I had been invited to a ‘Symposium’. It was to be held at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in Farnham, Surrey. Four ‘Masters of Fine Art’ students would be ‘presenting’ - although quite what they would ‘present’ remained a little obscure. I wasn’t sure whether to go. I have had one or two previous experiences of this kind of event and I find them rather odd. In truth, I don’t feel quite ‘at home’ and something of an alien. I am not sure about what is really ‘going on’ and what sort of response (if any) the artists want or need. This is partly down to what I perceive as the culture of contemporary Fine Art – as well as the rather too obvious ethos of the university as a ‘supplier of talent’ to and for the creative industries. The institution looks more like a corporate affair with buildings and marketing ‘noise’ to match and nothing like the art colleges of former times. I have also been told that such ‘artists’ talks are themselves peculiar and hybrid affairs in which the artist tries to match or attach a verbal communication to a sequence of images and/or images of artefacts which they have made. In addition, the work of the artists is projected (as a result of the genius of computer technology) onto very large projection screens – and so, in a way, the actual work itself is transformed into something cinematic. (Which it isn’t – unless it features actual films of some sort.) In the end I decided to go in the hope that I would ‘enjoy’ the experience. Since, though, an MA in Fine Art is firmly located in the relatively recent history or tradition of ‘advanced’ art, I will begin with a very short note on that history – before turning to reflect on some of the specific content of the symposium.
Part One: In 1967 Lucy Lippard and John Chandler wrote their now famous paper entitled ‘The de-materialisation of Art’; it was subsequently published in ‘Art International’, (volume 12, number 2, pps. 31-36) during February 1968. In the paper the authors identified the emerging presence of a distinctive kind of art – an ‘advanced art’ – that was ‘highly’ or ‘ultra-conceptual’. At its core they perceived what they called a fundamental ‘de-materialisation’ of art – by which they meant that this new mode of art underlined the primacy of thinking – both the thinking process and (somehow) the concrete tangible expression of ‘the idea’. In doing this they highlighted nothing less than a paradigm shift in the identity of art itself – and of art making. Their highly influential paper isolated and proposed a number of key features that defined this ‘advanced art’, central to which were:
The changed role of the art object – emerging now as a medium rather than an end in itself – a source of ideas (ideally to be followed through …)
The aspiration for and expression of a fusion of disciplines – e.g. art and language, art and science, art and sociology, art and anthropology. (Related to this was ‘cross-genre’ art-making)
A response to and exploration of the ‘zeitgeist’ – the spirit of the age – including the impact of conceptions of relativity and entropy (chaos) – and the role of chance and indeterminacy
In addition, the studio or site in which the ‘advanced’ artist worked was re-defining itself as a ‘study’, a place where ideas, including very abstract and difficult ideas, were identified, debated, researched, clarified, and given some form of aesthetic or artistic expression. To understand (properly) the new manifestations of art it was necessary to see them as signs that convey ideas; the works were not things-in-themselves, straight-forward things (or sensory entities) to be ‘consumed’ by the spectator but rather allusions to, symbols of – or representatives – of ideas. The work was a medium – a catalyst – rather than an end in itself; in a nutshell, whilst abstract ideas could drive art, art was now positioned to drive thought. However, this did not (and does not) mean that such advanced (conceptual) art was or is anti-aesthetic; Lippard and Chandler noted that, ‘as visual art, a highly conceptual work still stand or falls by what it looks like’ and they moved on to emphasise the fact that in principle, and perhaps ideally, ‘intellectual and aesthetic pleasure can merge … when the work is both visually strong and theoretically complex.’
Although this form of advanced conceptual art had developed as a reaction against the exclusionary conventions of the 1960s ‘art world’ and was an art which had, coincidentally, come to include electronics, light, sound and ‘performance attitudes’ in its expression, it, too, was soon to become mainstream: now, serious artists were encouraged and expected to inform their work not only with ‘ideas’ but also with incisive critical perspectives and at least some philosophical awareness. (A brilliant and accessible overview of a range of different critical perspectives is provided in Lois Tyson’s (1998) book ‘Critical theory today’ – a book which has secured its place as a key resource and essential reading on any MA in Fine Art degree course.) On top of this they had to find ways of expressing, visually, whatever it was that they had come to investigate. This was not easy. It is still not easy.
Part Two: The day of the Fine Art symposium had arrived. It was a very cold and very frosty morning and I almost decided to stay at home and not put myself through the unsettling experience that, in all likelihood, lay before me. Then I noticed, next to the front of the house, the very first japonica blossoms had begun to appear in divine shades of coral pink. The green leaves of a few hyacinths were also edging their way out from an earthen darkness into the light; if they could brave the cold then so could I. And anyway, prior to the event, I had enjoyed some vigorous communications with the artist, Lucy Bevin, in which we had contrasted the way different artists tackle the problem of embedding ‘theory’ in their work: in the light of this, I felt I really ‘ought’ to make the effort and go. Which I did. Despite the fact that I never felt comfortable during the proceedings, the MA Fine Art symposium at UCA in Farnham, held on that freezing morning of 16th January 2024, provided me (us) with an excellent example of the sophistication implicit in the ‘advanced’ forms of art that Lippard and Chandler had identified nearly 6 decades earlier. The titles of the four Masters’ presentations bear witness to this; in turn they were:
‘The present remembered’ by Christine Banat; ‘Trace. Embody. Ephemera’ by Darrell Kingsley; ‘Altered States and the (Un)Earthly’ by Lizziy Parker and, ‘Materiality and Symphony of Time’ by Kasia Alexiou.
