No place to hide

Mid winter and a cold studio has moved me to drawing on the dining room table.  Country life often feels isolated from any art scene, especially when observing the feast of art shows on the internet. 

I'm excited by what drawing has brought to the surface so far, it's directness and immediacy being the first unexpected discoveries. When you start with a blank piece of paper and pencil, immediately you're faced with, what is driving the work? There's no place to hide.  

My initial intent was to get more from tone than I had been getting in my paintings. I wasn't as good as I remembered and it took time to warm up. The decisions to be made couldn't be sidelined, no colour, no paint to distract. I find that the discoveries happen differently through this medium, not sure I can explain the why of that. It seems such a paradox to be in control, yet to also break into new space.

Thinking I was hibernating in the hills of Onewhero, posting my efforts to Facebook, I find my drawings on a curated art blog overseas, there amongst shots of sleek dealer galleries sits photos of my drawings on grubby studio walls.  

Below is the first work I have done since beginning drawing.

Note to self: paint studio walls

Touching Ground Lightly,  2014  Acrylic, aluminium 600 x 600 mm

Size Matters  

I've been getting the advice from some to go bigger, prompting discussions around scale, content and physicality.  I think scale is part of the content and amping up the visceral experience by bending space on a larger scale is something to explore.  

I'm also exploring drawing as an end in itself.  Usually drawing is my tool for trying things out, or the starting point to asking questions. My hope is that drawing will expand my understanding of tone, form and perspective.  The length of one of the three current drawing projects is a year, which allows reflection and development to occur. Working towards a show does promote faster decision making, in that you are forced to push through obstacles in order to resolve work for the impending show. Conversely I see value in working while not having the end date pressures, no matter how hard and fast you work, learning occurs when understanding happens. I've been asked to write about these drawing projects for a UK site, so I'm here trying to record my thoughts, to map expectations against the outcomes later.

This week I was lucky enough to receive  feedback from an overseas art critic and artist.  It was wonderful to have fresh eyes looking at my work, his words lifted me, and his advice rang true.

Notes:

Add more tone

Introduce colour, perhaps one at a time.

Expand scale, or consider group installation

Draw 

Alone at the Coal Face 

Someone recently advised me that if a reviewer doesn't like what you do, you should do more of it. 

I had my work reviewed three times last year. I was grateful for some really good honest critique, as having my work challenged forced me to further question my position, which in the end strengthened my resolve to remain on the same path.  There are things I still want to find out.

In preparing for a presentation last year, I collected and studied three years worth of images, basically looking at what I had done from Masters onwards. Doing this proved valuable in that it gave me a long shot view of where I'd been and which works were more resolved.

My last work of 2013 Ground is my jumping off point for this year, another starting point is to use this space as an extension to my work book: a place to deposit ideas and find focus, to build a visual diary for later reflection.
  

Diane Scott Ground  2013 Acrylic, aluminium, enamel 600 x 600 mm
James Wallace Arts Trust

Notes:

Paint: as frame, backdrop, form, perspective and plane
Support: as format, ground, plane, drawing, form, reflective and object
Colour: as deferral (yellow halo), spatial flatness and shape (white), mid space (grey)

Trace: as form, perspective, reflective
Format: square repeated, tilted, floating and off wall, 

Photography’s Everyday Life and the Ends of Abstraction

Art critic and scholar Lane Relyea’s essay, Photography’s Everyday Life and the Ends of Abstraction talks about the German artist and photographer Wolfgang Tillmans’s abstractions.

My initial response was to ask what kind of abstraction is this, and then to wonder is it a new form of abstraction, or abstraction using different materials? Clement Greenberg discussed abstraction with formalist concerns, and was interested in converting illusionistic space into an optical one. Greenberg thought abstraction was connected to what had gone before and thus wasn’t a major shift in opposition to the representational, but rather on a continuum.

