Exit Piece for the Summation and Synopsis of Art and the Real

There's been a few blog entries still being written by people stating that it is hard to find the 'art' in the examples of what we have been studying (enter WochenKlauser, Rirkrit T., Suzy Lacey, etc). Perhaps people still need some clarification before the class is out (which I admit is very presumptious of me)...

I assume that it would be agreeable to state that artists are emulating life in their artistic practice, so that there may not necessarily be any distinctions between the two. Allan Kaprow is one excellent example of this. In his book ESSAYS ON THE BLURRING OF ART AND LIFE Kaprow at one stage examines the idea that his brushing his teeth could be a performance. In doing so he thinks about the affects of the motion of this act on his body.

I think this same mentality can be applied to the work of artists who assume acts of life as art, as a way of examining the affects of the act of life which in turn becomes an artistic process. The artist is still doing what they've done for a very long time, which is to affect change. Artists are doing what they should be doing, and people shouldn't expect any less. It is merely a different process of doing so.

Environmentalism back in fashion

The current gardening project by Lucas and Diego at SCA is firmly embedded in the conventions of relational aesthetics - they get a whole bunch of people together in one space/area who then 'interact' on some level by simultaneously filling the space. Its not something new, or revolutionary, but perhaps serves as a feel good example of RA. The big difference is that there is a genuine focus on local communities and people banding together to create something that they can grow and care for and continue to share together. It also demonstrates how environmentalism and activism should work on a baser level by creating a non-threatening environment where people care for plants, learn about them and form a caring relationship to the environment.

This a more effective project than the recent MCA exhibition 'art for a changing world', which is in many ways completely backward in presenting ideas on how to better our environment - by showing black and white documentary style photos of destroyed wilderness is just going over the same motions and is completely preachy - maybe it can be likened to a greenpeace encounter. You need to show what could be, rather than what is. And this is where Lucas and Diego come in, especially when examining ideas of a utopia.

This may be slightly off topic but I thought I'd bring up the program Renew Newcastle, a not-for-profit organisation that is currently operating in Newcastle and has been around for the last year and a half. Headed by Marcus Westbury Renew Newcastle was instigated as a reaction to the increasingly delapidated city centre which was literally a ghost town. A plan was proposed by Westbury and in conjunction with the local council the program acquired empty shopfronts and buildings to be used by artists, clothing and graphic designers, photographers, burgeoning rocord labels and a zine store. Renew Newcastle operates on the principle to use art, or the 'arts' (in a very broad sense of the word) to bring back life into the city by trying to tempt people back in to the city space. This loosely fits the third paradigm listed by Miwon Kwon in 'One place after another: site specific art and local identity', being the 'art-in-the-public-interest model.' It is not public art as such but it is a public program which has good intentions and appeals to the public's interests in not letting the city of Newcastle fall to ruins.

Get Real...

I used to live in South Newtown in a real dump of a house. It was cockroach infested, it was always dirty and at one point the ceiling caved. By all this you can probably imagine what the backyard was like. It was in that very backyard that I had a statement thrown out at me in front of a huge earthenware buddha head on a balmy summer night -It was that 'art can't change anything. So why bother.'

Why do artists make art? What do they aim to achieve? I believe that contemporary artists produce art to cause change, whether it be an internal, individual response or to cause a change in the 'community'/society they live in. Contemporary, avant garde art is largely utopian and aims to have an affect - whatever that is. What is important is not its economic worth, but the value of a work of art being to able to affect change. This brings me to Grant H. Kester's Conversation Pieces introduction and the artist collective WochenKlauser who he mentions. To them I say this:

This is exciting. It's really really exciting. A piece of art that actually achieves something. Art can change the world. To all those sceptics out there, suck. on. this.

Despite the success of the work 'Intervention to aid drug addicted women' resulting in such a positive conclusion, you may say why didn't they just have a dialogue between both groups? Why didn't a representative act on behalf of the women to discuss issues? It's simple really. By the work operating under the framework of art the intervention made it less of a spectacle - it was made to be less of a deal than it was, and the people who interacted in the intervention were able to be themselves - to be real. And that's really saying something for a bunch of prostitutes and politicians on a boat.

Truth?

This week I read the chapter 'Seperation Perfected' from Society of the Spectacle by Debord. After reading it I feel that it needs an example of interfering with the false superficiality of society. I thought that the great man, Malcom McLaren, is a great example. I highly reccomend watching this interview of McLaren on Enough Rope being interviewed by Andrew Denton - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYktxyQeZlI&feature=related.

McLaren was brought up in a way that enabled him to gain his own sense of self that wasn't affected by the greater society in which he lived. When speaking of his involvement in the punk movement, he says that "We made ugliness beautiful." He went against what society expected somebody to be, acting outside of the values that had been placed upon him.

I think anyone can act against the spectacle, but Debord makes the point 'In a world which is really topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false.' So what is real, what is false, what is true, what is what? How can we know for ourselves what is the truth?

