Far Niente or Why bother?

Rotterdam continues to fulfil all my exhibition expectations, some of the work I have seen whilst staying in Holland has been incredibly refreshing.
Cosima Von Bonin’s Far Niente for Witte De With’s Sloth Section, Loop #01 of the Lazy Susan Series, a Rotating Exhibition 2010-2011 is one of those exhibitions. It may be because I had never come across her work before and so had no previous understanding of how she works, what she works with or about but for my continued search for clarity her exhibition at Witte De With seems very important. I take Von Bonin’s exhibition as the first time that I as a viewer wasn’t troubled with the need for intention and experience to match up.


As with most exhibitions as I entered I was handed a leaflet that was intended to explain the works shown and the artists practice to the viewer. This time I decided not to read through the information before viewing the exhibition, mainly I think because I had already spied a giant orange octopus that I couldn’t wait to see closer. Therefore the only understanding of what to expect previous to viewing the exhibition was the description on the website;

 “With her typical laconic humor, Von Bonin creates a constellation of new and existing works. From oversized stuffed animals to sewn fabrics, from pastiches of minimalist sculptures to recreations of shop display systems, her work blends formalism and pop, oscillating between seriousness and fun, weighed down with melancholy or fizzing with critical wit.”

And that was exactly what I was met with. Visually the work is incredibly engrossing, with 38 pieces in a relatively small exhibition space and all the pieces together creating the feeling of being in a soft toy version of a crazed theme park. The exhibition was so intriguing to walk around and simply take in that it wasn’t until afterwards that I read through the information leaflet I was given. It was at this point that I started to view Von Bonin’s exhibition as an interesting example in the ever existent question of artist intention versus audience experience. One of my greatest conundrums in my art practice is this importance I put on the audiences understanding of my work. Can a piece of art still be successful if the audience doesn’t read into the work and see the artist’s intention? Obviously this is a huge question, entirely related to the cloud that hangs over the whole art world and reads ‘what is art?’ Personally I struggle with audience reception in terms of modern or contemporary art. It is a lot easier to look at an old master and appreciate the skill of the painter then to look at a cow that has been cut in half and find any sort of meaning let alone an aesthetic interest.

Influences of Von Bonin’s works in this exhibition are listed as; sloth, fatigue, smoking encouraged, the pleasures of the idler, and the devil makes work for idle hands. The information leaflet is an A3 page full of details on the inspiration for the works. Reading through it post viewing I can now see the ideas that Von Bonin was working with and link them to certain pieces. We are informed that “Von Bonin’s animals are clearly fatigued. They snooze blatantly before our very eyes, provoking irritation by our exclusion from their daydreams, or envy at their flagrant decision to give way to their fatigue.” When viewing the exhibition I didn’t see the fatigue in the animals and I wasn’t irritated by my supposed exclusion from their daydreams, now having read the leaflet I can see the fatigue and sloth inspiration. Normally this would confuse me, surely a piece of work should be able to convey the artist’s intentions to the audience, and if it doesn’t then what is the point or success of the piece? However this time I was able to separate the two areas of intention and experience. Whilst walking around the exhibition the pieces themselves become the subject matter, not the intention behind them. The juxtaposition of fabrics next to wooden structures, smooth reflective services next to embroidered canvases became the event for me, not the search for understanding. The information leaflet offers a nod to this experience as it says “despite (or perhaps due to) their very material nature, the works’ meaning slips through your grasp, or flutters temptingly on the horizon, then vanishes, leaving nothing but the faint echo of a knowing chuckle.” This for me is the success of the work and the exhibition a whole.

Understanding that everyone approaches art in different ways I am aware that some people may read this and simply dismiss it as obvious, others may say that the intention is paramount. For me however it is an interesting step, the realisation that the success of a piece doesn’t have to be found in the ability to read the artist’s intention. Neither does the success of a piece have to be found in the aesthetic beauty of a work, for me Von Bonin’s work is not a favourite, but as the leaflet says “if you follow its merry dance, adopt its laid back , West Coast attitude (present even in the greyness of Cologne, the nononsenseness of Rotterdam), it will delight, inspire, confuse and calm in equal measure.”

From Top
(First image) Thrown out of Drama School, 2008,Tweed, towelling, cotton, silk, leather, plastic, chain, 195x180x100cm. Untitled (The Donkey with Hat & Box, 2006, Tweed, stuffing, MDF, paint, 160x82x42cm. (Second Image) Mundane Pizzazz, 2008, Loden, cotton, 233x147cm. A Life Coach Less Ordinary, 2008, Cotton, silk, 248x186cm. Flawless (The Apprentice #1), 2009, Wool, Cotton, 194x148cm. Pessimismus Der Reife, 2008, Cotton, Wool, 247x153cm. (Third Image) England (Sloth Beardsley Version & MVO's Cosimos Songs), 2007/2010, Hut: wood, cardboard, steel, paint 196x162x162com, Rabbit: Beardsley print cotton, stuffing, 135x60x70cm. (Fourth image) Missy Misdemeanour (The Vomiting White Chick, Riley [Loop #5], MVO's Voodoo Beat & MVO's Rocket Blast Beat), 2010, Rocket: PVC, steel, glass fiber, polyester,sonus speaker, sennheiser speaker, paint, 162x132x900cm, Chick: cotton, stuffing, velour, 160x114x120cm. (Fifth Image) Privato, 2010, iron, paint, 30x110cm. Total Produce (Morality), 2010, Base: various fabrics, stuffing, wood, fluorescent lights 25x230x250cm, Octopus: various fabrics, stuffing, 220x220x60cm.

