Wednesday 27 October 2010

was ist nicht neues?

complex answers are needed in complex times.

A rhetoric that is understandable, yes, not esoteric, yes, but one that can deal with the issues we face.

times are hard, yes, making ends meet is hard, yes, but really what power do you think we, as artists, have?

As a friend of mine recently stated:

Art Heals, but can it empty a bedpan? Why should the arts survive the cuts?

Performing in public spheres, non consensually, will and should provoke a wide range of responses. I was punched in the back in Leeds doing a live art piece by Claire Blundell-Jones in which couples conveened and kissed for ten minutes then dispersed, this attack was homophobic, but, at least they are showing some sort of interest. What will you sacrifice? Where will you draw the line? In our work we bleed, we get hurt, we abuse our own bodies, we endure it and it is fascinating.

WE NEED A STRONG SENSE OF BEING A MOVEMENT and a MOVEMENT NEEDS COVERAGE and coverage is created by CONTROVERSY.

A CALL TO ARMS.

Is it really all about slavework? Not to me, part of it is about slavework, yes, but without that I wouldn't be able to create the liberating aspects of my daily routine. I wouldnt be able to produce and present work and events. Still the system sucks, but what can we do about it? Critique it, intervene in ways that create commotion and commentary (a bit like being arrested, beatedm abused), find a nuanced way to saw at the paradigm we operate under. Not a simple answer though. Never a simple answer. An answer with entendre. An answer with variable intended meanings.

recessions often purge the art world.
a good flush and some quality control.

Yes funding is dubiously splashed around to organisations, many of which seem reighteous and community led. But there isn't enough money for every one to get some, so there has to be some sort of criteria. "I make art, give me money!" doesn't quite hold up. IMPACT and QUALITY.

We can utilise the DIY culture prevelant in the live art scene.
We can make interventions and actions that question what it all means.
we can MAKE.

3 comments:

  1. Yes, our art (live action) can empty a bed pan... I don't feel/think/believe that the cuts should be happen as they are. So, yes The Arts should be exempt from them - Take money from war funds, cap banker and celbrity (ostentatious) salaries. Two simple ways to recoupe astonishing amounts of capital.

    I am sure you are anti cuts also andrew, no?

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  2. I am definitelty anti-cuts, but realistically they are going to happen/have began to happen. WE have to look at services in a prioritised order of neccessity. If I am starving and poor I would rather buy bread than flowers with what little money I have. Obviously there are better ways to fill-the-void, but I we really so blind to see that they won't happen?

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  3. I've seen a few evict events now across some different venues and will certainly be there again in the future. There is a strong sense of mutrality through the works, and somehow without the different artists appearing similar. I have to agree that the work is fascinating, though seeing people hurt themselves is for me only quite deeply upsetting and evocative of concern for the individual. Is this concern for an artist who suffers along with others for their occupation ? Suffering is common as life under the bolsheviks, as life encaged in capitolists people farms - what liberty they sell !

    This evocation of suffering, soundly humanistic, is not a new concern for the artist. Who could say that human suffering does not have a place in art ? We appear as the inferno embodied in masses sprawling across magnificent natural landscapes; we reach to the heavens; suffering, fragility, vulnerability, sensitivity: it is wonderfully human, it's a question for us still and one which as yet seems to have a proper place in the frameworks which hold our society. Charity its self seems so often to allude towards more sinister motivation.

    Perhaps there should be truth in work, but does the observer ever do more than believe what they see, however their thoughts may be evoked ? Your artforms ask questions and draw the mind one ways both lucid and familiar. They draw upon humanity and embody situations of what it means for us to be alive, but Is there any aspect in this live art (artists performance / bodily art work) which is less figural, yet less profound ? I see, I think, I believe, but I want to stop people from being hurt regardless of the situation.

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