This essay addresses my journey in Unit 1. From dealing with ‘monumental’ sculpture at the start, to a more deconstructed notion towards the end. This long internal voyage has brought me back to more long-standing interests and inspirations, such as artist- and cross-disciplinary research in ‘non-art’ contexts. It deals with what has been learned and re-learned through objects and material processes along the way. It reflects on some of the successes and failures of studio practice. It also addresses the challenges and opportunities I have found in a technical expertise which I developed in between BA and MA: this is new and potent (as well as providing economic support) but also contains many pitfalls of its own. The alchemical process of folding this new-found ability into the service of an effective art practice, finding confidence in small gestures, and starting to find balance between these approaches, is the internal subject matter of Unit 1.
So, to the research project. In writing myself a brief about ‘monumentality’, I feel that I chose a subject-matter that is classically sculptural, weighty and ‘relevant’ (ie., close to social media and societal debate). In term one I understandably gravitated to a subject matter of sculpture at its most historically-bounded, which was a good way of locating myself firmly within subject on returning to art school, and of ensuring I was operating with a critical eye. Meanwhile, in the doing, daily practice and practical questions also introduced me to many technical staff and processes which were new to me. At times, though, I fell into a trap of trying to ‘make it work,’ in a workmanlike way. While this technical mode is a key economic skill and underpins much of minimalism within sculpture, it also contains dead-ends and traps. I feel I did not listen properly to objects, falling instead into a habit that labour would carry me through. By the end of the unit, though, I began to sense this issue, and drawing on Rebecca Moss’ workshop I hope that I was able to reflect on putting the strongest work forward in a way that is self-reflective, critical, but crucially puts the strongest work/image forward.
In the studio, my long-form project was an attempt to make objects which referenced and explicitly negated historical qualities, such as large, be-pedestalled and visual likenesses of political leaders, choosing instead making banal, re-arrangeable, repeated and textual objects. I used the name “Winston Churchill” as a shorthand for modernism and historical period, and a brick as the re-arrangeable unit. I also tried to make the bricks crafted objects, which were inherently useless due to being slip-cast. I was greatly influenced by Jennifer Allen’s comment in Sculpture Unlimited that monument ‘is a literary marker upon landscape.’ However, they retained a certain residual autonomy and handlibility which I had not forseen. In fact I had not been able to pre-empt several other factors, such as the speed of comprehension of text and image, the primary connotations of certain objects (in art contexts), and the statement that use of art materials makes.
On the technical side, I was very excited by the material process of slip-casting and glazing, which seems like magic, and slip-casting is obscene when you pour the claggy slip out of a bunghole to make it hollow. I found that ceramics require significant time investment and technical skill, as they almost always need to be done ‘a certain way,’ or at least, most problems have a limited range of practical choices to resolve, and this lead me to repeat the action many times in order to wrest minimalism out of the technical process.
On the whole I found that I struggled under the weight of this historical subject-matter, and that I was re-fighting old battles that had been partially jettisoned in the 1960s art, and which have faced a further spasm of general revision in recent years. There’s something about these objects in isolation that can be ‘got’, as in, even if they are baffling, they do not really hold attention or have many affective qualities, and most of our opinions on statues come from the context of statue-toppling, and social media, and protest. It was important to make a start, but in a bit of a rush to get started, I could have more carefully read the specific connotations of different objects, allowing for more ‘bottom up’ thinking, which would have encouraged more ambiguity - and intra-object cohesion - to come through. I learned that in selecting materials, we must pay careful attention to their own unique resonances, and the weight of art materials, and of text. This would probably be more obvious working with the readymade (discard, remain), while working with art materials we are working with form, which may or may not bear a resemblance. In defence of the project in general terms, though; at art school we may be surrounded by contemporary art, but ‘on the street’ we are still swamped with historical statues, and to go back to basics and address them again, in the contexts of artists who are not explicitly political, and who are in 2024, is a worthwhile endeavour. While little joy is found in assuming the whole weight of this task, and I must pay more attention to what moments in practice are so good that they are worth thoroughly investigating, my practice does benefit when it is public-facing and outward-looking, not bound by the studio.
Three finished bricks, base side
If I choose to trust the process here, it allowed me to ‘glimpse’ several promising avenues and important ideas in studio practice. Proceeding through irony, reading, technical skills, accidents and ‘what-it-isn’ts’ I was reintroduced to the complexities of how as an artist to inhabit several positions, in their totality but not at the same time; instigator, doer, and critic. One possible extension to me of these bricks is a wall of ‘british icons’, like the Spice Girls, Bridget Jones, David Attenborough and Joe Wickes, that have alluring, sweet-like glazes, something inedible and ungainly. At first glance, this is art in the mode of Jeremy Deller or Greyson Perry, but could perhaps also be inverted again by being a wall, ostentatiously in the way, or, hidden in a dark room.