Notwithstanding the fact that such artist’s talks are strange and unusual forms of communication, each of the artists successfully provided for and gave their audience a synthesis (or an amalgam) of the intellectual and the aesthetic – which in turn yielded various degrees of pleasure. But each did this in very different ways and through, as the titles show, the expression of very different ideas. Each of them also gave their audience a glimpse of the terrain that they had covered and were covering as they developed their practice on the MA course.
Kasia Alexiou began her presentation – her artist’s talk entitled ‘Materiality and the Symphony of Time‘ – by giving out a box of sweets (from which I duly took a green one – although I forgot to thank her at the end of the symposium!). Her art is necessarily complex because her subject deals with ‘time’ and the ‘being’ of things (including their ‘materiality’) – a focus which immediately locates it in the tradition of Heidegger’s philosophical work; her hypnotic short-film studies of light and the movement of water once again made me think about the way the past, present and future converge – even as the present becomes the past and the future becomes the present. (I was also to learn that the beauty I saw was a mirage: the orange glow on the waters and the blinding shafts of white sunlight encoded and referenced the horror of nuclear destruction. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ‘here’ amongst us.) She also revealed the transfiguration of objects – either through the way their meaning alters according to the context in which we apprehend them – or the way the artist herself effects a transformation though some form of creative ‘representation’. Kasia concluded her work by requesting the audience to ‘advise’ her on how she might make progress as an artist in the future. I responded to this with the suggestion that, since she is interested in objects (material things) and ‘time’, she might read Roland Barthes’ short book ‘Camera Lucida’ mainly because he provides a deeply thoughtful and sensitive way of thinking about a material object – and specifically, in this case, a photograph of his mother. (In his reflection, he finds the ‘essence’ of his mother in just one of the many photographs of her - and as he does so, he reveals or discloses some details of the workings of his own ‘mind’.) I also made this suggestion because I am left with the uneasy, but definite, feeling that it is almost de rigeur for the artist (on something like an MA course) to attempt something that is virtually impossible because they are obliged to give concrete form to pure, contested and unresolved ideas or concepts. Many or most of these are far too rarefied and abstract to be effectively communicated through their work. For example, I remember once having to participate in a group show entitled ‘Time sinking’; it was a nightmare. ‘Time’ was already a problematic enough concept for me – on top of which I had great difficulties in finding ways of giving ‘time’ any sort of direction! In the end I ‘solved’ the problem by disinterring the ‘sedimentations’ in my memory of actual places that I had once visited – such as Paris in the early 1960s. In essence, I thought that Kasia might feel a greater sense of liberation if she worked from herself outwards. (I may well be wrong.) And, after all, what exactly does ‘materiality’ mean?
The title of Christine Banat’s presentation, ‘The present remembered’ impressed me (as had that of Kasia Alexiou) as something highly abstract and, at first sight, very difficult. As far as I know the present usually has to cease being the present for it to have a chance of settling into memory; on the other hand, I suppose that when we look back, we reawaken what was once in the present. In this sense the present is remembered. However, as she revisited and reviewed her work, I realised that she was in the process of outlining a partial visual anthropology; the central idea was based on the supposition that no one can ever escape the legacies that come their way and over which they have no control, legacies that are left by, from and through previous generations. These legacies – passed on through stories in which are embedded values, judgements and the meanings given to objects, actions and conduct – create, sustain and define the identity of individuals. (In fact, the art that is being made in the UK – with its emphasis on the ‘idea’ – is itself a product of the relatively recent ‘de-materialisation’ in art and the antecedent not-so-recent legacy provided by the history of art.) Christine also acknowledged that her art is informed by aspects of postcolonial theory and, to this extent, she referred to manifestations of an anti-colonial ideology that is now firmly ‘in place’ and expressed in parts of the African continent. Underneath it all, I sensed that what profoundly interests Christine is her fascination with the personal histories of some of the particular people that she encounters. But she, too, has a personal history and her own story to tell – and it might be even more powerful and pleasurable if she were to find ways of expressing her particular trajectory through life. Through her I was happily reminded of T. S. Eliot’s famous lines from the Four Quartets: ‘We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.’ (And just maybe, as a result of struggling with the processes of art-making we come to know ourselves for the first time.)
The two other presenters at the symposium also showed how the culture of Fine Art in the UK has the power to charm and provoke. Darrell Kingsley’s ‘Trace. Embody. Ephemera.’ – through the manner of his presentation – showed how forms of mark-making stand as the effective counterpoint to the over-elaborate vocabularies of conceptual abstractions. In fact, mark-making, of the type he expressed, seemed perfectly to integrate the movements of the body with a spiritual simplicity. I was prompted to ask: ‘Is mark-making at the very foundations and origins of art itself?’ However, I was unable to put this question to him because his ‘time was up’.
Finally, Lizziy Parker’s ‘Altered States and the (Un)Earthly’ included some wonderful huge collages of female forms each aligned with water, fire and earth. After listening to her and seeing what she had to present I was left wondering whether the ‘unearthly’ and the supernatural are in fact ‘natural’ to our human being. She impressed me as a very gifted and agile performance artist.
Did I enjoy the experience? Yes and No. I would love to be able to say, publicly, what I actually think but I don’t feel or sense that this would be really welcome. Oh, and one last thing: I was struck by the sentence: ‘All that is left behind‘ …
Go Ask Alice 