facts in an art gallery. Of course they can't just re-present these facts in 'raw form' - it's essential that the facts become 'art commodity' (video, sculpture, etc). The result is a complex puzzle of abstruse reference points. A hundred reference points, but no actual point... A kind of exploded jigsaw puzzle for the casual Barthes reader perhaps? A parlour game for the curator, critic and collector. I'm unsure if they yet call it 'Wiki-Art'.Victor Burgin, Art and Politics : A Reappraisal 30 July 2010...(art, it's a snap; to be continued...)
on filling in the blanks
In the course of some administrative duties, I recently came across these five words on a single sheet of paper...
After drawing a momentary blank as to the page's unspecified use or intention (a page for me to doodle on, make notes perhaps, or just discard?), the page is, of course, anything but blank... I will have to overlook the fact that this page occurs three times in just one document, and having been reproduced many times, equates to hundreds of intentionally blank pages...I wanted to view this non-blank page as a very small piece of unintentional 'found' conceptual art - as it brought into question the small matter of objectivity. It was a sheet of paper (but defined as a page) that served no purpose other than to demonstrate that it was a blank page inserted between other pages. By signifying its non-function it became oddly functional - causing a moment of conjecture, a period of contemplation, a brief pause for idle thoughts.
Jenny Holzer, television texts, 1990I recalled art where text or language is central to the work - Jenny Holzer, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger... then my thoughts shifted somewhat Duchamp-ianly, firstly to the famous Magritte painting, The Treachery of Images with the words 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' underneath the painting of a pipe, then Michael Craig-Martin's glass of water on a shelf as An Oak Tree, and then onto some of Gavin Turk's work (as briefly discussed here).All of these artists bring into question what art is, what art does, says or represents, what purpose art serves. In conceptual terms, it is the artist, not the artwork, that determines whether it is a work of genius or just one of duplicity (or both). Art is art when the artist says it is art, as art created in this context does not always 'speak' for itself...The un-blank blank page was not a work of art, but an art created by association; with just five words it unintentionally gave reference to other works of art...Harold Rosenberg (the American art critic who first coined the phrase 'action painting'), in a short essay in his book 'The Anxious Object' (which is a curious turn of phrase when deciphered two ways), wrote that within the modern discourse on art that 'the current vogue of art books arises from an appetite for knowledge which the book is better suited to satisfy than are the artworks themselves'.An appreciation of art may arise out of prior ignorance and subsequent enlightenment when viewing the artwork, but deeper knowledge or understanding often comes from the supporting commentary or textual analysis and not the actual artwork. This is also due in part, as Rosenberg then highlighted, that the experience of 'real art' is a rare event when compared to our exposure to reproductions of art in books - this secondary source of art is easier to access and therefore more widely appreciated as art. Rosenberg called such art books a substitute for the gallery experience - an imaginary museum.
Matthew Higgs, Minimal Art, 2008When art needs words to explain it, save time (and paper) and use them as the artwork. Higgs' work above is an appropriated page from an old art book, and it touches upon the same issues that Rosenberg raised. Rosenberg declares that '[art] has become nothing else than what is said about it [...] in which the artist and the historian-critic compete for the last word'. The work of art serves to illustrate or confirm the (original) concept, but the concept becomes even more tangible with the addition of words. Art also needs documentation in the form of books or catalogues to acknowledge the emphemeral nature of some works of art - books help preserve its status as art long after the event. Rosenberg also suggests that the longevity of the book elevates art by proxy; the reproduction is even more valued when the original is lost or hidden from public view, gathering dust in a dark vault.However, there still seems to be (in simplistic terms) opposing viewpoints when discussing what art is: 1) that art should speak for itself, it needs no words to justify it and it is open to the viewer's interpretation or, 2) that art requires or benefits from the 'voice' of the artist or the critical commentary of others. The use of words or language helps make the art more art, the artist's intention is a part of the work and that requires some words too...Even the unintentional is made into art if you take the time to fill in the blanks...
but, is it art?
in terms of the history of art, from the objects of devotion, adoration or reverence that i once believed were the physical manifestation of beauty and art (but are perhaps only highly-crafted artefacts, objects of ritual and faith), i now see the contemporary art scene overrun by irreverence, vandalism and subversion - it's clever to be ironic, it's fun to be subversive, it's crafty to be non-crafted.it's art poking fun at itself and others, the absurdity of it, its being, its making, non-art becomes high art, the non-original is somehow now unique... it's an art spawned from the fallout of a messed-up world, to be torn apart and reassembled, painted over, repositioned, upsized, downscaled, remodelled, appropriated, stolen, created from the everyday, the mundane, the bad, and the plain ugly… it's uncool to be a mere object of beauty, anything is art these days, even a tea stain.. (we all have one of these original works at home)..
Gavin Turk Tea Stain 2004, tea on paper, 245 x 335 mm (unique edition of 1000, actual prints may vary)currently for sale on gavin turk's own website at £172.50 (inc. VAT)gavin turk studied at the royal college of art (at the same time as myself), but he was refused his degree, having made a blue plaque for his exhibition space with the words 'Borough of Kensington, Gavin Turk, Sculptor 1989 - 1991 worked here' (now seen as a seminal work in his oeuvre), which made a comment on the cult of the famous, ironically inventing a future version himself as notable artist, without having created or exhibited any major body work (he studied sculpture). it was a kind of of wish-fulfillment... and it worked..gavin turk's print tea stain fits in with the natural evolution of his work, in the ongoing concept of questioning the authenticity of art and its maker, and like duchamp, the everyday becomes art in the right context. tea stain perfectly symbolises the labour or hand of the artist, yet it is essentially a non-planned, non-thing, but by repeated printing it becomes an act of deliberate creation, calculated within a game of chance.perhaps it was born out of one of those serendipitous moments in the art studio, when the artist is thinking: what should i create, where do i start? when contemplating the surface of a workdesk? here, turk continues to reinvent the brand of gavin turk as the successful artist, in the history of another artist, a doppleganger, the artist he aspires to be.gavin turk created his first signed canvas in 1991 - his signature back then had the stylish appeal and mark of someone apparently important when seen blown up in scale, and it provided a basic critique on the false importance we place on names, the stamp of the artist that authenticates the artwork.the signature signature style of gavin turk is deliberately challenged by its multiple reproductions - but is an art joke only funny the first time? - re-appropriated and re-purposed like the 'picasso signature' badge on a citroen car - it's all about association.turk has appropriated the works of many artists (notably warhol, and more recently pollock in his new york show) and ironically situates himself as both the creator of the work and its subject matter, at the same time questioning the cult that surrounds the dead artist. manifestations of the gavin turk signature continue to be a key theme in his work, as a mirror with his signature [Your Authorised Reflection 2009] extends this idea even further when it reflects a limitless series of gavin turk signed portraits of the viewer...the art dealers and critics take this work very seriously, even when turk seems to mock the art establishment, the commodification of art... the problem with tea stain is that although it raises questions about the authorship and validity of art, by making it for sale as an edition (and those that buy into it; some 500 have sold apparently) it flips back on any subversion, it's plain old establishment art after all...and if you should hesitate to say, but i could do that! or is it art? this is exactly the sort of idea that gavin turk is seeking to provoke...view gavin turk's latest exhibition of work, jazz (after jackson pollock), at the sean kelly gallery in new york, or see more of his work here. he's not currently represented by whitecube, but you can read a couple of past articles there.