Alongside this long-form project, I did have some studio successes: wrapping a brick in insulation tape which looks like the Union Flag was improbably successful due to its odd oscillation between threat and shitty repair. It is made stranger by the badness of the repair; we kind of want the decoration to be good, and it isn’t, and this bathos undermines the strength of the image and adds complexity. It also looks as if it wants to be thrown; this could be extended by making a ‘throwable’ brick out of rubber or something, or through a performance (or proposal, if not brave enough) work.
In Rebecca Moss’ workshop there was also something successful about aping the language of officialdom in public space. By working onto public infrastructure (fences, rails, benches) with shitty repair, there was the suggestion of decline or something public and non-functioning. It seems related to Jesse Darling’s Turner Prize exhibition but it distinctly different when it can be happened-upon, and must either be ephemeral or sturdy enough to survive being outdoors. Within sculpture, entropy sometimes presents us with a hard choice; do we respond to the fact that things degrade with materials that will last, or (since the 1960s) lean into ephemera, and integrate the ‘passing away’? The former is victim to fashion, the latter is a nightmare for conservators. One neat sidestep, of which Moss is a good example, is to use video. Video allows the artist to edit, to be a subject, and to show widely and easily; in contemporary sculpture, making objects at all is a choice. On the other hand, there’s something great about the fact that objects are a problem. As a rule-of-thumb, large things loom, small things make us feel clumsy, and human-scale objects confront. Object-artworks are expensive to make, and to move, take up space, require storage, degrade; they are a pain in the arse. But it’s not a bad thing for art objects to be crafted, difficult, even curmudgeonly - in fact it is probably sufficient subject-matter in itself. Therefore, it would be good if future works were not modular, but were committed one way or the other; ephemeral or lasting.
Forte, installation, Camberwell College of Arts, Nov. 2023
In late November, I had a cross-pathway crit. The comments on this work/situation revolved around the idea that this was a kind of post-punk party for the end of Britannia, while others said they became stuck, or baffled, by the presence of national symbols. For me it was a kind of self-portrait; a farewell to Britannia as an explicit subject-matter. Even though this was kind of a ‘minor’ and scrappy work, I felt I had found a confidence which was not rooted in technical ability but in innate and expanded notion of sculpture, a return to my BA creativity.
Leading up to this, what had happened is that I had decided to initiate a substantial revision of my brief, because I went back and read my original application to Camberwell, as well as having conversations with multiple artist friends who are familiar with my personality and practice over the last ten years. We also had a seminar from Leah Capaldi, who was my tutor on my BA. In conversations prior to Camberwell, I know that she is interested in artist-as-hero, placing practice on the hero’s journey. I believe that in her work it’s the moment of surrender/death/metamorphosis at the crux of the story which we see performed live in the gallery. I asked myself, in my practice, what moment on the hero’s journey would I choose to slow down and present?
I found a provisional answer in the idea of the departure and the return; absence and presence; ephemera and permanence; “fort. da.” This journey can be literal, in (eg.) Richard Long’s case, or internal and alchemical. Either way, this delicate kind of metamorphosis cannot be grasped while struggling under the weight of historically-loaded monuments, which speak primarily of narrative history, nation-making, and statue-toppling. I was also influenced by the idea of assemblage, and if I have found some way to be creative, one challenge will be to channel this into discreet objects, video or bodies of minor works.
PSQT logo modelling inter-disciplinary practice
In fact, my long-term interest in artist research is more generally about how a lively studio practice can foster collaboration, and be used as a point of departure and return into non-art subjects and spaces, fostering different kinds of inter-disciplinary learning and exchange. (A tight brief I view as being closer to professional practice, while this broad question is a unique opportunity loaned to the artist by the privileged position of an extended time in an academic context.) There are two contentious key terms in my thinking here; ‘collaboration’ and ‘non-art’. Broadly mapping onto these two terms, two key methods:
First is the ‘proposal form’ as a kind of collaboration. To me, the proposal is a way of setting a direction and intention from which the artist must immediately and inevitably deviate, or, exceptionally, follow as closely as possible as a kind of demonstration. Peter Liversidge is a good example of a practitioner who does this ‘solo,’ a collaboration between one moment and the next, or between himself and a gallery. Most, though, are partnerships who goad each other into Herculean target-setting; Jean-Claude & Christo, Cornford & Cross, Abramovic & Ulay; Iain Sinclair & Andrew Kotting, Anthony Gartland & Alex Pavely, Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty (KLF). The discrepancy between what is embarked on and what results could be characterised as kind of journey, or, as a reference to the compare-and-contrast of high conceptualism. This kind of collaboration takes place in process, dialogue and difficult creative friendship.
