Exercise 2: Interpreting video art

I found Sam Taylor-Wood's Still Life unappealing when I first started watching the time lapse video of rotting fruit. The fruit sits on a plate on a table against a dull, neutral background and gradually does what any living thing does when it dies: it decays. The camera stays in a fixed position during the shoot, meaning that the only movement to register in the frame is that of the subject itself.

Surprisingly, it does move. And this is what sets it apart from the "still life" tradition of painting that Taylor-Wood references both in the way she presents the fruit and in the title she gives the work. While still life paintings often hint symbolically and statically at decay, the artist uses time and technology to show the process at work. A plastic pen lying on the table belongs to the contemporary world and does not change during the video: its material has no life in it, or on it (as far as we can see). 

The movement in the video also suggests that even in the face of death there is "still life" present: spores and insects live on the host and change its shape while consuming it. There are ebbs and flows of mini "circles of life" taking place on and within the dead fruit. 

The key to seeing all this is the ability to play with time photographically, which allows us to remain attentive through a process for which we wouldn't usually have the patience or interest. Taylor-Wood might be saying to us, "Slow down: you're missing a lot of life." 

The same attentiveness to the passing of time and uncomfortable detail is present in a number of Taylor-Wood's other video works, such as A Little Death (2002; a time-lapse of a rotting rabbit's corpse), Pieta (2001; a real-time observation of a couple mirroring the pose of Michelangelo's sculpture), and Hysteria (1997; a video of a woman who seems to move gradually from joyous laughter to hysterics... and back again?).

The subject matter of Taylor-Wood's Still Life (and other works) does not always appeal to me but I can appreciate the way she uses time in her pieces. 

Case study: interpreting sound—Longplayer

The performance of Longplayer at the Roundhouse in 2009 was an invitation to step out of regular time. The piece represents a break from music most of us are familiar with in terms of pace, rhythm and lack of discernible repetition.

The sounds are rich and varied with a purity of tone created by Tibetan singing bowls that have likely been made of materials built to last. A team of musicians travels from bowl to bowl, striking them at intervals that might be scripted.
The music produced is reminiscent of long, interplanetary voyages in sci-fi films. It is contemplative and in no great hurry: the notes reverberate, have a slow decay, combine and overlap. There is no sense of the “progress” that we usually expect in a piece of music—we’re not building toward the resolution of a melody or theme.

We play no part in the performance but observe it from above. And in this position we can see that the bowls are arranged in a series of concentric circles that do remind us of the planets in their orbits. Or perhaps we are looking at the inner workings of a vast lock, with the bowls spaced at irregular intervals in their courses. Designed to run without repetition for a millennium, Longplayer’s orbits are independent of one another and, like any circle, have neither beginning nor end.

The music lulls the listener for a time but leaves us with more questions than answers. Where does the movement come from? Are musicians or listeners necessary? And how long can we listen without a sense of direction, achievement or satisfaction?

Exercise 1: The fourth dimension

This exercise marks the beginning of Project 2: Time and time-based media.

Make notes on your own thoughts about time

As someone who has done graduate work in theology and learned to read a couple of ancient languages I have certainly thought about time. I learned through those studies to pay close attention to issues of history, culture and language, all of which are directly affected by time. The understanding of ancient texts is aided by giving care to the history of interpretation and the realization of the distance that exists between our time and that of the first writers and readers or hearers. We have to be conscious of the temptation to project our own views onto the past and the future and resist making our own period normative. To interpret an ancient document faithfully is to try to inhabit—however imperfectly—the world of the text.

Even without formal study, the process of aging must encourage most people to think about time and its passing. It happens to us all (birth, growth, maturity, decline and death) and comes close to home as we see our children gain strength and our parents gradually lose theirs. And talking with family members has made me conscious of the malleability of memory as we realise from each other that the accuracy of the things we remember can change with the years. And that our frame of reference may not be theirs. Or completely reliable.

Have you thought about time in relation to artwork before?