‘the difference was primarily a matter of space rather than the absence of recognizable images, since abstract paintings do not depict the kind of space occupied by our bodies and other things in the world’

(Colpitt p.164)

So could Greenberg accept recognisable space, as long as it was flat? Looking at Tillmans’s abstractions they do depict the same space as our bodies occupy, so maybe then they are aligned more with Theodore Adorno’s theories of social abstraction, who questioned the loss of individuality through mainstream culture

‘the official culture’s pretense of individualism... necessarily increases in proportion to the liquidation of the individual.’

(Foster p. 19)

I think Tillmans’s abstractions are long shot views and thus give the distance and feel of abstraction, they remain open allowing them to bring something forward, the opportunity and possibility to recognise and access them is available to the viewer.

Bibliography
Colpitt, Frances. Abstract Art in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Foster, Hal. Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics. Seattle, Washington: Bay Press, 1985.
Relyea, Lane. "Photography's Everyday Life and the Ends of Abstraction." Wolfgang Tillmans. Ed. Amy Teschner and Kamilah Foreman. Conneticut, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. p. 90 - 141.

Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in the Plane of Composition

This essay is from the book Deleuze and Contemporary Art which looks at Deleuzian philosophy through the eyes of artists, art critics and theorists, this particular essay is by Barbara Bolt, an Australian artist and author.

The essay (broken into three parts) looks at the Deleuzian idea of a plane of composition and what that means (for Bolt). Then how the plane of materiality invades the plane of composition, which leads into how an image emerges into a different reality, that of sensation. Bolt believes that this produces something more true to life, that by undoing ‘the image’ you come upon something closer to presence and truth.

I chose this particular essay as an attempt to understand Deleuzian ideas at a more grass roots level and in particular from a painter’s point of view. I think this both helped and hindered my understanding of Deleuze. In particular, what I think is useful is the notion of co- emergence and how this is beautifully described by another artists quote within the text from Matisse;

‘There is an impelling proportion of tones that may lead me to change the shape of a figure or to transform my composition. Until I have achieved this proportion in all the parts of a composition I strive towards it and keep on working. Then a moment comes when all the parts have found their definite relationships, and from then on it would be impossible for me to add a stroke to my picture without having to repaint it entirely.’

Although Bolt is using this passage to show the artist throwing a net over chaos to find balance, it also talks of the process of emergence and helps describe the openness of working, while not knowing what the outcome will be until it is arrived upon and simultaneously risking destruction. Roland Barthes talks about this idea in relation to Cy Twombly’s work;

‘The essence of an object has some relation with its destruction: not necessarily what remains after it has been used up, but what is thrown away as being of no use.’

I think Twombly (like Bolt) tries to show materials in their raw state, as materials alone without the weight of meaning associated with them, the elements being, the scratch, the stain and the energy being thrown into space. The ‘surplus’ of these elements emerges into something just revealing itself, forming into a particular quality unique to that particular set of circumstances. This quality and unique internal rationale is for me why some paintings seem alive and interesting.

Bibliography

Barthes, Roland. The Responsibility of Forms. Trans. Richard Howell. London, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
Bolt, Barbara. Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in the Plane of Composition. Bolt, Barbara. Deluze and Contemporary Art. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. p. 266 - 285.

Vibrant Matter; a Political Ecology of Things

Jane Bennett is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at John Hopkins University.

This article from the book Vibrant Matter; a Political Ecology of Things implores us to consider our relationship to our surroundings, and in particular, the matter and stuff that surrounds us. Bennett tries to dislodge the binaries of organic/inorganic, human/animal and life/matter and questions these oppositions and replaces them with the idea that what we have previously considered inert stuff to be in fact as Bruno latour would call ‘co actants’ in the world. That humans and matter are all elements in the world, all with innumerable possibilities, readings and encounters.

Bennett’s idea isn’t new in that Marcel Merleau-Ponty believed:

‘My body is made of the same flesh as the world...and moreover...this flesh of my body is shared by the world.’

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology charted the element of being in the world of embodied experience, which Bennett also is doing in order for us to see our surroundings in a new way. Bennett’s aim is to draw our attention to sustainability and the environment.

I am interested in this slowing down of vision and experience to the point of ‘being present’ or being in the ‘now’. I think our body, through movement and experience, gives us a grip on such things as nature, survival, seasons and time.