Institutional or Non-Institutional?

My contribution this week is in response to the reading 'institutions, critique, and institutional critique' by Alexander Alberro. Over the past three weeks we have been discussing why artists have been making the works they do under the label of 'relational aesthetics' but we haven't really explored what has led up to the creation of these artworks that have been predominately made in the 1990s: Artists rallied against the confines of the bourgeois system of the museum and gallery by making works that dissected the heirachal and power structures of these institutions. However, as the reading states upon remarking on Andrea Fraser's "From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of critique" (2005) - "in their efforts to redefine art and reintegrate it into everyday life, artists have not escaped the institution of art... but have brought more of the world into it. The underlying relations of power remain the same." Therefore what has resulted is a confusion of the boundaries between art and life. Artists have not all reacted against the confines of the institution by existing inside it, but outside of it, ie. the collective WochenKlauser that I mentioned in my entry last week. Perhaps this provides a much greater critique of the institution as for art to remain democratic in the institution, it can't exist in it at all.

"Community"

The idea of 'community' is constantly brought up and I feel that this needs further investigation, particularly after reading Hal Foster's Arty Party. It seems that the works that we've been looking at operate predominately within a gallery context, particularly in reference to Rirkrit Tiravanija. I do agree with Foster that artists who operate within the structure of relational aesthetics "aim to turn passive viewers into a temporary community of temporary interlocuters," but see little point of creating a work that promotes dialogue that has no real impact on the greater world. The work already exists to being so close to real life that once the gallery space is removed from the equation, this work can have a greater impact on people.

The collective WochenKlauser's work "Intervention to aid drug addicted women" in 1994 saw a boatload of prostitutes, politicians, journalists and activists sail out on Lake Zurich, Sweden, for a three hour cruise. The point of the work was to open up dialogue between drug addicted women who had turned to prostitution to support their habit and were constantly abused, assaulted and homeless, and well known governmental figures. Away from public scrutiny, the people on board could speak freely to each other to discuss the issues that these women faced. Around a dozen of these cruises took place. This work resulted in a kind of a half way house being established to help house the homeless women.

Taken out of a gallery context, art works (ie, WochenKlauser) that explore community, interactivity and dialogue can effect our day to day lives. The work ceases to exist purely as process to further promote and strengthen the ideal of community.

The Real World

I think that this text, although important, has been superceded by what has happened after, or perhaps even during, the publication of Relational Aesthetics by Bourriaud. The reading seems to specifically examine the concerns of the consumption and production of art in a gallery, and I think that we have moved past those concerns. Art is no longer limited to a gallery to be justified as a piece of art. The most important idea for me that I take away from this reading is the idea of the production of an artwork in terms of collaboration, collectivism and participation, which forces us as producers and consumers of art, to examine the various aspects of cultural production that is happening not just in the gallery, but in the greater world. Art has gone beyond the limitations of the 'white cube' to exist out in the 'real' world.


An example of this changing nature of art can be seen in the recent Tiny Stadiums festival that was held in Erskineville earlier this year. Most artworks that were exhibited during the festival involved some form of audience participation. Sexy New Urban Design Team by artist collective Applespiel was a work that invited suggestions from the local inhabitants of Erskineville to have their say on what they would physically change or add to the local area. The suggestions were then made in to a model of the small sydney suburb, crafted from sticky tape, pipe cleaners and cardboard, to create the "ultimate Erskineville. Sexy new Erskineville" (http://quarterbred.blogspot.com/). At the completion of the model of Erskineville's construction a debate was staged to argue the pros and cons of the changes proposed in Applespiels new grand design.

Another work, Nature League by Tiger Two Times saw people welcomed into a tall box. Attached to this ran an insulation tube from a second box, which housed the four artists that make up the collective Tiger Two Times. The participant would choose a box from the five that sat on a bench in before them, and then follow the instructions listed inside. The artists would stike up a song after the participant chose their box, each box having its own soundtrack when opened. This intervention saw me singing "life after love." This work is activated only by audience particpation. I highly recommend having a look at what went on at this festival. If only Sydney's Biennale was anything like this.

What these forms of collectivism achieves is the freedom for art to exist without the barriers of a gallery system. These forms of production ultimately lead to an exchange of sorts, where the audience member is enrichened through knowledge or the experience of the work, and the artist works together with their audience to create the work that is experienced. Just like the works listed by Bourriaud, such as Rirkrits which invites visitors in the gallery space to eat noodles, these works at Tiny Stadiums were created through some form of connection between both artist and participant. But I can't help but feel that this interaction that happens within the gallery is somewhat false. The artist is dealing with the context of the gallery, and uses the audience as a way of rallying against the conventions of how a gallery operates and what the actual artwork is. The works of Tiny Stadiums didn't deal with this system, and had only the interaction of the audience to work with. Tiny Stadiums gave me a feeling of enrichment and something to cherish. It was tangible. And most of all, 'real'.