Unlike many community-based projects, the philosophy behind “Made for You” centres more on the practicality of artists themselves, rather than the idea of introducing the practice of art into a local area. Kate elaborates, “We’ve worked a lot in communities in the past, where it’s about engaging with the people to come and do art. With Made for You, the emphasis is ‘what can our practice bring to that area?’” The pair have created pieces such as a neon sign spelling out “Stallion” for a local barber, “who had his window broken and couldn’t afford to have his sign put back”, to more dialogical pieces, like the old images of Parson Cross, placed in a local cafe.
Yet, the artists decided to create two ofeach piece, one for the shop, and one for their official exhibition in Yorkshire Artspace. Steve explains, “We were really keen that the project wasn’t a documentation of life in Parson Cross. If you take images from a certain area and put them in the gallery space, it’s very easy for them to become like –a piece of anthropology- and we were really keen not to do that.” Through producing a second edition of each piece for the gallery space, the project has an added dimension in the form of contextual investigation . Did people see it as art when it is a shop sign in the barbers? Were gallery visitors confused at seeing these pieces on a bare canvas?
In the environment of the gallery, Steve notes “Some people didn’t get it, but we never intended it to be open to the public without one of us being there, we always wanted to chat to people, to explain, to understand their reactions. But of course the way galleries are, sometimes people don’t want to chat. They expect to come in, to look at the work, engage with the work and be able to take what they want from it. It was always our intention that we wouldn’t put loads of documentation in there, because it’s just an example of it being somewhere else- hence changing people’s views.” In reference to placing the second edition of pieces in a gallery room, Kate argues,“ If you buy an edition of prints, it’s a multiple.
You don’t have to reference where the first print went when you hang up your version in your front room”. This point is all too true. Art is for personal enjoyment, recreation, and interpretation. After all, Bansky prints hanging up in million pound flats are a far cry from the back streets of Bristol, whilst hanging up a print of Warhol’s infamous Marilyn, is unlikely to change a student bedroom into Studio 54. Kate concludes ,“It doesn’t make any sense to reference the context of the other pieces. It’s about seeing them as their own separate pieces of work.” Of course, experimenting with the context of art, the idea that “a museum makes art-art, and it’s art that makes museums”, is something that has been explored in the creative world for years. In the 1970’s the Artists Placement Group took their work out of the gallery, and placed it back into the real world, with the slogan ‘Context is half the work’.
Made For You is a modern exhibitor of how the value of an identical piece of work can change dramatically when the context is changed. Steve adds, “In my position, I feel more proud of the work we’ve put in the shops because I felt like I did something useful. It was like a gift. The transaction wasn’t about money. People wanted to give us money, but we’d settle on a cup of tea and some sandwiches. It was an interesting, personal, project. Each piece has its own little story attached to it”. So how did the pair decide on what pieces to produce for each shop? Steve sighs, “That was the most difficult thing. Some people really wanted something but they weren’t really sure what they wanted and we didn’t want to give something they didn’t want. It was about talking and coming up with practical solutions.” It seems that the pair’s “practical” approach to art is refreshing, yet relevant, to today’s financial climate, making conceptual art seem almost inadequate. However Kate disagreeswith my initial opinion , “It’s just about nature of audience. If conceptual art is for a studied arts audience, it’s not necessarily for everybody. We’re interested in making work that’s relevant within an art world, asking difficult questions, being contemporary, whilst making work that sits rightly and correctly in a social setting in the real world- we struggle and step a fine line on trying to make it work on both sides.” Steve interjects, “Often when situations take a turn for the worst, it encourages people to work harder, or take a new and better stance on things. There is massive potential for really positive change to happen in terms of the arts cuts.”
The optimism of Steve seems to buck the current feelings of pessimism in the country, brought about by the financial crisis, but he backs its up. “When the cuts first happened I was a bit ‘oh no!’–but Kate was saying it will make things better, it will make things more focused, there will be less waste- and she was right. We need this kind of stuff to happen because people need to change and adapt. Purposeful art has become important and perhaps some of the less purposeful art is more about money, capitalism..” But will the arts cuts reduce the production of art? “People will always be creative because it’s a human need. Being able to work as artists like we have for the past fifteen years will probably not be as tenable, but will people still be making art?- Almost definitely. In future, perhaps art will become purposeful again, because historically, that’s what it’s always been”
By Lizzy Short
No comments:
Post a Comment