Bibliography
Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter; a Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press, 2010.
Levin, David Michael. The Body's Recollection of Being: Phenomenological Psychology an the Deconstruction of Nihilism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985.

Audio Poverty

Diedrich Diederichsen is a German author, music journalist and cultural critic and currently professor for Theory, Practice and Communication of contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

The article Audio Poverty is translated from German by James Gussen.

From the beginning Marxist thought is drawn in with the notions of ‘value’ and’ use’ in respect to music and how it is both produced, received and controlled and enjoyed, or not enjoyed to the fullest possibilities. Diederichsen has the idea that music is capable of more than it is currently doing.

Diederichsen suggests the music world is controlled by digital reproduction and the economies that are escorted by the internet, and that because of this a type of liquefaction, a homogenised music results. That music is all but emptied of its original substance or force that evoked it in the first place. He suggests a utopian model for music that isn’t restricted by history but is instead instinctive and present, anchored in reality.

That we are encased in a manmade restrictive structure that prevents a pure experience (in this instance music) isn’t new, in western thought Plato’s Republic proposed a new way of being towards enlightenment, proposing the leaders of society have a fifty year education, so they’d be qualified to construct a suitable structure for this way of being to come into fruition, we are still waiting.
I was interested to discover the Greek origins of the word utopia, it unpacks into eu=good, ou=not and toppos= place, resulting in the double meaning of good place and no place. Confirming that utopia is but a dream, or suggesting that utopia can be found in more than one way, perhaps relating to the Buddhists thought of perfection as state of mind and way of being.

Diederichsen’s idea that music evolves when someone or group revolts against the existing music because it fails to represent for them their experience of living, could be said for all arts. But in the revolt the sound becomes part of the history of sound, and then the history becomes greater than the sound. This idea is expressed by Milan Kundera in the following quote.

“There were long periods when art did not seek out the new but took pride in making repetition beautiful, reinforcing tradition, and ensuring the stability of a collective life; music and dance then existed only in the framework of social rites, of Masses and fairs. Then one day in the twelfth century, a church musician in Paris thought of taking the melody of the Gregorian chant, unchanged for centuries, and adding to it a voice, but the counterpoint.....The counterpoint was a new thing that gave access to other new things....Because they were no longer imitating what was done before, composers lost anonymity, ... their names lit up like lanterns marking a path toward distant realms. Having taken flight, music became, for several centuries, the history of music....In anguish I imagine a time when art shall cease to seek out the never-said and will go docilely back into the service of the collective life...into the uniformity of being.”

The headiness of the talk and the slotting of it into the history overshadow the art as experience.

Bibliography
Diederichsen, Diedrich. "Audio Poverty." e-flux (2010): p. 1-10.
—. "Music—Immateriality—Value." e-flux (2011): p. 1-10.
Kundera, Milan. The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts. Trans. Linda Asher. London, UK: Faber and Faber, 2007.
Wikipedia. "Utopia." 25 April 2011. Wikipedia. 25 April 2011 .

The Untutored Eye

Stan Brakhage was an American experimental non narrative filmmaker, born in 1933 and died in 2003. He made over 400 films. This reading comes from the opening paragraph in his first book Metaphors on Vision (1963). His films searched for unpredictable and unplanned spaces, each instance of perception a vital part of the experience.

At first reading I was excited by the idea of trying to imagine what it would be like if we could experience things as though for the first time. Then upon rereading I became aware of the attack on the man-made reframing of sight, through religion and it’s prioritising of language over sight. As seen in the last few words of the paragraph “beginning was the word” which could be a quote from genesis 1:1 or from John 1:1

Which begs the question if one has something to write about one must have first experienced it? This paragraph speaks of a loss of innocence with sight, in that to name something not only locks it within a frame, but also blunts our perception to other possibilities or nuances, resulting in an inability to see or experience things in full. Thus the idea that bonds language and reality together comes under fire, questioning the value of the signs in the form of names and language.

