Is Curation a One Man Show?

‘Microstoria’ Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
An annual collaboration between Contemporary Art Theory students and  Visual Cultures students from Edinburgh College of Art


A group show with group curation could have gone horribly wrong! Imagine the pent-up tension that builds as a number of driven, creative individuals battle it out to add their two pennies worth to the final product, released from their solitary library-led existence. The ‘Battle Royal of Young Curators’ imagery that this conjures may be a slight exaggeration, however I have been informed by one of the curators involved, that it is not entirely myth. This unique approach to curation must work to broaden avenues not merely foster ill-feeling between its participants if it is to produce positive results. It must establish a diverse melting-pot of influences and direction which, at best, can open our eyes to a new way of viewing the world, (at worst make us want to close them and disregard contemporary art all together).

More established galleries in Edinburgh, for example The Fruitmarket have long-practiced this method of multiplying their curatorial tentacles. Once a year, as testified by its current show ‘Narcissus Reflected’, The Fruitmarket enlists the expertise of an outside voice to open the doors of perception, so to speak. ‘Narcissus Reflected’ has been curated by David Lomas, a specialist in Surrealism. Lomas has revolutionised the interpretation of Salvador Dali’s ‘Narcissus’ by reuniting it with Dali’s poem of the same date and title, as Dali himself intended. The poem contains a number of specific viewing instructions for the painting itself. Lomas also brings an artist known only as Jess to the UK for the first time in the form of a meticulous, hand-drawn collage and life-long project ‘Narkissos’. Lomas proves that the Narcissus mythological subject, far from belonging to a bygone era, still offers pertinent moral value to our contemporary climate.

I thought to lead this entry onto a discussion of the recent Talbot Rice show ’Microstoria’ and end with a few puns on the necessity and value of amicable collaboration.  I now find myself returning to the Talbot Rice tomorrow for an evening discussion. For this reason I shall hold fire on this subject as I fear that my youthful, ready-formed and fluffily-constructed opinions may suddenly be contradicted when vocalised tomorrow! To be continued…

Susan Hiller at The Tate Britain 1st February-15th May 2011

Self-titled exhibitions come with a certain expectation that is unlike any other show. Its audience expects a totality; a glimpse through various facades, guises and stages of work to the person who made them. They are rarely so much a selection but more an all-encompassing collection, a Gesamtkunstwerk. Hiller often presents herself as the curator within individual works, for example ‘Dedicated to the Unknown Artist’ 1972-6 in which she credits those photographers and postcard hand-painters of British seaside towns. However, there seems little thought given to the overall curation of this exhibition,. The good, the bad and the, quite frankly, ugly, have been indiscriminately lumped together.

I am constantly confused as to why the trend today seems to be for mothers and fathers to splash their newborn all over the internet (I am mainly talking about facebook here). Mary Kelly’s ‘Post-Partum Document’ still eludes me and a mother’s desire to want to exhibit her finest creation does not, unfortunately seem to have diminished. Perhaps it is a hangover from my mother who, in trying to boost the sales of her photographic business, sold a photo of me and her to the paper which later carried the headline, ‘Talking to your Child about Sex’. As a result, such works as Hiller’s ‘Ten Months’ 1976, in which she displayed documents of her pregnant self alongside typed-up journal extracts from the time, merely fill me with fear for that poor exploited lump, still too little to sign its consent form.

Hiller’s dream mapping and automatic writing generate a similar unease and a feeling of overindulgence towards their author as ‘Ten Months'. Less enamored was I still by Hiller’s recycled works. I was once told by a tutor that you should love your artistic disasters like an ugly child - I am still not sure where she was going with this, they may turn into something beautiful in the future? Like Tracy Emin destroying all her past works in her ceremonial burning while studying at the Royal College of Art in the late 80s, some things really are best relegated to collecting dust under the bed. If they were no good to begin with then I very much doubt that shredding them and hanging them upside down is likely to improve their appeal.

The works described above truly were overshadowed however by acts of brilliance. As one critic so aptly put, ‘It has taken decades for this American artist to grow out of her wordy cleverness and the terrifying results have been more than worth the wait.’ Ironically enough it was those works which utilise found images, objects and sound, appropriated to create new, open-ended meanings, that really caught the eye. In other words, her skill as an anthropologer, collector, media-combiner and curator overshadowed any act of creation. Hiller’s radical combinations of media, science and technology were really spectacular yet slightly tempered by their proximity to the soggy looking, shredded canvas of an earlier work. ‘Magic Lantern’ was one such stunning, hybrid installation in which three carousel slide projectors, set at slightly different distances created a mesmerising optical illusion. Equally visually and mentally appealing was ‘From the Freud Museum’ in which objects from Hiller’s own collection were paired in custom-made boxes, referencing Freud’s own collection of artifacts. In Hiller’s own words this evokes an alternative, ‘archive of misunderstandings, crisis and ambivalences that complicate any such notion of heritage.’

