Abandonment Issues and the Language of Art
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
Galleries are not the only places for art. They are the places that people expect to find art, but this could possibly be a contributing factor to the majority of peoples narrow conception of what art is, or could be! A historical context for art is key to understanding where we have come from but it is only a sign post for the future.
I often hear people talk about how much they hate modern art when referring to contemporary exhibitions by artists still alive and working. Whilst it may seem like splitting hairs to point out that the modernist era ended in the fifties, it is quite telling as to how much people understand about arts direction of travel; just like every other facet of society it has to be a forward motion. Not only is it important for people to understand the processes behind art production in the 21st century and beyond, but also how it is relevant to the lives they lead.
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum. (The place that I would happily say ignited my lifelong love of art circa 1975/76.)
Whilst contemporary art is often present even in the most provincial galleries with historical collections, the connection between it and its predecessors seems rarely understood. The places in which people encounter contemporary art are often referred to as spaces; temporary spaces, meanwhile spaces, pop-up spaces and such like. To use space rather than place as a descriptor is a form of short-hand that, whether it intends to or not, suggests a liminal zone. Is the suggestion one of a pathway between the beginning of a career and the art gallery as the ultimate destination? Of course life is not like that. Not everyone who starts off on the shop floor ends up as a manager, with the corridors of power being a temporary structure allowing passage from one state to another. Society is not set up to operate like that, not everyone will succeed under the system that currently governs us, if this how we are to understand or measure success. Those who spend a lifetime travelling the corridors do not necessarily have nothing to offer, and who is to say that reaching the boardroom is actually a desirable destination for everybody. As Neil Young put it in 1976 “travelling in the middle of the road became a bore so I headed for the ditch”.
BasementArtsProject: Phill Hopkins exhibition ‘A House Within A Home’ July 2019. Leeds ArtWalk
So how do we get past the problem of perception, access and desire. Life is about dialogue, that is how we learn. We educate ourselves through experience, we find the edge of our zone of comfort and understanding and we push past it, through to what lies beyond. What lies beyond is the un-chartered territory that is the future. Without proper access to all facets of art we face the prospect of a society that sees art as a dried out husk, history preserved in aspic, to be reeled out every so often, presented under subtle lighting, in temperature and humidity controlled rooms. DO NOT TOUCH - leads to - do not understand. Of course touching does not necessarily bring about understanding that cannot be gained in other ways, but different types of experience can lead to a change in perception of what art is, and what its purpose might be. So how do we facilitate alternative types of experience? Types of experience that bring processes to life for those who may have believed that art has nothing to offer them.
Tunstall Road, South Leeds. A piece of grassland at the edge of the road, once used by the public to sit on, now. fenced off and inaccessible
South Leeds is a Liminal zone; paradoxically one with a largely static community but that is measured by its transient aspects: homelessness and a travel corridor between destinations. It is a place that sits between the twin pillars of arts greatest successes, the embedded history of Henry Moore (Leeds - specifically Castleford) and Barbara Hepworth (Wakefield) and its potential future. A gateway between universes, perched on the precipice of success and failure with the possibility of reaching one or falling into the other.
Another Leeds enfant terrible; The work of Damian Hirst on Briggate during the Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019
There is the feeling amongst many that art is a rich persons endeavour, a position not helped by media or the art world. Whilst sport has a place in the daily news cycle, having its own focused sections on television, radio and the newspapers along with the weather, art does not. Many aspects of sport are seen as having solid working class connections; just look at the fuss over the football super league scandal last year (2021), even I as a none football follower know about it. Art is not seen in the same light.
Photograph of a young Henry Moore peering out from behind one of his sculptures at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Perry Green, Hertfordshire.
Taking Henry Moore as an example that I can speak about from experience, I am often perplexed as to what people expect from experiencing his work. I will state at this point that I love the work of Henry Moore, I acknowledge it’s importance in the canon of art history and it’s place in the future of art, after all I work for the Henry Moore Institute, but, there is something of a disconnect between the historical and contemporary aspects of art production and its purpose. Many, expect some kind of epiphany when experiencing the work of old masters, even the more recent modernist masters such as Henry Moore. The name is enough and it is apparent judging by the constant flow of people trailing through exhibitions of work associated with the likes of a Da Vinci, Dali, Picasso, Moore et al. Direct this audience towards the contemporary art world though and the reception is notably cooler. The contemporary audience is only an academic one, apparently! Maybe not though!
Music, Visual Art & Dance at Serf Project Space, Leeds. Student exhibition fundraising night 2019
How do you grow a diverse audience that appreciates and understands many aspects of artistic production and its purpose? Does the art world want to open up to the idea that a diverse audience is a desirable thing? The only time that people experience news relating to art is when old artworks sell for massive sums of money at auction, or through things that are portrayed as stupid or frivolous such as the yearly mocking of the Turner Prize. It is immaterial at this point as to what our opinion of the Turner Prize or its shortlisted artists may be, as we are never given enough information about the artists or reasons as to why they do the things that they do. With this in mind it is then not unreasonable that people would make that snap decision that usually ends in the phrase “I don’t do art”.
‘Pissoir’ The work of Vlassis Canaris at Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund Germany.
It often seems like the ownership of artworks has a distinct influence on our opinion of art and its purpose. Having worked for the best part of seventeen years with artists from many different backgrounds, and at very different stages in their careers, one consistency across the board is attitudes to access. Whilst the artists that I have worked with like to be cautious about how their artwork is seen, this is an appropriate and a very natural stance to take, it is also proportional and has never impinged on the desire to ensure that people get to experience their work. The importance of the message conveyed through images on websites, social media, postcards etcetera, speaks of a desire to tell people what their work is about, and why it is important to engage with it.
Online BasementArtsProject exhibition via the ArtSteps platform during the pandemic lockdown 2021
It is therefore through the shop window of social media that people enter the reception area that is the website, pick up their information as to what the artists work is about and hopefully enter the gallery: The Real-World. Poverty and pandemic are contributing factors as to why, post-lockdown, the number of visitors to BasementArtsProject took a significant dive. I can happily report that, six months down the line, they are on the increase again after the first cautious unlocking, but this has been in part to do with our visibility as an organisation in the area, with our public sculpture project ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ which has attracted the attention of many people in passing.
Keith Ackerman and John Barber on a sunny August day working on Jacob’s Ladder outside BasementArtsProject. A project in which not just the finished article will be sited in a very public place, but it will also have been produced predominantly in full view of the public.
The established art world, in which the artists work has changed hands and now resides in the collections of non-artists, has a different raison d’être. Here, information and imagery is judged on its scarcity. The less access - the higher the value. In reality though, the value in any artwork resides in its philosophical intent and the talent behind its creation, not the price that a collector is prepared to pay. For this and many other reasons, art can seem for many from non-academic backgrounds a distant and un-engaging proposition, arcane in language and reasoning, and often visually unintelligible. But really, asking people to move from the old masters to the new contemporaries by wading in the water rather than by providing a bridge can be a step too far. After all what is this thing that we are invited to view but not touch? Presented to us in arts equivalent of churches; cavernous places with their white walls. Modern day reliquaries for the hushed tones of contemplation of these quasi-religious artefacts.
The work of Wolfgang Laib at The Hepworth Wakefield as part of the Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019
There is a tyranny in convention: acceptance of rules and ways of being just because they have always been there means that progress cannot happen, and it is against such conventions that we must push if we are to improve not just our own situations, but crucially the lives of those around us too.
Bruce Davies. January 2022