From Object to Project
Against a backdrop of competitive ambitions fostered by the Art World, among artists to achieve recognition in exchange for producing high end commodities, I believe that Art gains from not been used for self-obssessed — narcissistic — pursuits of self-expression and as self affirmation [against others (artists, the public, institutional indifference...)] according to the tenets of an 'aesthetic Darwinism' — but, rather, to approach art with a socially responsibler ethos, that treats art-making as a form of enquiry about the world, our place within it ,and our relation to others, where we come from, where we are nor, and where we may be going, in the future.
The ideology of Art that produces inflated commodities and narcissistic egos cannot claim, at the same time, to preserve what is most significant about contemporary Art, just because it annoints some its products with institutional validation/recognition.
Over the years, disatisfaction with the art world — private and public — has led me to develop an artistic practice that is not 'OBJECT-based' but 'PROJECT-oriented'.
This has taken the form of collaborative interventions that use art as a research tool and as a methodology for enquiry; to make sense of the world (the small portions that each of us get the chance to enter in contact and interact with) and, when relevant, to explore ways in which a situation/s encountered on the ground may be responded to with appropriate actions.
The methodology of Action Research has provided a useful model to evaluate our progress on an on-going basis, drawing our attention to the assumptions we unconsciously build upon, and upon their implications on our decisions and achievements.
The position of Director of the MA course in Visual Arts — 'Art Making . Curation . Criticism' — at i.a.d.t., Dublin, gave me the opportunity to reflect about the relation between three forms of practices that are normally carried out by different people; but that, over the years, I had come to integrate in a unified practice.
Las Vegas
For me this coming together of practices started with the group project 'A Sense of Place: Las Vegas', that I led and curated, whilst teaching at the University of West of England, Bristol.
The project involved using Art as a tool for research, and treagting field work as a basis for making strategic interventions,
The emphasis was on process, and the outcome was not intended to culminate in 'art objects' but, more to the point, in 'visual propositions' expressed in different media and presented in a multi disciplinary contexts.
These propositions were presented, shortly after our return, in the form of interactive exhibitions that involved architects, planners as well as artists and designers, two galleries and two universities.
London-Istanbul
My appointment as senior research fellow at the University of the Arts, to promote research among staff and post-graduate students, led me to set up an other live project that would take a team from London to Istanbul, to undertake a residency and work on a series of complementary projects, alongside and in close communication with artists from Istanbul.
The outcome was more productive and far-reaching, for we secured publication in the prestigious Baseline magazine, as well as exhibitions at several venues, before the project was finalized.
Dissemination took the form of a large exhibition at Aksanat Gallery in Istanbul, who also published a substantial catalogue (available from the gallery).
ZKM, Karlsruhe
The most significant or relevant artistic contributions were selected for inclusion, by two other curators, in an exhibition at ZKM, Karlsruhe, under the unified theme of Istanbul.
Thus, projects developed individually-collectively in a particular context, came to manifest themselves again in a different context; encouraging us to critically reflect on what we had done, and about the shift of meanings and significance opened by these changes.
The Lesson to be Learnt
These projects exposed the limitations of working too individualistically, without considering the implications of our actions on the overall project and on the interventions of other participants.
At one point, when some participants strived to ring-fence their individual interventions instead of engaging in open forms of collaboration, dialogue with colleagues, and refused to challenge their assumptions (according to the principles of action research that we had agreed on), a natural selection had to be made about who could continue with the next step that took us again to Istanbul then to ZKM.
Bangkok; The House Project
The invitation to Bangkok to promote research among staff and post-grad students led to the formulation of the House Project; a project that would bring together different visual practitioners to investigate the excentric behaviour of a man who was trying to rebuild his house, destroyed eighteen years previously by a fire, but seemed, like Sisyphus, condemned to an eternal failure.
Against a backdrop of competitive ambitions fostered by the Art World, among artists to achieve recognition in exchange for producing high end commodities, I believe that Art gains from not been used for self-obssessed — narcissistic — pursuits of self-expression and as self affirmation [against others (artists, the public, institutional indifference...)] according to the tenets of an 'aesthetic Darwinism' — but, rather, to approach art with a socially responsibler ethos, that treats art-making as a form of enquiry about the world, our place within it ,and our relation to others, where we come from, where we are nor, and where we may be going, in the future.
The ideology of Art that produces inflated commodities and narcissistic egos cannot claim, at the same time, to preserve what is most significant about contemporary Art, just because it annoints some its products with institutional validation/recognition.
Over the years, disatisfaction with the art world — private and public — has led me to develop an artistic practice that is not 'OBJECT-based' but 'PROJECT-oriented'.
This has taken the form of collaborative interventions that use art as a research tool and as a methodology for enquiry; to make sense of the world (the small portions that each of us get the chance to enter in contact and interact with) and, when relevant, to explore ways in which a situation/s encountered on the ground may be responded to with appropriate actions.
The methodology of Action Research has provided a useful model to evaluate our progress on an on-going basis, drawing our attention to the assumptions we unconsciously build upon, and upon their implications on our decisions and achievements.
* * *
The position of Director of the MA course in Visual Arts — 'Art Making . Curation . Criticism' — at i.a.d.t., Dublin, gave me the opportunity to reflect about the relation between three forms of practices that are normally carried out by different people; but that, over the years, I had come to integrate in a unified practice.
Las Vegas
For me this coming together of practices started with the group project 'A Sense of Place: Las Vegas', that I led and curated, whilst teaching at the University of West of England, Bristol.
The project involved using Art as a tool for research, and treagting field work as a basis for making strategic interventions,
The emphasis was on process, and the outcome was not intended to culminate in 'art objects' but, more to the point, in 'visual propositions' expressed in different media and presented in a multi disciplinary contexts.
These propositions were presented, shortly after our return, in the form of interactive exhibitions that involved architects, planners as well as artists and designers, two galleries and two universities.
London-Istanbul
My appointment as senior research fellow at the University of the Arts, to promote research among staff and post-graduate students, led me to set up an other live project that would take a team from London to Istanbul, to undertake a residency and work on a series of complementary projects, alongside and in close communication with artists from Istanbul.
The outcome was more productive and far-reaching, for we secured publication in the prestigious Baseline magazine, as well as exhibitions at several venues, before the project was finalized.
Dissemination took the form of a large exhibition at Aksanat Gallery in Istanbul, who also published a substantial catalogue (available from the gallery).
ZKM, Karlsruhe
The most significant or relevant artistic contributions were selected for inclusion, by two other curators, in an exhibition at ZKM, Karlsruhe, under the unified theme of Istanbul.
Thus, projects developed individually-collectively in a particular context, came to manifest themselves again in a different context; encouraging us to critically reflect on what we had done, and about the shift of meanings and significance opened by these changes.
The Lesson to be Learnt
These projects exposed the limitations of working too individualistically, without considering the implications of our actions on the overall project and on the interventions of other participants.
At one point, when some participants strived to ring-fence their individual interventions instead of engaging in open forms of collaboration, dialogue with colleagues, and refused to challenge their assumptions (according to the principles of action research that we had agreed on), a natural selection had to be made about who could continue with the next step that took us again to Istanbul then to ZKM.
Bangkok; The House Project
The invitation to Bangkok to promote research among staff and post-grad students led to the formulation of the House Project; a project that would bring together different visual practitioners to investigate the excentric behaviour of a man who was trying to rebuild his house, destroyed eighteen years previously by a fire, but seemed, like Sisyphus, condemned to an eternal failure.