‘PSI Girls’ 1999, synchronised the moments of high tension in which women learn how to channel their telekinetic powers in popular films, seen through a series of coloured filters in both a powerfully disconcerting, yet humorous manner. Humour creeps into Hiller’s work from time to time with a welcome interlude to the dryness of her subject matter. ‘PSI Girls’ intermingles images from ‘Matilda’ alongside more sinister horror films. ‘Dedicated to the Unknown Artist’, while crediting the unaccredited, also draws attention to a certain British preoccupation with bad weather.

All in all a mixed bag, yet is this what we should expect from a self-titled retrospective? For someone who is so obviously so selective within each separate work, this mishmash did not do her acute eye justice. The exhibition felt scattered, ill-advised and spilled laboriously into the corridor and an extension area. I must conclude that this creative curator has been badly curated. Perhaps the curation of the curation spoilt the creation!

A few (mostly unrelated) thoughts for the day:

The program on L.S. Lowry ‘Looking for Lowry’ has recently been aired on Sunday 24th May, ITV. A number of distinguished figures such as Ian McKellen and Paula Rego discuss why Lowry is simultaneously so loved by the public and dismissed by the academic and cultural bodies that be. From a related article in the Guardian I am led to believe that the argument is not a populist issue but a class one, although despite reading the article I am still at odds as to what this really means. The Tate seems to have thirty or so (I cannot quite remember the figure) Lowry paintings and drawings in its collection, only one of which has been on public display within the institution itself. I know many people who site Lowry as their favourite artist, I for one was introduced to this artist at the tender age of eight via a selection of slim, paperbacks in large fonts laboriously read to me by my Grandmother. The collection also included a short guide to Monet, Turner and Renoir. Maybe I am mistaken and the Tate has a proportional number of Monet’s, Turner’s and Renoir’s squirreled away in its never-before-seen collections but I am guessing not. This is because while these artists encompass a strategic change in the way we see the world, even think about the world, Lowry merely depicted a way of life. His is not so much insightful as intuitive documentary and where does this fit into a wider art-historical and social history after the advent of photography?

One week on and I have finally managed to cajole my weary internet into action and actually watch ’Search for Lowry’ rather than mindlessly pondering its subject matter. I was a little disappointed. It painted a lonely figure, debt collector by day, painter from memory by night, awkward and repressed. It discussed the theatrical appeal of Lowry’s crowd scenes with their full figures caught in movement against their flat, matchbox, Manchester stage set. Nothing new, in fact I think I read something similar in my trusty paperback guides age eight. It failed however to really get to the bottom of why Lowry seems to have been omitted from every exhibition of 20th century art. It is a ridiculous argument to say that the Tate is anti-populist - look at the shop, the branding. The majority of Manchester’s tourists are brought in by The Lowry Centre which sees 800 000 visitors per year (this was a number plucked from a 2008 survey and has, no doubt, increased). It is not a tourist economy that the Tate should be sniffing at and one that in the same year pushed Manchester into close third behind Edinburgh and London for most popular destination for overseas visitors.

Just a thought for the day…

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1081254_lowrys_the_biggest_draw_in_tourism_boom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/18/ls-lowry-tate

New Contemporaries

During the course of the year past (and yes it is indeed nearly a year since my college days) I have born the weighty presence of ‘New Contemporaries’. This is an exhibition of sixty recent graduates selected on their degree show held at the Royal Scottish Academy and accompanied by all the pomp and ceremony that this prestigious venue carries with it. No sooner had the initial excitement of showing my work in this stoic venue worn off than I became increasingly troubled by what this privilege entailed. It was not merely the logistics of storing and re-installing a piece that was roughly the size of my bedroom x4. It was also the worry of the hefty bill that comes with re-creating a degree show piece out with the college support network (and supply cupboard).

For the last few months I have found myself glued to Ebay into the early hours of the morning, frantically bidding on projectors. Then there has been the endless transportation (by foot) of planks of wood and weighty electronics from one side of Edinburgh to the other. On top of that there was the uncertainty that (a) I would be able to re-create the piece again and (b) whether the gallery would live to regret it if I did! What, you ask, does the fledgling artist dipping their toes into this competitive world get out of this ordeal?

Not very much, was my initial response, if you discount the back ache and the sleep deprivation. I did however congratulate myself on my resourcefulness at scavenging most of my materials from the local scrap yard - despite the wrath I ensued from the local bus drivers of Prestonpans as they ferried me and my large sheets of wood and glass back to Edinburgh. Secondly there was Emilia and Adam, surely the happiest and most useful people to know in Edinburgh as they come equipped with a van the size of a mobile home. The install was disappointingly simple - so ready was I for a melt-down moment in front of my contemporaries at the RSA that when it failed to materialise I felt alarmingly depleted.

