do elephants like buns?

I think Facebook is just the place to ask. I need to do some research - Realism, the genre of still life, Vanitas... and Real Life. Wouldn't it be great to go poking around in other people's drawers, and find all the forgotten bits and pieces and general tut. The handbag of domesticity. Who invented drawers anyway? Such a pain - they get overstuffed and won't open properly, get jammed up with the detritus of everyday life and sentimentality; the lost and forgotten. Ikea has largely solved the problem of the mechanics of a drawer by persuading us that there are other ways to store things, thankfully, but the drawer still exists because it hides things away, rather than puts it on display. A place for the subconscious, the unconscious, and the superego can sit on the mantelpiece. (Incidentally, Chippendale designed his furniture to be moved around as it suited the owner, rather than the cemented-to-the-spot idea we have of Chippendale when coming across a piece in a National Trust property, not sure what that's got to do with it all, but there we go.)

Despite the current recession, and the harsh January weather, financial reports from the High Street show John Lewis up by an average of 10% after the VAT increase; house prices are falling for the seventh month. We're not moving house, but what's inside is good solid quality, and I'm sure Chippendale would have approved of the great unwashed upgrading their dinner sets and thread counts.

Buns to elephants? I didn't know this turn of phrase, but apparently bringing buns to elephants makes them your best friend. For life. Bring us quality goods: Quality seems to be recession proof, or else I haven't looked at the statistical analysis of social demographics thoroughly and there are classes that just haven't been hit, but I don't think that's the case. The desire for the best that we can afford - not the meaningless gold-plated iPhone but the luxury of Egyptian cotton sheets - soft, durable, natural - and real. The desire for the real, reality, is unquenchable. American photo realism: www.escapeintolife.com/richard-estes/ Estes is past master of cityscape, glass and chrome, shiny surfaces; and they are beautiful. Painting that looks more real than photography. This movement began in the late '60's, and it may be no accident that the desire for the real (we often confuse it with 'luxury' [overprice] because 'real' also has a premium price) has soared exponentially with the rise of an alternative reality, digital technology, and daily life is to slip between the super-shiny techno-reflections and the reality of brushing my teeth. So, put a call out on Facebook, and see who sends me a little slice of their real life.

How to be an Idiot

I've got my book on my lap and the cat has curled up, she's in for the long haul, and it's late in the evening. I thought I'd peruse iPlayer and see if there was something light to watch, and landed on www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/Justice_A_Citizens_Guide_to_the_21st_Century, presented by Michael J Sandel, a very unassuming man, deeply committed to Justice, in philosophical, political, practical terms. Incidentally, he's an American Jew, grew up in Los Angeles, and this in itself provides an interesting biographical framework. Not the light viewing I was looking for, but how enlightening.

The book was still in my lap. Deyan Sudjic, blogger for the Guardian www.guardian.co.uk/profile/deyansudjic and Director of the Design Museum, London : The Language of Things (Penguin, 2008) is a really entertaining writer - from his personal experience and pleasure in designed objects, to decoding the cultural, economic, social, class, and gender values of the DNA of objects, he makes for fascinating reading about the designed world around us. He opens with a comment on the redundancy and obsolescence of consumer goods, and the social values that these imbue - the Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver 'have my mates around and be a domestic goddess / blokest with the mostest'. The trendy demographic of the audience that was Delia Smith's, when we all used to cohabit.

Sudjic makes the hamster wheel point eloquently: desirable object, imbues identity of family values combines with latest in technology. My mother was considering a Thermomix, rolling in at £1100 or thereabouts, but this machine facilitates the likes of molecular gastronomy a la Heston Blumenthal (don't we love him, he's so cute) but I'm glad the innocuous-looking machine hasn't appeared in her kitchen. It would be a pain to calibrate but it does make bechamel sauce in 3 minutes. Anyway, make more money, buy more toasters (toys/idols of family values), less time at home, built in redundancy, replace, go out and get more money... but he says it with style. Why didn't I quote him? I tore that page out earlier today and gave it to a friend who will sellotape it back in when she reads the book after me.

Anyway, back to the box. Sandel is in conversation with a Greek philosopher and a Greek sociologist, and they're standing in a street - a casual conversation but also also the most democratically owned space the the world. At one point, Sandel is talking to another Greek philosopher, but they're sitting in a grove of olive trees. The ongoing debate in my head about religion vs philosophy rages, but to put that aside...

They're discussing Aristotle - his life, work, the culture that he lived in, and the concepts and ideals that Aristotle handed down - it's obvious that there is little difference between these men's understandings of Aristotle as an academic entity, and morals, beliefs and a way of living that is part of their cultural heritage and understanding that is much a part of their daily life as Tescos' is for me. Here's the point - I had already started to destroy the book in my lap by tearing out the page, the damaging of a book, an object we value, generally, but the temporal nature of television communicated a new way of articulating for me a huge bugbear: how to be an adult.

An idiot, in Athenian Democracy, is a person concerned with the private, and a citizen concerned with the public : recognising that we are all political beings; public duty; and that character and virtue come from participation in civic life, coming to maturity in guiding public opinion. Although we are shaped by a national politic, the ideas of community, personal accountability and responsibility and participation are strong in my mind - how, as an adult, citizens are made through education - and although some are well educated, they still act like idiots with a gross disregard for their community.

