Latest articles for GoMA Partners Project - Commentary by Artist-in-Residence Anthony Schrag.

• Impossible Questions and Simple Answers.

  by Anthony Schrag 21 Oct 2007

  Its been 2 weeks since I dumped a bunch of councilors and curators and arts administrators in a field in Toryglen. I’m currently wading through the 9 hours of documentation, filtering out the inconsequential and trying to shift it into something that makes sense.

  It strikes me as amazing, that a project I’ve worked on so diligently for months and months can be suddenly become something so wholly different, have such a completely different shape, and even though its my work, and I planned it, be almost unrecognizable to me. I’m still happy with it, and it did all the things I wanted it to do, yes, but I suppose (again) it reveals the very nature of any live art event (or, indeed, any public event – something not so hermetically sealed within the confines of a gallery) In these works, there is a collaboration with participants. And in any collaboration, you cannot predict the swell and pull of different inputs. We drift. We fall out of storms into doldrums, and from that calm into swells of something else – these are good signs: it means there is interaction.

  I’m enjoying the different ways I’m being pulled, in both this simple project and how that is influencing my whole practice. One of the questions asked in the interview of this residency was “How will you getting this residency affect your practice?” and if I knew then what I know now I would have said “It will make me thing broader, wider and more inclusively. It will make me thing more about people and less about ideas. It will make me remember that public art really does involve the public.”

  It amazing, too, to be reminded of that.

  Comments [1]

• The PostPartum Depression (Or: You Never Remember The Birth)

  by Anthony Schrag 16 Oct 2007

  In the midst of it, your memory doesn’t work. From the blur of Thursday morning’s 5am rise, to lack-of-sleep fog, to the feel of the cold wind on my back as we moved tables and chairs in the rain, and the wind-ripped marquee flapping and limp on the mud, and the taxis that raced through traffic, and the faces of the ‘kidnapped’, and them huddling like old friends around a heavy, muddy table: I remember very little. Such is the state of mind of any artist when in the midst of swirling mass of something tightly planned. Plates need to be spun. Clocks need to be watched. Schedules must be adhered to. Everything must happen according to plan.

  There were the usual hiccups – too many people, taxis were late, people were early, but, it happened well enough and close enough within the parameters I had set. Issues were discussed. Conversations were had. Ideology and Geography did occupy the same space. Place and Policy overlapped in a unique way. I was, I think, very happy with the whole thing.

  I was shocked that no one was upset with the shift from the gallery’s warm boardroom to the wet and muddy fields of Toryglen. That is perhaps a sign of Glasgow City Council’s dedication to the arts and awareness of it odd possibilities. Or to the individual councilors’ and gallery staff’s readiness to readily tackle the issues. Or because it had been leaked and everyone knew what was going to happen and were just humouring me! Either way, I’m not that concerned – I’m happy they indulged me and can only hope they got something from that hour and half sitting discussing the legacy of this Sectarian art project. It was, I think, in its finality (and, as always, artists can only truly and honestly see the shape of their beasts once they are born and free) then work was about an intersection into the institutional structure of galleries and museums, in the same vein as they hope to make intersections into the lives of youth groups who deal with these issues regularly.

  (Incidentally, this work took place on exactly the same ground where the recent Sony Bravia TV ad took place (the one with the exploding colours on a High-rise block of flats). There was none of the joy, none of the brightness, and everyone stayed far away, watching from their closed windows. Only one brave woman approached with a belly full of venom when she discovered there were counselors sitting under the marquee. She left, deflated, when she discovered they weren’t benefit or housing counselors, but those in the arts.)

  And then the taxi’s came, took everyone home and we took down the table and marquee and left the rutting mud and the crows to peck at the crumbs of our biscuits. And the space seemed a bit emptier. I felt guilty that I hadn’t made something more permanent – what does it mean to show up, use the space for my own purposes, and then leave…Which was really the rub. I COULD leave. I had the option, many of the people living there didn’t, and I hoped that came across to those sitting at the table. It depressed me too that within bureaucracies, things take time to filter through and any discussions will take time to affect anything.

  I suppose I knew deep inside that it wouldn’t change the world: to an extent no art can do that. But the intention and the attempt can make a difference, and I hope it had. But, driving away, all I felt was deflated.