Much of what I wrote above applies to artworks as well as to ancient texts: the role of time in shaping culture and interpretation, and even the decaying effect that it can have on physical materials. The further in time we are from the moment a piece was created, the more our world is not the world of the artist.

I also have a particular interest in photography which owes much of its power and interest to the way that the camera can play with time: 1/1000 of a second for this frame; four hours for this one. Photography allows us to experience and abstract time beyond the way our senses usually allow. A camera is a time machine.

Have you already come across pieces that explore what time is?

Again, photography is the obvious answer, whether it is Eadweard Muybridge's pictures of human and animal movement or Harold Edgerton's images of bullets frozen mid-way through fruit and playing cards. Time-lapse shots of passing clouds, waves and even passing seasons demonstrate how the camera can capture much longer periods. Painters also play with time for effect, whether subtly in the  memento mori pieces mentioned earlier in this course or more obviously in Salvador Dali's melting clocks.

In the last segment, the videos and articles on Damien Hirst's works also mentioned the effect that time can have on artistic materials themselves: sharks can rot even when swimming in formaldehyde.

Exercise 5: Finding out more

We are asked to find two examples of still life work that include pictures of fish, so I chose two pieces from the Bridgeman site and sketched them in my notebook (there is a reason why I am interested in writing and photography, rather than in painting or drawing!).

Sketches of two still lifes with fish, 05/03/2016

The two images and notes are as follows:

  1. Sandra Lawrence, Starfruit and Fish, 1999 (acrylic of canvas)
    I liked the symmetry of the fish in this image and the way their curves contrast with the angles of the starfruit. There is also a hint of realism about the painting.
     
  2. Reuven Rubin, Still Life with Anemones, (oil on canvas)
    This image appealed to me for quite different reasons—I liked the stylized flowers and fish lying on a copy of the Haaretz newspaper. The painting is evocative rather than realistic and I think a boat and a tree are to be seen through the curtains. To be honest, I didn't even notice the boat-like shape until I started to make this rough sketch of the painting. Perhaps one value of sketching is that it forces us to slow down and be more attentive to what is in front of us.

The other part of this exercise involved watching a Khan Academy video on Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The speakers on the video discussed possible interpretations of Hirst's piece as well as meaning in contemporary art. Like me, one of the participants wondered if the title of the work was a piece of wordplay and mentioned that he could interpret, but felt "like I would be making stuff up."

One of the participants gave a useful quotation from Marcel Duchamp to the effect that "a work of art is completed by the viewer." I think that is a helpful insight: the artist makes some choices for the audience (one participant says Hirst "has framed the shark for us") but it lies with the audience to bring something to the exchange. Once we get away from the older still life that we saw in the previous exercise, where there is a familiar frame of reference, the artist can suggest possibilities to an audience that may reply with a range of interpretations, expected or unexpected. I think this can be both exciting and unsettling all at once.

The other line of discussion had to do with the fact that we all face death and don't like it. Hirst's shark is a physical demonstration that in spite of extreme measures—up to and including formaldehyde tanks—we cannot escape the effects of time and, ultimately, death. One speaker mentions how mummified Egyptian kings are an example of how constant the fight against impermanence has been in human history. This brought the discussion back to the issue of meaning and how much of contemporary art turns around issues of philosophy, aesthetics and the limits of interpretation: "is this a grand joke if nothing is off-limits?" Well, if the viewer is responsible for helping to bring meaning to art, then there is likely no final and satisfying answer to that question.

The additional contextual information about The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was helpful in reassuring me that there is probably no final "meaning" for a given work of art and that we are instead drawn into a discussion. Some points of view may be more informed, richer and more suggestive than others, but none is likely to be "correct."

Grayson Perry — "Beating the Bounds"

The second of Grayson Perry's Reith Lectures explores the boundaries of art: what sort of things do and do not qualify as contemporary art? 

Perry acknowledges that establishing the limits of art is not easy and that "art" itself has only existed as a self-conscious category for the last few centuries. And although anything can be art (for example, Duchamp's Fountain), art can stop being "art." If this is the case,  there must be boundaries even if these are sometimes emotional in nature rather than intellectual. And we want to know where the bounds lie. As Perry says, "I want to know when to put on my art goggles."