I'm not talking about graffiti or teenagers on street corners, but it could easily go that way. Well, they were invited...

ooh, look at you!!

Drove by the installation of public art this morning - there was a woman looking at them... I reckon she was doing a Weenie Count.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Girls#Weenie_count

Peek-a-boo

This week, I became an auntie, for the first time. A gesture I'm prone to making, to clap hands, a sort of prayerful joyous notion, pops out of me when I'm really pleased, and a phrase from my Irish childhood popped into my head "bualadh bos" : to clap hands. I'm looking forward to bualadh bos and peek-a-boo with my new nephew.


This week, also, we've seen the unveiling of some site-specific art in the area. idea13.org/2011/01/farquhar That was all that was unveiled: unlike Tracy Emin, to choose the most obvious, but a still heroic stance on autobiography or, with Emin, autobiography is Art, which is only one step away from 'I am art', a Beuys/Duchamp Conceptual notion rooted in the '60's. Being in public, in the public eye ... Public art is notoriously difficult to negotiate, but I for one wasn't bualadh bos.


So I'm looking at this stuff, I'm wondering where any autobiographical content is, with this new work -  absent. I can't see anything. Should it be there? Or is it a comment on what is outside the realm of primary experience, the role of the observer? And it seems to me to be a purely cerebral action, the pomp, the ceremony (the absence of)... the conventions of white plinth... in a landscape rich in rolling hillocks, seashore and urban seaside fun - a modernist man-made construct that moves us no further forward than Le Corbusier's ideal of lifting humanity and humans from the ground, creating the high-rise as we know it. As if it were that grand! So this is the high-rise of urban art... On the other hand, it's a fight with me: a deliberation on which and how to say, why to say, and how much I want others to see of me, the personal and universal (- as if I were that grand!) Play peek-a-boo, but it's a serious game.

How could that artist put images of womens' bodies on plinths (to be accurate, images of women from the hip to knee: woman as vessel) and then accept or invite (through the existence of these objects, by merit of the subject matter) the reaction of the local teenagers (who will deface these artworks. What an open invitation - and - they're right on the doorstep of what has been a teenage haunt since the '60's.) Then to claim it as part of the artwork? How can the implications of : subject matter + public reaction = defacing women - or will the great unwashed stand back?

I maintain the illusion that I have some kind of control over what others see, and how they see it. And everyone seems to have this anxiety... it's where artists intervene in curation, dictate terms, orchestrate their own pop-ups, show in their own homes and are generally more concerned with circumstance, or to be fair, are as concerned with context, as they are with what it is that needs to be presented. That's not including those for whom installation creates a dialogue between context and object, a much more stimulating prospect rather than the conventional artist-hissy-fit (myself included). But to relinquish control as part of the artwork is just out of control.

Peek-a-boo! I was surprised today that there are others who see things I want to remain veiled, that I'm no Tracy Emin, and that's the way I want it to be. Now you see me, now you don't x

hoi pollio at FPG: scientia potentia est

I couldn't even see the work!!! How often do we have the pleasure of making that complaint - the last time for me was at tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/gauguin, post-mortem in extremis - a boundlessly comprehensive biography, but I had paid a hefty entrance fee for entry, as had everyone else... and in that instance, the complaint was slightly less pleasurable. At FPG, it's free, and the provenance and quality of the work is no less.

On South Essex (Southend On Sea)'s doorstep www.focalpoint.org.uk presented 'Anti-Photography', curated by Duncan Wooldridge, 17 January to 2 April 2011. It's a huge show, for that gallery as we knew it - the bells and smells of gallery iconography, white walls and dearth of artworks: FPG has just expanded - exploded, and so has the programme, now more clearly reflecting the vision of the gallery: "South Essex’s gallery for contemporary visual art, promoting and commissioning major solo exhibitions, group and thematic shows, a programme of events including performances, film screenings and talks, as well as offsite projects and temporary public artworks." 

It was great - Southend's Critical Mass had it's audience in raptures about Focal Point showing photography - it was originally a photography gallery; those for whom photography is maybe less important, and are more engaged in 'contemporary', and for those who want to have something to fire up the intellectual taste-buds, it's there. I found some of it a little inaccessible, and I'm one of those who will do their research before going out the door. Nevertheless, the ways in which FPG is making itself more publicly accessible has been met with alacrity, judging from the comments flying around yesterday.

I admit I really enjoyed the irony. There are those who will get on their bandwagon about FPG showing anything contemporary that is vaguely lens related, and possibly wonders how change has happened. A gallery committed to one discipline is a debate in and of itself, but to come from the legacy of being a photography gallery, present an 'Anti-Photography' exhibition comprised of a meticulously-curated proposition for the dematerialisation of the photograph, through the medium itself, as a springboard for contemporary practice and the multi-disciplinary approaches of artists is, to my mind, a very clear statement, and the communication of a vision for the future.


