Cop Out, Take 2

I thought it might be helpful if I set down my thoughts about this Context of Practice course.  

I’ll start with the positives!

This course has encouraged me to spend quite a bit of time studying my own context of my practice, which in itself is quite an achievement! 

I used to be quite anti- studying other people’s art on the grounds that I would end up being influenced by it.  I thought it might dilute my creativity – stop me thinking outside the box and coming up with genuinely new ideas.  I was worried that I would end up merely responding to what had gone before me – extrapolating rather than innovating.

I think I’ve learned that looking at other people’s art actually triggers ideas.  I’ve also learned that it pays to discuss ideas with lecturers early on.   They often have comments and advice that leads to further cycles of creativity.  They often point you at artists that you can learn from.

In general this has meant that I’ve followed the spirit rather than the letter of this Context of Practice course.

Only some of my posts respond to Mary’s lectures, and quite often the responses are tangential –  I use the lecture or Mary’s comments as a spring board to dive into a topic that wasn’t really on the agenda.

A lot of my posts also have no direct link to the course.  For instance, I’ve done a fair bit of research into top contemporary UK sculptors, having been shamed into realising that I didn’t even know who they were, let alone what their work was like!

I’m conscious that a lot of this course has looked back at social developments and how they have influenced artists and art over the past few centuries.  I haven’t felt the need to comment on those social developments in my posts but I have been researching the topic.

In particular. I’ve now read most of  “The Story of Art” by E.H. Gombrich.  Gombrich does a great job of examining not only the context of practice of artists since ancient Egyptian times but also how that is reflected in the works of master artists through the ages. 

I started reading this book for three reasons :

•        My way of researching the issues raised by the lectures on our course. 
•       Antony Gormley said the book inspired him to become an artist
•        Gombrich introduces the book by acknowledging that a lot of commentary is hard to understand and that he will write in simple English, which he does!

Intellectual Scaffold

This brings me on to an aspect of this course that I’ve struggled with – the way in which a lot of people – artists, critics, theorists - write about the philosophy behind art. 

I began by being resistant to this on two counts:  First, I thought a lot of philosophy was pointless musing  and second, I have a real problem with people that don’t write in plain English. The fact that some of these folk deliberately write in way to confuse readers really annoys me.

Early on I read and hated John Berger's "Ways of Seeing".

However, this course, coupled with…

•        Reading books about Edmund de Waal, Antony Gormley and Richard Deacon
•        Listening to the Reith Lectures by Grayson Perry
•        Watching videos by Banksy and Grayson Perry
•        Going to talks by Michael Petry and others
•        Talking to lecturers
•    Visiting quite a few exhibitions

… has led to me acknowledging the need for “an intellectual scaffold” for my work, as John Grayson called it, in one of his talks. 

 Or putting it in my words, I want my work to do more than just look nice; I want it to guide viewers’ thoughts into deeper, subtler, abstract issues. 

As Petry said in his talk – he wants the beauty of what he’s created to draw people into looking so that he can deliver a philosophical sort of message for them to ponder over.

Three quotes

There’s three quotes in my posts that stand out, in my opinion:

1)  Our lecturer Mary saying: “The purpose of knowledge is to act on it,” in the (disappointing)  Mini-Making Futures conference.  

In my post, I asked (rhetorically) how I should be acting on the knowledge I was acquiring from the lectures Mary was giving.  I was thinking of the lectures on social history in particular (and feeling a bit guilty that I wasn't acting on them). 

2) A rant about “Art Since 1990”,  a book produced by some of the “world’s foremost art theorists” by Jonathan Jones, Guardian art critic. Jones says:

“This book is the final ludicrous monument to an intellectual corruption that has filled contemporary museums and the culture they sustain with a hollow and boring, impersonal chatter. Art has been lost in a labyrinth of theory.”

I was much relieved to read this.  Beforehand I’d begun to think that I was the problem – I just didn’t have the brain power to understand art theorists.

3)  In his book, Babble, Charles Saatchi writing this in an essay on “The hideousness of the art world”:

"Few people in contemporary art demonstrate much curiosity.  The majority spend their days blathering on, rather than trying to work out why one artist is more interesting than another, or why one picture works and another doesn't."

This was quite a surprise to me.  I’d assumed that Saatchi must be the Godfather of the contemporary art world, but apparently not.

I think it vindicates what I’ve been doing in this blog most of the time – ignoring or pouring scorn on theorists that “blather on” and instead researching the leading artists in my field (sculpture), trying to understand their motivations and appreciate their work.

 Special

I've persevered and  made some progress on understanding Edmund de Waal,  Antony Gormley and Richard Deacon but I'm totally foxed by some of the conceptual stuff, like Martin Creed's sheet of A4 paper screwed into a ball.  

 I was hoping that this course would help me in this regard.  I've been to quite a few exhibitions and written about them in this blog.  But it hasn't really helped.  

Another case of me lacking the brain power to appreciate contemporary art?   

In his "Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman" programme on BBC Grayson Perry says art ought to be "special", something you look at in wonder.   A  lot of stuff isn't, says Perry.  In fact "the only thing that qualifies it as art is that it's in an art gallery."

Hoorah for Grayson Perry!