Interesting to me personally, not least because I had the dubious privilege of living on the Heygate for 11 years. Harrumphh...
Some good analysis in the article. Organisations such as Artangel always make me suspicious. Why? Because they hold power over artists in as much as they decide what and who to fund. This reterritorialising is the same old story. Art is indefinable by its nature. It is invisible and hides itself in the cracks of crumbling monstrosities such as Claydon. Sprouting like a vine or flowing like a bleeding wound, within the corporate concrete these impossible rickety Paul Klee structures of nonsense are merely a reaction to life. A fantastic comic opera. The best art ain’t art mate - gettit. but Getty will never get it, nor Artangels nor even the likes of Lighthouse in Bton. For they are merely the administrators and purveyors of privilege. Best to fart about in the streets like Vonnegut said - or self organise. Simon On 21 Apr 2014, at 15:04, Edward Picot <[email protected]> wrote: > Extremely interesting article! I found myself both agreeing and disagreeing > with it at various points. I've never been a believer that art should have to > be politically correct as a first condition of existence, and in fact I don't > think it's a weakness for art to be deliberately ambiguous and create a space > which people feel obliged to fill with their own interpretations. There are > points where this article seems to be suggesting that ambiguity isn't good > enough - you have to take sides and state your political position loud and > clear - anything else is a cop-out. On the other hand, I do share a distaste > for "monumental" works of art which are "airlifted" into policitally > sensitive situations in order to borrow a suggestion of "relevance", without > engaging with the people or the issues on the ground. As the article says, > "Ignorant of their own class power and the cultural capital that oils it, > they [Artangel] still want to place art wherever they choose, even when told > quite forcefully why it’s insensitive and dodgy by those who suffer the > material consequences of demolition." > > Of course this is a one-sided account of the project and its eventual > collapse, but it does leave you with the distinct impression that Artangel > were simply lazy. They had an off-the-shelf project and they were looking for > a "suitable" space into which they could plonk it, and it was too much like > hard work for them to get in touch with the locals at the outset, get them on > board, and risk having to revise the project to take account of their views. > But the subtext of the article is that the underlying reason for this failure > is that the art/business/local politics nexus from which organisations such > as Artangel draw their financial support has the long-term effect of > gentrifying them and detaching them from community engagement. No doubt this > is an argument in which Mark and Ruth are both extremely, perhaps even > painfully, interested, as they're so conspicuously trying to tread a > different path, and finding it a financially difficult one. > > - Edward > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
