GALLERY V NON-GALLERY?

I was doing some reading for an essay and came across an essay in a book about Artangel, who recently produced the Roger Hiorns' installation Seizure at Harper Rd Flats, Elephant & Castle and have in the past funded projects such as Rachel Whiteread's House, Matthew Barney's Cremaster 4, Stephan Balkenhol's Figure On A Buoy and many more. They are particularly interested in commissioning artwork that takes place outside of a gallery setting, sometimes not even inside any kind of building. This kind of practice really interests me and I think is relevant to the project my group is proposing. 

This essay talks about how two of the main things that setting art outside of a traditional sterile gallery environment does is a. activate spectatorship and b. decentre the viewer by encouraging interaction and experience and not insisting upon an ideal point to view the art from, instead encouraging them to move around and experience multiple views. The essay concentrates on the practice of Allan Kaprow, who was an artist and curator who was a major mover in using non gallery locations in the mid 20th century. He was influenced heavily by the writings of philosopher John Dewey who proposed human development could only happen as a result of active inquiry and interaction with the environment, one way this could come about would be through art.

'This thinking also explained Kaprow's preference for siting his environments in non-gallery venues: the transformative potential of experience was simply not possible in a place where viewing was inhibited by ingrained responses. The pristine gallery was synonymous with the eternal and the canonical - in other words, the predictable. Hence Kaprow's insistence on flux, change and development: the space should be "dirty" and "rough", filling the viewer with "tense excitement" and a sense of "risk and fear" '

Although I'm not a follower of Dewey's philosophy I agree that by taking art out of the traditional four white walls of a gallery it can throw people slightly and that could be a desirable effect to destabilise the audience and enhance the experience of the art. Or has this practice been going on for so long that we are used to it and do not feel the same effect. Sorry for going on!  What do people think? 

'Off Limits: 40 Artangel Projects' 2002, in the library if anyone wants to read the essay.

Liz

exhibitions/events to visit

This new strand is for exhibitions which may be relevant to your course and learning.
Please add exhibitions you want to recommend to others, and write about those you have seen.

Tonight- Wednesday 12th November, there is an event as part of Implicasphere curation, Smoke, at The Pumphouse- http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/LeisureandTourism/Pumphousegallery/exhibshome.htm
The event takes place at The Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, WC1N 3At
This exhibition and event are strongly recommended, especially to those of you whose proposals include non-artists as well as artists, multi-media work, collections, historic venues and work shown outside of gallery venues.

Purple Group

This post is to allow for a place for us to expand our ideas regarding 'our' show/event etc.

Purple group so far consists of 3 people... week 1 there was 1. week 2 there was 2. week 3 etc. so hoping for a new member today!  A list of the individuals involved can be found in the comments section in the future.[we are happy to disclose who we are]

Our initial remit had been event based and outside of the traditional gallery space.  

So... to this end it looks like we are going to put on an exhibition in a space which may well turn out to be a gallery.

As the project stands.  We are hoping to work with Alumni of Camberwell College of arts.  Take one year (if not many students then maybe a couple of different years could be selected) and show what they are doing now...(this doesn't have to be art based practice)... the obvious place for such an exhibition is the Foyer at Peckham rd.  

Issues to be resolved are firstly to do with audience... who will find this interesting? is it inclusive of different groups and local populations? should it be?  Should we try and work outside of college? Would we be able to get additional funding from Southwark Council and/or Camberwell itself (Recruitment?).

White Group

For our exhibition we have picked three artists that we like and think would complement each other. They are:

Eloise Fornieles does performance based installations, we are particularly interested in her work which involves audience participation such as her piece The Oyster Bar, which was a week-long performance "where people were invited to come into the space one at a time and sip champagne while they were asked to exchange a tale of loss for an oyster (or an orange if they’d rather)".

Kate Hawkins mostly does paintings, video and performance pieces. She has previously collaborated with Eloise Fornieles on a performance based installation, so we are sure they would be willing to either collaborate again or be exhibited together. One of her works that we found interesting is her series of spray paint on canvas paintings called Napkin Paintings. 

Eloise Calandre is a photographer but she also works with videos and performances/installations. A recent work of hers is a collection of photographs, installations, drawings and videos which "explore the possible nature of an invisibility made manifest", we also fell for a video piece she made called Shortcut. 


The venue selection came rather easily to us, half the group thought of the same gallery, The Red Gate Gallery on Coldharbour Lane, so we decided to go with it, especially since it seems like a space that will fit well with these artists.  

Red Group

Hi, 

We had a lot of ideas and thoughts regarding our artists and venues and we managed to narrow down the artists and we have started to think 0f a theme and venue. The artists and designers we chose all had interaction in common, each has worked actively with the public engaging them directly with the work they produce. The artists we chose are, Fabiane Perella, Richard Shed, Matt & Ross and Miltos Manetas. The theme we have chosen is based on the senses, each artist has involved senses in their work; be it touch, sight, sound etc. We aim to create an interactive event involving the public based on doing something fun and collaborative. We have begun to discuss possible venues and one that we discussed was a place called Dex next to Brixton tube which is a members club and bar that contains function rooms and roof terraces. This could be a possible venue as Iliana knows the managers. This is where we are at so far. I will post some photos of the artists work and gallery spaces when I find out how to.

Thanks

Yellow Group

Hey Girlies,

Not really sure what to say, as we covered alot on friday...
So we are all agreed on the Crypt St.Giles for the venue, brilliant for the location and audience, also it's lived in because of the events that it hosts. I'd just like to point out though, that with artists we chose it may seem in a way like we are just furnishing a place rather that putting on an exhibition. Although that may even be a good thing, what do you think? Either way we definately need to dicuss how we will display work (cabinates, etc.).

Ellie

'Curating in the 21st Century'

Whilst looking through the following book from our reading list i discovered a point of interest which i wanted to highlight to you all...

' As a curator do you look after the art or the audience...'

Brown Group

Brown Group hello to you all...

there has been lots of discussions about what we are proposing to do for our show/ exhibition etc, i thought that i would set up this new post as an easy way for us all to communicate and get are ideas across between elective classes on fridays.

I think that the artists we have decided to include are really exciting, especially that we have decided to include a designer (Stuart Haygarth), hopefully this will make are target audience a lot widier.

Last friday's session we were brain storming regarding sites where are exhibition could be held, i think that the way in which we have been thinking out side of the box is working well, but we do need to do some heavy research on the implications of having an exhibition in a public space and the safety measures which will need to be looked into as a result of this.

looking forward to seeing you all this week

please discuss...