Genuine Smiling

Circulation, Distribution, Dispersion

In November we’re holding a workshop at Goldsmiths around circulation, distribution and dispersion of artwork.

I want to think about artworks that make claims about not being circulated. My interest in this area stems from my own work, but I want to use the opportunity to research things other people have done. Because of the nature of the subject I don’t anticipate sticking exclusively to examples from art, but I hope to draw some conclusions that have relevance to art.

Most of the work I’ve found on this subject is around event-based art. A starting point could be the dissemination of happening-type work Allan Kaprow calls “lifelike art”. In his 1966 lecture How To Make A Happening he urges us to “happen” in the real world and not in art, and not to put on shows for audiences. He differentiates between the happenings and the instructions or descriptions of them, saying that the latter are not art, “just literature”. Nevertheless these happenings enter an art context and find an art audience through this “literature”, or informally through anecdote.

Bricks

Yesterday we made some straight lines.

Inside the White Studio

The picture below shows the framework of a discussion we held last night at the Vyner St space. We talked about LIKE WHEN YOU in connection with Claire and Altair’s Empty Studio Interviews project, as a way to think more about correspondences between studio and gallery spaces.

A number of practising artists came along and talked about how they use their studios, and many of them didn’t feel the space of the studio presented any specific problems.

Open Mike Night

The first sixteen speakers at the Poetry Cafe tonight:

Crown Derby Analogy

Crown Derby plates decorated by Quaker Pegg
Brass and jade rings by Richard Pousette Dart
Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge

Both plates and rings become imaginary.

Can you see me now?

Yesterday I booked tickets to Liverpool for the weekend, where I’m going to record sound and draw maps for There In Time, the Bridewell Gallery’s contribution to the Biennial Independents strand. My original idea for the artwork has moved on a lot since I originally discussed the show with Jo the curator, and it feels like the amount of change has been increasing exponentially as the install date approaches.

Some things people have told me about selling art this month

1. You must NEVER, NEVER, give your work away for free. It means it has no value.
2. Price things depending on what you need. If you need a laptop, that string’s worth £1,000.
3. Prices must never be round numbers or it looks like you’ve made them up.
4. You just have to make the prices up.
5. If I love a work and it’s cheap I’ll buy it for myself; if it’s expensive I’ll buy it for my collection.
6. Artists need a good few years of making work before they start selling, or they might never get their work straight. A lot of good artists never became great because they started selling to early.
7. I think you’re just going to have to grow up about it.

It needs a thinking gaze

On Saturday while we ate our V.I.P. cinnamon whirls two New York collectors Susan and Michael Hort talked us through their approach to art collecting.

They keep all the artworks they’ve acquired in their home, but they can only show about fifteen per cent of it at any one time because of space. They’ve thought about opening a museum to house it all, but keep coming back to the conclusion that they want the work to be lived around. To keep the works in circulation they rehang almost everything every four or five years (a handful of works are permanent fixtures; a handful are no longer loved), lend work out to museums and galleries on request, and have big brunch receptions so the work reaches a wider (but still exclusive) audience.

Les Machines de L’île

A spider has been walking through Liverpool and people have been making great allowances for it because of its size. It was made in Nantes and brought to Merseyside by ship and reassembled there, and during the night it was suspended from the side of a tower block to greet commuters on their way to work. “I wouldn’t like to meet it in the dark”, an onlooker said. “They say it’s going to walk the streets but I hope I’m not down here when it does.”