It has been a lot to pay for a confidence boost. However when I cast my eye to the wider picture it really isn‘t as bleak as all that. When I finally came out of the gallery after a constant four day install I thought that that level of stress was not for me and I was going to start looking elsewhere for my kicks. Two weeks on I have just received confirmation of my first solo show at the H-ART Gallery in Colchester later this year. I’m sure this will come with its stresses and strains, sleepless nights and back ache, it seems however, against the odds, that this is also what I thrive off.

‘Doers and/or of Doings’ Part Two (a pop up school) - After allocation of schedules

For some reason I considered myself to have got off rather lightly with my week-worth of activities, that was until I tried to cram them into my already exhausting schedule. Task one: document a seventies dinner party. This was a great success leaving behind a selection of gaudy photos (the majority of which seemed to be of a cheesecake which distinctly resembled scrambled egg) and a rather cloudy hangover. Our authenticity to the era did not stop at a few wide brimmed cocktail glasses but alas continued into the booze budget - rather meagre by today’s standards as sadly we went for quantity over quality.

Through the week I dutifully ploughed my way through tasks 1-5. A selection of readings prevented me blankly staring at the wall during my official post as a gallery assistant. Many of these I have summarised and analysed already in past blog entries. In the evenings, rather than venturing to the pub or the cinema (or settle down to yet another episode of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’) I was content to blog/twitter/papier-mâché the night away. I smuggly started to reorganise my day to day routine, putting my past lethargy down to sheer laziness.

Then I started to feel ill, tired and run down…
Whether this was psychological still remains to be seen (a universal aversion to over-activity). It did however seem to tweet its way through the group with surprising speed as the week unravelled. Head aches and snotty noses were presented with pride at the final meeting - signs that we had all worked ourselves an unhealthy amount. A warning of the perils of over-zealous activity. By the end I had made a small stop-frame animation, negotiated You Tube, Skype and Twitter aa well as give a power point presentation at Stills. A closing event took place on Sunday at Sierra Metro where we each presented our boards with our month long project documented over the surface. It is only now that all the paper has been ripped down, the curtain closed etc that I have time to reflect on the whole experience.

I think the pop up school went the first bit of the way towards kick starting me into action and the rest now has to be up to me. I was looking for a way to realign my opposing methods of practice, bring them out of the studio and back into home/work and leisure. I needed to inject my practice with the dose of playfulness it somehow lost along the way. There were also some unexpected perks, for instance learning how to use the technology I had been avoiding for so long. Having confined this to time-wasting I now appreciate how the web can become a valuable source of self-promotion. I took a small icing nozzle away with me from Mairi’s collection of objects and who knows, Part 2 ‘From Fish to Fantasy’ might be out sooner than you think! Many thanks to Francesca Miller, Mairi Taylor and Travis Souza for a month of great interaction and manic activity.

The Forgotten Prop

Still ploughing my way through the allocated reading list for ‘Doers and/or of Doings’. Yesterday’s article to be subjected to three hours scrutiny over the course of a particularly dull gallery shift was the preface to a book called ‘The Stage Life of Props’ by Andrew Sofer. I thought that his was an interesting piece to blindly post to me. I can only assume that it arrived as the result of a comment I made in an early meeting about some wayward desire to get into scenography and set design at some point in a rather distant future.

So what was there to say about the article? No doubt this preface was designed to pique my interest into reading the whole book. If so it failed in its task but not for lack of interesting content, but rather for lack of relevance to me… in any way. That having been said, there were, in this introduction alone, some rather interesting comments. Props (along with sets and mechanical effects) within the theatre are rarely written about critically. The article states, ‘Most books that mention stage properties in their title are manuals aimed at aspiring stage designer or technical director.’ ‘And?’ I hear you cry? Well what this effectively means is that scenography is not getting the critical analysis it deserves, the type of analysis we associate with the arts. The props, the set, the effects, these are seen a sensationalist mechanisms which create the spectacle. However these mechanisms are of central importance to the experience itself. What is not said directly through spoken word can be hinted at more subtly through a symbolic use of set and prop.

The book (I understand from the preface) analyses the existence and use of these mechanisms not as passive emblems but active events. The article describes this as, ‘a mechanism of appropriation to address a wider semiotic crisis within the theatre and often culture.’ From the simplest to the most complicated of sets, these miscellaneous items create an atmosphere, set the scene and say the unsaid before a word has been uttered. The power of the prop should not be undermined.

From Fish to Fantasy