Brakhage alludes to a way of seeing and being which is foreign to language, more in line with an encountered dynamic experience. This explains why I as a painter find the translation into words of that which occurs within a work in the heat of the moment to always fall short of the experience. In the following quote Foucault discusses the relationship of language to the visual

‘The relationship of language to painting is an infinite relation...neither can be reduced to the other’s terms...But if one wished to keep the relation of language to vision open, if one wishes to treat their incompatibility as a starting-point for speech instead as an obstacle to be avoided...then one must erase those proper names and preserve the infinity of the talk’

(Foucault p.6)

This supports Brakhage’s idea that we must erase the definitive nature of the word and replace it with a process that allows openness and possibility. An emergent process that is different with each encounter, and one which allows a multiplicity of relations.
As a visual artist, I feel the weight of carrying the tradition of vision and visualisation forwards, the ways to achieve this may not be found in asking the right conceptual questions, but in the ability to be in the moment and open to the experience of being.

Bibliography
Brakhage, Stan. "From Metaphors on Vision." 1978. 5 April 2011 .
—. "Metaphors of Vision." Film Culture (1963).
Camper, Fred. Stan Brakhage on the Web. 2002. 3 April 2011 .
Foucault, Michael. Les Meninas. 2002.
The Bible. New Jersey: Thomas Nelson, 1972.

How can Creative Practice be Effective Politically?

Flipping the Script by artist, writer and new media consultant Imogen O’Rorke, talks about the exhibition "9 Scripts from a Nation at War" at Tate Modern Gallery in 2008. The exhibition looked at the American war on terror, by exploring written and spoken language and how this affects identity, (the citizen) in relation to power structures (the state). O’Rorke’s opinion is that generally art isn’t doing enough politically. The exhibition however did reflect a nation so obsessed with self analysis that a kind of paralysis has occurred.

Art can be effective politically. Etched in my memory is the photograph of a Nicaraguan man tortured and blown in half, his spine left clean of flesh. But this is visual, what of the other senses to escort political ideas. At the 2nd Auckland triennial in 2004 the Public/Private exhibition, I remember clearly a sound work. A head set on the wall with a small notice beside it, which I can only vaguely recall some explanation of ten thousand people being tortured (or was it more?) What I do remember was the sound of skulls being sawn into with water dripping. I couldn’t stop my ears from listening, the work entered directly in. It brought the experience very close and I had no buffer, my imagination instantly filled in the gaps. Having said that, I don’t think art has to be hard hitting to be effective, I can think of other ways that reach me, through emotional means or humour. The curators of that specific exhibition were attempting to use creative practices to promote debate, and Hanfling noted this in his article on the exhibition when he quoted from the publicity brochure.

...the curatorial aim is to make connections that will intensify the privacy debate. At the same time, we want to reveal art making as a vibrant and challenging platform from which to express powerful, poignant and disturbing ideas. (Hanfling)

It’s a matter of where you stand in relation to others, and the manner or channel in which you reach the audience you wish to affect.

Bibliography

Hanfling, Edward. "Current Affairs: Surveying the Second Aucklad Trienial ." Art New Zealand (2004): 62-65.
O'Rorke, Imogen. Andrea Geyer's "9 Scripts from a Nation at War". 2010. On Mute .

Manuel Castells, “Communication, Power and Counter-Power in the Network Society”, International Journal of Communication 1 (2007), pp.238-266

Manual Castells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communications research. This article from the International Journal of Communication looks at public, private and commercial communication channels and communication systems globally. It attempts to map the effects, both personally, politically, and economically and discusses the shifts and convergence happening within the communication networks.

Consequently, the battle to control, own or manipulate this space is very competitive as the “new space” has the ability to not only reach mass audiences but to also shape public opinion.
This new shift in power channels is interesting as it can have the effect of decentralising control.
“as the new media systems have a global governance but governments remain national” (Flynn p. 258)
Politicians’ manipulation of the media, for scandal politics, goes to the extent where they will disrupt information systems with fabrications if they are out of scandal to throw at an opposition. It seems the information systems are akin to a brand with its associated perceived values such as trust being a factor.