To help us do that, Perry proposes eight tests for art: 

  1. Is it in a gallery or art context?
  2. Is it a boring version of something else? 
  3. Is it made by an artist? 
  4. Photography is problematic: is the subject smiling? Is there any staginess?
  5. The Limited Edition Test: "if something is endless it gives away some of its art quality." 
  6. The Handbag and Hipster Test: who is looking at it? Is there a queue? 
  7. The Rubbish Dump Test: would anyone notice it and pick it up? 
  8. The Computer Art Test: would it cause anyone to pause and think rather than click through? 

No one test is sufficient to establish the "art"label, but Perry sees them forming a Venn diagram "and the bit in the middle is art."

I think that, while we might quibble about one test or another, this is a helpful approach to identifying art. It combines a cluster of judgements that take in the creator, the created object/event, the venue and the audience(s). And although Perry doesn't mention it, it also acknowledges implicitly the role of time: if a piece is "a boring version of something else," enough time must have elapsed for multiple versions to have been created and become boring. The audience/response tests (numbers 6, 7 and 8) also presuppose that an audience has had time to gather and make judgements. Some of those judgements will stand the test of time; others will pass quickly.

As someone with an interest in photography, I'll need to chew on number 4 a bit more. I think this is the weakest of Perry's tests, but it reflects some of the lengthy discussion about the art status of photographic work. Perhaps part of the answer is that a photograph is just as susceptible to Perry's other seven questions as any other piece of work. It would then be up to him to demonstrate why photography doesn't fit his Venn diagram. If a urinal can meet the tests, why not a photograph?

Exercise 4: Looking at context

Looking at Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

Write down a few words giving your first reaction to the piece.  

Puzzlement; uncertainty; grasping at meaning

Do you have an emotional response to it? 

No, no particular emotional response. It leaves me unmoved. 

What do you think it's about? 

It's static, frozen artificially in time (won't rot like any natural dead thing would). The shark looks like it's alive and swimming, but it's not. It looks as though it is threatening, but it is not.  Is it a caricature of a shark or of life? Is it about the appearance of life in death? The persistence of memory? It's hard to say with any certainty. 

 What do you think about the title? 

The title is ambiguous: the impossibility of whose death -- the thinker's or someone being thought of? Is the title even related to the piece or is it a joke on the viewer?

 

Looking at Edwaert Collier's Still Life with a Volume of Wither's 'Emblemes,' 1696

 Write down a few words giving your first reaction to the piece.  

Visually rich; lots to explore; engages the mind

 Do you have an emotional response to it? 

There is some immediate comfort in the familiarity, but the piece feels old-fashioned and tired.

 What do you think it's about?

This was a fairly common type of painting, generally a lesson about the certainty of death and how that knowledge should inspire us to sober reflection and living.

 What do you think about the title?

The title is bluntly descriptive of the image, but doesn't allude to any deeper meaning. It does make me wonder what Wither's Emblemes was about, though.

 

Of the two works, Hirst's definitely makes me work harder. With Collier I'm on more familiar ground and have a frame of reference that helps me to interpret it, even if not completely or perfectly. With Hirst, I'm quite lost without a guide to help me understand. 

Exercise 3: Reading about art

This was a relatively straightforward exercise. The passage to be read from Art History: The Basics was quite short, but the discussion on the definition of "art" was engaging and the examples were helpful. Although I'm sure the writers won't leave the issue unresolved, they ask a question that probably goes through the minds of many people: has the definition of "art" been stretched to the point where it is meaningless? And their brief comments about the roles of culture, history and language point out that the understanding of art has evolved and will continue to do so.

I had never heard of the material "jesmonite" before, so I had to look it up. I now know that it is "a composite material used in fine arts, crafts, and construction. It consists of a gypsum-based material in an acrylic resin" (Wikipedia).

