Indirect Exchange

by Ruth Barker, 8 Aug 2011

Hello,

On Friday I went to The indirect exchange of uncertain value: the performance of public art; a symposium to coincide with the launch of Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan’s new off-site project for Collective, sited at Fettes College in Edinburgh.

On the train on the way to Edinburgh, I noticed this in the Metro (below). Later I Googled it and found this. Actually, judging by the comments below the article, local opinion seems to be divided.

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As I walked in the glorious sunshine I passed by St Andrews Square and saw this:

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- It’s the Edinburgh Arts Festival’s Solar Pavillion, designed by Karen Forbes. Looks great in the garden, and I hope it’ll be well used.

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When I got to the college, I spent much of the day with a vague and persistent sense that I should be doffing my cap to someone. Fettes is unbelievably … well – just look at it. Gosh.

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But the day was great – a really well developed series of speakers who delivered a brilliant series of presentations:

10.30 – 11.30
Registration, optional tour of Fettes

11.30 – 12 o’clock
Tom Leonard: Poetry Reading

12 o’clock – 12.45
Fiona Jardine; The Transfiguration of the Commonplace

12.45 – 1.45
Lunch, optional tour of Fettes

1.45 – 2.30
Elizabeth Price; Artist’s talk

2.30 – 3.15
Chris Evans; performance event – I don’t know if I’ve explained myself

1.15 – 4.30
Owen Hatherley; Militant Modernism

4.30 – 5.30
Vito Acconci; OPERATING (ON) PERSONS PLACES & THINGS

5.30 – 6.30
snacks, optional tour of Fettes

6.30 Public preview of the project.

I was particularly impressed I think, with how well each presentation stood on it’s own as an invitation to a train of thought, but also how each related both to other speakers’ presentations – and to Tom & Joanne’s work outside. The ‘curation’ of the day was impeccable.

Tom’s poetry reading (from Outside the Narrative) was warm and sincere and brilliant. Watch a clip of him reading here. He’s got an amazing voice

Fiona gave a very incisive lecture from which I made a lot of notes, but I really liked the way that she connected ideas. Resonant for me me was her phrase about writing being a technical extension of presence, which she went on the relate to the image of a railway. Her thoughts around ‘the commonplace’ as a physical / non physical location of shared knowledge started a lot of thoughts that I’m sure I’ll return to.

I had seen Elisabeth Price’s work User Group Disco at the British Art Show so it was great to hear her talk about the work – and others – in more depth. Again, the connections to Tom & Joanne’s work were really interesting, and I began to think about how important shifts in languages are to all the speakers’ practices so far.

Chris Evans’ performance event – in which a small group of people sit in another room and discuss a work that they have previously seen, which an audience watched them via video link – was unexpectedly funny, and intensely human. The work in question was Rosemary Trockel’s Goodbye Mrs. Monipaer, a short film that The Sculpture Center in New York describes as “a cinematic pantomime that explores the psychologically fraught role-playing that can emerge between artists and gallerists, studio and market concerns, and private and public selves.” Again, I found myself thinking a lot about questions of articulation, language, and miscommunication.

The next presentation was the only one I had reservations about. Owen Hatherley was talking about his research into the aesthetics and ideologies of housing schemes’ architecture – with particular reference to social housing in urban centres. There’s a wiki summary of his book here. I just didn’t warm to this – maybe I found it too dislocated from it’s context (the examples were all English, and though he was speaking in Scotland, this wasn’t contextualised). Or maybe I just found Owen’s presentation a bit divorced from the actual experience of these landscapes. His was very much a view from the outside looking in, and one which I (who grew up in an inner city housing estate) didn’t particularly recognise. In a literal sense, he kept talking about the external facades and appearance of these schemes. It’s funny, but when you live there, that’s not the bit that you find interesting.

But the final presentation more than made up for it. Vito Acconci was brilliant! He gave a long (well over time) and perfectly pitched artist’s talk, which gave an incredibly generous insight into the evolution of his practice. I really was blown away by it.

There are loads of moments that I could pick out, but one will have to do, otherwise this post will be far too long. As Vito began to move from making gallery projects and performances into making architecture (his current practice, as Acconci Studio) he went by way of public art. An important source of funding for him at the time was the much discussed 1% for art policy. But, as Vito pointed out, 1% for art can also be a statement of worth: if you’re allotting 1% of the funds to art and 99% to architecture, then maybe you’re also saying that art is worth 1% of what architecture is worth. And maybe that’s worth thinking about. It made Vito think about making architecture, rather than art.

Anyway, it’s important to reiterate that what was tying that whole day together was the presence of the work outside, which I thought was just great. You can find out more information about the work through Collective I haven’t posted many images deliberately, as I think you need to go an see it for yourselves! Book your tickets here

More later,

R

- PS Big Hello to Geraldine Heaney! It was good to finally meet you. I also saw the lovely Lyndsay Mann who reminded me about The Agent RIA’s project Spelling the Myth; and Damian Killeen who gave me a flier for Big Things On The Beach’s Public Art Fest. There’s certainly a lot on at the Festival this year!