As and artist I don’t expect to locate 300,000 books in the arts library, but through the web, choice is the norm. Therefore, filtering is necessary for information to be useful. Allowing the user to observe things globally – albeit virtually.
The term “electronic autism” (Flynn p. 247) is valid still, even though the convergence of information is changing delivery and access. It still doesn’t replace actual experience yet.
Foucault’s describes power as “Expressed rather than possessed” (Flynn p. 281) and this reflects the subtleties involved in the micro-physics of power structures, and relations. All this accessibility is two way, it also measures trackability, where we go, what and where we spend and phone is all collected, to be used by interested parties to improve marketing, attempting to shift our mindsets and behaviours. Being aware of the opportunities available,as both an artist and consumer within this new space and media is empowering.
Bibliography

Castells, Manuel. "Communication, Power and Counter Power in the Network Society", International Journal of Communication 1 (2007). pp.238-266.
Flynn, Thomas R. "Foucault and the Eclipse of Vision." Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision. Ed. David M. Levin. Los Angeles, USA: University of California Press, 1993. 273-286.

Catherine David and Irit Rogoff. “In Conversation”, in Claire Doherty ed., From Studio to Situation, London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004, pp.82-89.

This article looks at the subject of place in contemporary art through the eyes of Catherine David, one of the curators for 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, specifically “Contemporary Arab Representations”, and Irit Rogoff a curator, theorist and Professor of Visual Studies at Goldsmiths College London.

The two curators agree that the subject of geo cultural perspectives cannot be mirrored by one voice, but should instead be mapped heterogeneously to give a ‘sample’ view on the politics of space, identity and belonging along with the rights that go with them. They suggest that such issues may not be critically reflected effectively by aesthetic visual practices. The structures that these perspectives function within , whether state or cultural, can sometimes limit or shut down a clear view to understanding ‘place’ whether that view comes from the inside looking out or vice versa.

I think curators can also be a filtering structure that can both hinder or escort an artwork. In response to the curators comment that aesthetic visual practices may not reflect accurately critical issues, I don’t think art has to fulfil the mammoth task of answering or reflecting ideological, political and culturally driven issues. Asking or finding the right questions may be more useful. Which is a view supported by Judy Millar in her statement
“Painting is a way of finding things out; for me it’s not a way of showing anything and that is why a painting is never complete.” (Were 92)

There will be pluralistic views as to what it means to be an artist in relation to a local and regional specifity. However some things will be a constant for artists in Aotearoa, such as the logistical and financial issues of participating physically in off shore events. Transporting work from New Zealand to the Venice Biennale and finding the funding to do so cannot be done without government assistance or private sponsorship. The State being one of the structures the curators claim may shut down or obstruct a clear view on place.
“New Zealand’s participation in Venice’s 53rd Biennale, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, requires a huge injection of capital by Creative New Zealand, which is kicking in $650,000, and a further $400,000 is expected to come from private patronage and sponsorship.” (Were 91)

Bibliography

David, Catherine & Rogoff, Irit. "In Conversation" Studio to Situation, 2009, London: Black Dog Publishing, pp. 82-89.
Were, Virginia. "Bringing painting to the church." Art News New Zealand Autumn 2009: 90-94.

Medina, Cuauhtémoc. "Contemp(t)orary: Eleven Theses." Jan 2010. e-flux. 10 April 2010 .

Cuauhtémoc Medina is an art critic, curator and historian, living and working in Mexico, his article Contemp(t)orary: Eleven Theses looks at what contemporary art is, what it means globally and whether it delivers on its promise to be contemporary.

Medina suggests that the term ‘Contemporary’ is not able to be objectively defined nor fixed chronologically, because we are too entangled within ‘the now’ to have a view of it clearly because an individual point of view will be affected by a position of view. Medina’s idea is that art has a double reception. First, as a practice in relation to its hosts society and location, and secondly, it’s positioning critically. Suggesting the process is controlled predominantly by the elite that fund it, along with the academic structures that escort it.