Poste restante. Theory and practice

I’m currently in Rotterdam on an artist residency. Much like the aim of this blog I came to Rotterdam to gain some understanding and produce some work. I have been here a month and have managed to solidify nothing and confuse myself even more. Trying to force a city to stimulate work has proved stupid, what could It or I possibly have to say about each other? It is the first time I've lived away from London, being by myself almost all the time is hard, the port and the docks are beautiful but I still haven’t figured out what to do with this information. Surely this new environment should change and inspire my practice in some way? 

On the other hand my exhibition expectations have been fulfilled.

1. Nan Goldin Poste Restante at the Nederlands Fotomuseum

This exhibition put me in mind of John Berger’s television series Ways of Seeing which I recently watched my way through. Produced in 1972 for the BBC the four-part television series was adapted from Berger’s book of the same title. It criticised ‘traditional Western cultural aesthetics by raising questions about hidden ideologies in visual images’ particularly focusing on the tradition of oil painting. Although dated in style the critical theory still stands up to discussion, if only because society seems to still live by and consume these ‘traditional Western culture aesthetics’ that Berger criticised over thirty years ago.

The second episode is on the female nude and the following is an exert of how Berger began;

“A woman is always accompanied, except when quite alone, perhaps even then by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or weeping at the death of her father she cannot avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she is taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others and particularly how she appears to men is of critical importance for it is normally thought of as the success of her life. A woman in the culture of privileged Europeans is first and foremost a sight to be looked at.”

After hearing this quote from Berger and visiting the Nan Goldin exhibition I was struck how readable the sentiment expressed in the extract was in Goldin’s work. The exhibition was made up of three new collages of photographs and four slide shows set to specifically chosen music. The slide shows were indicative of this habitual surveying that Berger suggests. Goldin not only surveys her own physicality through direct self portraits and mirror shots but she also surveys herself through her friends and family. Using these slide shows she creates an exploration and explanation of who she is, where she comes from and how through time she ended up as she is now. Her photos have the quality of snapshots and the subjects range from drug addiction, to her friends having sex, from transvestites to domestic abuse. They are gritty and beautiful, realistic and ridiculous because we aren’t used to being faced with such true images of life presented as idealistic memories, which is the feeling that is, for me, created through the specifically selected ‘soundtracks’ to each piece.

Here the gender of the glance doesn’t play such a big role as it did to Berger’s argument in 1972 but Goldin certainly feels the need to “survey everything she is and everything she does.” How Goldin is appearing to others is of critical importance, not only because she has created a situation where this appearance is her livelihood but also because she plays to this idea that she is only something, her life is only something, her friends and her relationships are only something if they are being looked at, therefore qualifying them. She is subject to constant surveying; as an artist she surveys herself, then as an artist she surveys her audience's reaction and then there is the audience actually surveying her.

From Top; 

Simon and Jessika Makng Love, Jessika Coming, Paris, 2001. ‘Nan One Month After Being Battered’, 1984. Nan as a dominatrix, Boston, 1978. Simon + Jessica In The Shower, Paris. Self Portrait in my Blue Bathroom, Berlin.

On finding a hint.

As an Art graduate the assumption is that I should know why I produce. Or maybe that’s my own assumption. Whether my difficulties with being an art practitioner come from my taught awareness of other people’s expectations of visual art or my own expectations of what I think art should be, I’m not sure.  The fact is I don’t know why I have this desire to produce and I certainly don’t know what to do with it. Most of the time I’m not even producing anything so wrapped up am I in trying to do it the right way. It goes like this; a stimulus, an idea, research, a beginning and a final piece. Doesn’t it? Aren’t we meant to be trying to resolve something, even when we don’t mean to? A lot of the time I struggle with the echoing knowledge that really, when it comes down to it, my practice has very little to say or point out that other people will be interested in, or that other people haven’t said or highlighted before. I am constricted by my worry that there has to be a point to it all, and an innovative one at that, but if there is I can’t for the life of me pin it down.  

I clearly don’t have a clue. So I’m trying to find one. Just a small clue will be fine. I reason that a good way to understand why I have a desire to practice art is to examine it. To lay out what I see, read, visit, produce, and muse about and somewhere in there I will find a way to approach my practice that doesn’t fill me with the fear of expectations or explanations.