The second key method is informed by so-called ‘non-art.’ This could be at a site - for example, Hannah Soafer saw the potential for art to be the thing which holds space at Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust in order to bring together geology, architecture, heritage, craft and schools. Or, alternatively, the artist could embody this adventurous role themselves, such as Richard Wentworth, Allan Kaprow, Pilvi Takala and Joseph Beuys, going out and looking for ‘non-art’ things to act on and be acted upon by.
Creative friendship and Herculean target-setting…
Preparing for the pop-up show, I looked around and found I had - what? A glazed ceramic brick that says “We Won The War", about eight that say “Winston Churchill” still only at a bisque fire, some experiments with insulation tape, and some key words; celebration and residue, assemblage and installation; departure and return.
These concerns, through necessity, quickly sedimented into the two works in the pop-up show which finished the term. Vanishing Cabinet is a minor video work/installation, influenced by ‘celebration,’ with some sleight-of-hand emerging in the editing process. With some bigger production values, eg. a hotel lobby, a bespoke soundtrack and some things to make it stranger (a lift full of balloons or an employed drunk crowd), this is one of those situations where I would advise myself to ‘follow the thread wherever it leads.’
The second work, Lingering, brought crafted and found objects together in a assemblage, influenced by ‘residue.’ Something about cloyingness, and accident, and care, seemed to be the focus of audience comments, and it was generally felt to be quite finished, if again, small, scrappy and temporary.
The Vanishing Cabinet (2023)
The kind of embedded practices embodied by eg. Latham/APG, Sofaer/PSQT, Christo & Jean-Claude, are ‘small-p’ political, in contrast to my early Unit 1 tilting-at-windmills attempt to take on Britannia. Instead, these practices interact with politics, requiring knowledge of how and where to work with and against societal structure, in order to do, reveal, or get what you want.
In the next unit, I intend to strike a balance between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ thinking. There are some emergent promising threads from studio practice, like lifts, assemblage, craft, ingestion. The bricks want to be multiple other things; minimalist line, box of tissues, body fat, throwable vandalism object. Some of the making blocks from the casting process suggest obstructive works of their own. The lifts want to be extended into a stranger, if not longer, film. At least half of the practice should come from here, to balance against intellectual excitement: small-p politics, gates, permission, departure and return; problems of showing. It is also very important that some of these start to be outside of the studio, such as obstructive sculptures that require us to move. Where possible they should also be outside the gallery as well; my practice is not one that would happen under-the-bed, but is outward-looking and intended to be encountered and discursive - for which I will need to develop a thick skin.
Illustrating ‘bottom up’ thinking - these remains suggest an obstinate, roadblock style artwork
In the medium-term I would like to add the additional challenge of organising some external ‘non-art’ placements. This should hopefully allow me to start to test even further beyond subject with a sense of collaboration and exchange. This is about finding a balance and testing what an expanded idea of what practice might be, which should inform and invigorate studio practice. I do need to manage the time carefully, though, as the course structure probably favours doing this between July-December ‘24. This is because in the long-term, I see myself primarily as a commission-, research- and residency-based artist, not a studio practitioner. However, I have also found that my growing studio practice is a welcome antidote to the draw of the technical, and so is in some ways where the ‘real work’ takes place.
As well as the complex framing, going forward some of the important questions are also going to be dumb ones. How is it going to stand up? Where is it going to be? How big is it? What orientation? Or - how long is it going to go on for? How much is it going to cost? Treated with excitement and care and sensitivity, even if the intention is to be upsetting (that’s allowed), negotating permision, non-art exchange, appearance and disppearance, small-p politics and curmudgeonly objects are likely to be the kind of subject-matter going forward.
Bib.:
Waste to Monument: John Latham’s Niddrie Woman, Tate [online] accessible at: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/tate-papers/17/waste-to-monument-john-lathams-niddrie-woman [accessed 02.01.2024]
The Politics of Christo and Jean-Claude’s Running Fence, Artforum [online] accessible at : https://www.artforum.com/columns/the-politics-of-christo-and-jeanne-claudes-running-fence-233313/ [accessed 02.01.2024]
“Fort. Da.” Freud, S., quoted in Phelan, P. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (1996), Routledge, London. Afterword [online] accessible at: https://www.routledge.com/Unmarked-The-Politics-of-Performance/Phelan/p/book/9780415068222 [accessed 14.12.23]
Grubinger, E., Heiser, J., (et. al) Eds. Sculpture Unlimited (2011) Stenberg Press, London. Allan, J. Asocial Sculpture pg.43. [online] acessible at: https://www.owenherbert.co.uk/journal/sculpture-unlimited [accessed 09.01.2024]