This idea is supported by Umberto Eco in his essay ‘Towards Semiological Guerrilla Warfare’ where he states

’When someone everyday has to write as much news as his space allows, and it has to appear readable to an audience of diverse tastes, social class, education, throughout a country, the writers freedom is already finished: The contents of the message will not depend on the author but on the technical and sociological characteristics of the medium’ (Eco p. 136)

This supports Medina’s idea that both the system and medium changes the message. suggesting the same is true for art and critical thought. Leading to the chilling thought that Eco voices “The mass media do not transmit ideologies; they are themselves an ideology” (Eco p. 136).

The concept of the contemporary could be viewed as a backward glance with a planned obsolescence process akin to Marxist philosophy and systems of control, entwining production and consumption with the media and power networks in an eternal grand circuit, attempting to redefine the now.

Alternatively, a more optimistic view is expressed by art critic Jan Verwoert (Verwoert), in that the contemporary is expressed as different gates existing in different locations and times, all sharing and trading different points of view.
Medina believes the arena that art operates within has been compromised and repressed, and so questions contemporary arts objectivity, whereas Verwoert sees hope in artistic intellectual discussion.

The globalisation of the art market has linked some of these gates or portals, whether this dilutes and devalues them may not be pertinent as Eco suggests, linking isn’t the issue, but the medium it’s linked by. I lean towards Verwoert view of contemporary exchange, I find value in that process.

Bibliography
Eco, Umberto. "Towards a Semiological Guerilla Warfare." Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyper-Reality. Trans. William Weaver. London, UK: Pan Books, 1986. 135-144.
Medina, Cuauhtémoc. "Contemp(t)orary: Eleven Theses." Jan 2010. e-flux. 10 April 2010 .
Verwoert, Jan. "Standing on the Gates of Hell, My Services Are Found Wanting." 2009. e-flux. 10 April 2010 .

Meaning, Identity, Embodiment: the uses of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology in Art History

Jones, Amelia. “Meaning, Identity, Embodiment: the uses of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology in Art History.” Art and Thought. Ed. Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. pp. 71-90.

Jones is a feminist art-historian writer and critic. This text comes from the section of the book Art and Thought and provides a feminist point of view to the problems of perception. Specifically, how we read, engage and interpret Gustave Courbet’s painting of The Origin of the World (1866).

Jones expresses, with the help of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, the notion of embodiment, a way of seeing and being in the world. Merleau-Ponty believed that we exist in the world perceiving through our bodies, our experience mediated through it has a corporeal element which tints our perception when reading an art work or an image. Because of this process it will mirror our own experience and we will project this experience back when attempting to make sense of and read an art work. The signifier or art work, and what is signified or read, is both a relational and fluid reciprocal circuit between the author of the art work, the art work, and viewer.
Merleau-Ponty puts forth an opposing view to French philosopher Rene Descartes, whose representation theory of perception was birthed in the time when ideas had to co-exist alongside, and not conflict, with the idea of God. Descartes put forth the idea of a Cartesian theatre “ideas appearing before my mind” (Hass p. 16), a reduction of the experience to ideas before the mind. Merleau-Ponty aimed to break down Cartesian thought by, instead of breaking down experience and looking at it in isolation and in doing so losing an essential part of how experience functions as a whole, believed that the five senses worked together with the mind to form important overlapping qualities that become the sum greater than the parts. So that experience, ideas and memory become a simultaneous synergy, a way of being in the world.

I find currency with Mearleau-Ponty's view on embodiement and am interested in perception as a 'whole' experience. This for me creates something visceral engaging both mind and body.

Bibliography

Barbaras, Renaud. Desire and Distance. Satnford, California: Stanford University Press, 2006.
Hass, Lawrence. Merleau-Ponty's Philosphy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
Jones, Amelia. “Meaning, Identity, Embodiment: the uses of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology in Art History.” Art and Thought. Ed. Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. pp. 71-90.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The World of Perception. Abingdon: Routledge, 2004.
Rubin, James H. Courbet. London, UK: Phaidon Press, 1997.
Steeves, James B. Imagining Bodies. Pittsburgh, California: Duquesne University Press, 2004.