Coming from a 15-year career in art education, and being very fortunate to teach across the sectors, I've always started with what my audience knows, and take it from there - some will run ahead and we see leadership and authority in those who can express themselves with eloquence and clarity; those who are interested but find it difficult to grasp new ideas, ways of thinking, and decoding the sometimes oblique visual language of other artists; and those for whom an amount of contextualising information is essential to the introduction of previously unexplored work. It is pedagogic in approach, but 'knowledge is power' (scientia potentia est) creates a more common ownership of understanding, which is what I would want, for the personal experience to become a shared experience. But that's only my vision.

art book group, an expedition

So, I toddled along to find out what everyone else knew, didn't know, was doing, wasn't doing, got, didn't get, see a text being slid under the steak tenderizer, and surprisingly that text escaped relatively unharmed: tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/altermodern slid around the room like a socially-polished guest, and a polite one - it didn't outstay it's welcome, politely greeted by all and then promptly vaporized.

Scathing - but here it is: one of the things that seems to be in every artists toolkit is the ability to whip out the drum, at any and every given moment, and bash it as loudly as possible - the vocalisation of frustration, of the deep-seated desire to be heard, the velocity of opinion rooted in a conviction that it must be right if I say it again enough, and ashamed to add that I am one of that melee. A damning indictment of what was, in reality, a very pleasant evening, but the drumbeats near and far detracted from a more focused exploration of some of the concepts that Altermodern could bring.

To personify: Altermodern, I suspect, may have felt downhearted. The catalogue text, and the seminal amazon.com/Relational-Aesthetics-Nicolas-Bourriaud and amazon.com/Postproduction-Nicolas-Bourriaud are riveting books: to me, the equivalent of the Bible. It can do some of the same things: changes thinking, reframes the context in which I perceive and operate. Bourriaud uses exhibitions to ask a question, and writes papers/articles/books to draw these strands together. 

Socially engaged practice is a small but expanding field in terms of practitioners, and in my understanding this artform (not to be confused with media or material or 'stuffness', or discipline ie print, painting, sculpture) - this artform is an exchange, a dialogue between philosophy, religion, sociology, geography... It's related to 'socially-engaged practice', the high church of community art, a weird mix of the insanely autobiographical on the scale of a neuron, and the platform of the philosophically trancendental, mixed with the ideology of a '70's happening with the context of a techno-frenzied child.  Let's say I know what I do (which isn't always it), I know it when I see it, and go read the book yourself.  Bourriaud can be seen to be discussing AlterModern tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/altermodern, and also on youtube which is instantaneously accessible, and there ends this rant.

talking of reviewing - Cristin Leach

My father retired from his honourable profession, and then promptly went to Art College. His outlook and perception of art, the world, art and the world, the art world, the world and art, radically changed. He still lives in Ireland; I left nearly twenty years ago and I now live in the UK.

He recently pointed out an article 'Long Live the Critic' by Cristin Leach, an art critic for the Sunday Times Ireland. I was interested in what she had to say, and the pertinence of her points were delivered with a refreshing clarity.  I was also interested in the cultural differences of how effective communication is hampered or enhanced by cultural norms and expectations.

There is one thing that I wanted to pick up on. Leach says "No one enjoys receiving criticism, but most artists will admit that, once out of college, honest assessment of their work is rare and valuable." There was much gratification for me in this comment: that critical debate about art, in the flesh, is a rare and valuable thing; that a critical debate about one's own work with another person is also a rare and valuable thing, and that I had invested myself wisely in co-directing a new, small non-profit peer artist group, artistsmeet.co.uk, but there was a lot of me that sees the potential in a level playing field, as it were, of a range of artists of differing disciplines (that is, if we're at all defined by a discipline any more), experiences and aspirations, coming together to discuss whatever is put on the plate on that evening each month.

I was delighted that during the first year of artistsmeet, or MEET, that www.accessart.org.uk, based in Cambridge [The Studio Project provides provides an opportunity for museum and gallery educators (and teachers and practitioners) to network and share practice], and www.firstsite.uk.net in Colchester also set up peergroups, with differing intentions and outcomes - but the trend for an open, critical platform is expanding. 

But to commit to the written word is another thing altogether.....

writing reviews: Showflat @ Southend On Sea

Posted reviews on Showflat, a series of five events where artists open their own homes to the interested public: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/madelainemurphy

I had opened my home to the public a few years ago for a similar happening, a nerve-wracking experience, so I really felt the challenge for those who put themselves forward. In conversation with Laura Keeble, who was first to show (big fan of her work) I offered to write a review, and I did.

It's been an interesting experience to write about others work, not coming from the background of writing but coming from teaching and learning, and an appraisal of why good, why not so good is built into my psychological makeup. Anyway, I've had some reviews of my own work, where I've been baffled and puzzled as to some of the conclusions others have drawn (well, my work was abstract and process-based at the time and very open to interpretation/context) and hated the process - why was it in print before I had a chance to respond - why wasn't I approached beforehand? Why hadn't that person done their groundwork? Very happy that it can be a consultative, collaborative process - and in that, I was surprised as to whom wanted what said, as if words could be put into my mouth, but to be honest, faithful, to give the benefit of doubt, and the optimism to see the potential in others and their work is foremost for me.