The short excerpt was enough to convince me that the book is probably one I should order for reading and reference. 

Exercise 2: What is art?

What is art?

This is obviously a tough one, but I think that almost anything that is a human creation or the result of a creative effort could be called art. But perhaps it takes more than that: perhaps there has to be some kind of intent on the part of the creator. I'm not sure about this, though—if enough people judge the result to be "art," does the one who performed or created it have to have intended it to be seen that way? How self-conscious do you have to be?

How do we know it is art?

I'm not sure about this, either. As I mentioned above, perhaps all creative work has the potential to be art. Grayson Perry's lecture ("Democracy has bad taste") suggests that quality in art is arrived at by a tribe. Could the same hold true for judging whether or not something is art at all?

Who decides what is art?

I'm not sure there can be an ultimate answer to this, but the judgement of the tribe or guild might be one place to start. The challenge with any guild, though, is that can become a closed shop—once it decides who is worthy it can then close the door to new people, ideas or approaches.

Does intent matter when judging what is art? Is reception the key? Is it enough if I decide that my work is art, regardless of what everyone else thinks?

If the simple fact that an item appears in a gallery makes it art, all we have done is hand over judgement to the gallery owner. Perhaps that is a good place to begin, but he or she is just one possible source of validation. Would others then be swayed by the gallery, rather than thinking about the value of the work itself?

Duchamp's statement about wanting "to put art back in the service of the mind" makes me wonder what he is opposing. Does he think that art has been in the service of the emotions? of sentiment? of fashion? of settled opinion? Perhaps he viewed his art as an opportunity to provoke thought. If that's the case, he must have seen Fountain as a success: it is not immediately clear why the artist views this piece as art, how he can offer it as his own work, and what the viewer is supposed to take away from it. The viewer can either reject the piece outright or be forced to think about questions of meaning.

 

Grayson Perry — "Democracy has bad taste"

I've just listened to the first of Grayson Perry's four Reith Lectures delivered in 2013. From the BBC podcast it sounds as though the lecture was great fun for all involved and Perry made a number of important points while entertaining his audience.

Through the series Perry promises to give his hearers some "tools to understand and appreciate art" from the standpoint of a practitioner rather than a member of academe. He suggests that the art world is often a "closed circle" and believes instead that "anyone can have a career in, or enjoy, the arts."

In this first lecture—"Democracy has bad taste"—Perry raises three questions related to quality in art:

  1. How do we tell if something is good?
  2. Who tells us?
  3. Does it matter?

Some of the biggest challenges arise from conflicting criteria for quality and a perceived tension between popularity and quality. "Quality," then, often breaks down to what Perry suggests has become an "empirical measure of art": the market. And the market's assessment depends on a series of actors who "validate" the quality of art: artists themselves, critics, the media, the public, collectors and dealers. Above them all come the curators who decide which art if of "museum quality."

"Seriousness" can be another measure of the quality of art, but Perry sees a couple of problems with this approach. One is that modern artists have been far too self-conscious about producing "art" and have become captive to complex theory and "international art English" to justify their work. Another problem is that the category of "seriousness" is not helpful when trying to assess some activities, such as participatory art.

Perry ends his lecture by suggesting that perhaps art is good when "enough of the right people think it's good" and that "good taste works within a tribe."

I think that Perry is on to something that helps us to bridge the gap between objective and subjective measures of quality. The decision that something is "good" doesn't just come down to anyone's opinion ("what I like"); it also depends on a gradually settled opinion among several broad groups of people in the art world. Ideally, these different groups will have seen enough art and considered it deeply enough that their opinions will be well-informed. As Perry says in answer to a question after his lecture, "should we expect to understand art right away?"

This also brings us back to the overarching theme for this course: time and place. A settled opinion on quality takes time to develop among particular groups of (hopefully informed) people. But settled opinions can change over time, so what was "museum quality" in one era might not be seen the same way in another.

All told, the lecture was provocative and a lot of fun, so I think I may end up listening to the remaining three in the series. Good stuff!