I having been mulling over the idea of art with a life span to it. The Blinky Polermo wall painting at ECA, I recently discovered, is no longer officially ‘a Blinky Polermo’ for the mere fact that at some point it was painted over then re-painted at a later date. This stands in stark contrast to another article I read today in the Spring Issue of Map on ‘The Artist Remake’ suggesting that the artistic desire to revisit their old work is on the up. I am still a believer in the fact that even if a work exists in exactly the same form but within a different time then, if the original had a set life-time which is now over, the piece is not the same. A piece exists as itself, then, when taken apart exists in another form – some kind of document, with the passing of time. The remake, I agree, does have a place within artistic practice, like the before and after shot perhaps. I too believe that it is too easily used as a self-indulgent self-historicisation by the artist in a bid to find a context for their work. It is also perhaps, as the article suggests, a mere engagement with ‘reproduction’ made necessary by our times – we are so used to viewing the event distributed and dissolved into so many other forms that the remake becomes just another record. None of these things do I have a problem with – in fact a lot can be learnt from re-seeing a work that originated, in idea at least, in a time past, a different value system. They are a method of assessing change, not necessarily of the artist’s practice, but the changing outside forces that condition that artistic practice. The problem I have however is giving these works the same title, dating them from their original production to now. 1972-2009 suggests that this was not considered a finished work in 1972; it took till 2009 to be completed. This is not true, as soon as you put a work out there as a finished ‘thing’ for a public to engage with IT IS FINISHED. Likewise, when it is removed it becomes something else. While I understand that the Blinky Polermo is not the artist’s remake, I do agree that any work whether remade by the artist, or someone else, can no longer be given the same title/ongoing date. The Blinky Polermo does not exist, the artist remake is just that, a remake, it does not represent an extension of the original but a clean break from it.

http://www.mapmagazine.co.uk/index.cfm?page=984F1E34-BDF5-2379-71075D0184E53D92&articleid=422