  And maybe that sense of guilt and depression are a natural part of any Live Art event, a small postpartum depression. But I certainly felt that it – the project? the event? The ideas? – had fallen, again, into that malformed, directionless mess. The goo returned to exact its vengeance on me. But I did have one weapon against this – 6 hours of videotape, 2 rolls of film and an hour and half of audio recordings. Which just brings me to the documentation – the second joy of ANY live art project, and where it can make a real difference… But that’s a whole other blog.

  (Images to follow…once I get them developed!)

  Comments [2]

• The Quickening

  by Anthony Schrag 10 Oct 2007

  Tomorrow is the day.

  There is some physical law, somewhere in the annuls of quantum mechanics, that outlines the equation explaining how time can (and will) speed up, get shorter and contract the nearer it comes to the completion of any art project. I am sure of this.

  I have spent the past few weeks booking taxi’s, arranging helpers, booking cameras, arranging camerafolk, booking vans, buying filmstocks, renting mini-discs, borrowing microphones, organizing teas and coffees, all the while trying to maintain the “secret”.
  (Which is hard to do when you have to get approval of budgets from the very people you are trying to keep in the dark)

  I have invited several council members as well as some from the “Sectarian Advisory Board” and a few anti-sectarian groups as well as all of GoMA’s curators and managers. No one is supposed to know that they AREN’T actually coming to GoMA’s marble rooms with it’s warm Scandinavian lighting, but are actually being taken to the heart of Toryglen and its broken glass meadows, Buckfast labels and torn metal sidings.

  It’s supposed to be a secret, but I am getting the feeling that everyone really knows about it, but pretends not to. It’s as if there’s something green and ugly hanging out of my nose, but they’re all being too polite to mention it. I think certain people are avoiding me.

  I suppose it’s not REALLY about their physical uncomfortableness. I’m more interested that they should discuss the topics I’ve set them in the location where it matters most. That there should be sense of transparency in the discussion. There should be a merging between the ideology and location. Geography and Theory.

  So, I rest in that almost fixed state – things have been planned, the goo has been shaped as much as it can be, and certain structures have been set up. As with any Live Art project, this time is the Quickening: what actually will happen tomorrow is unknown – it all rests in possibility. I can only hope that I’ve established enough of a structure to keep it flowing in the right kind of direction, rather than returning to an unformed, useless and ugly state.

  Comments [0]

• Poking and Prodding the Goo (Or: How To Get Ahead In Bureaucracies)

  by Anthony Schrag 5 Oct 2007

  I’ve just spoken to Mark O’Neill – head of Museums and Galleries in Glasgow. After the talk How Sectarianism Hurts Our Churches I had had an idea to kidnap Council, and Gallery administrators – folks who decide that this is an issue to present to the world – and steal their mobile phones & wallets, dump them in the middle Darkest Glasgow, telling them to hack their way back to GoMA’s hallowed halls, through the knives and Stabbing Locals, and discover the true face of Sectarianism today.

  I suppose I wanted them to feel as uncomfortable as many of the folks from Toryglen feel when they come to GoMA or other official building – places that represented neither their experience nor their perspective of Glasgow.

  I soon realized that this violent kidnapping would probably 1) make me Public Enemy No.1 and I would never work in this town again and 2) not actually address the issue. While I normally have no problems making enemies, I felt it wouldn’t really be accomplishing anything, and given the reality of the situation and the position in which I found myself, I felt I needed, at least, to try.

  That gut physical response of being suddenly in an unfamiliar place and ‘dangerous’ place, surrounded by folks who are living with the ‘issues’ daily was still important, both to my work AND to the issues. But, it was, I realized, an issue of policy as well as reaction.

  Ben Harman (one of the Curators at GoMA) and I banged heads for a bit one morning and he helped me clarify my confusion. I wanted the “folks in positions of authority” to become aware of the disparities, but also to merge the physical spaces and ideology. Instead of just dumping them in the middle of an estate and running away, we came up with the idea of a round-table discussion about these topics, ostensibly to be held in GoMA’s hallowed halls, but actually located – round pine discussion table, deep-red comfy chairs and all – in the middle of Toryglen’s crumbling estate.

  (Word of advice, in ANY bureaucratic system (Local Authorities especially): Go straight to the top, to the highest person you can go to and get their approval. Be honest. Be incredibly positive. Their blessing is Carte Blanche. Wait for no other approval. Smile. Be efficient. Tell no one details, only say: The Big Man approved this and carry on, head bowed and industrious. Otherwise, you’ll be sitting around, filling forms in triplicate, stopped at every entry, hounded from offices, disrupted, halted, turned around and you will get nowhere. This is the truth of the matter when trying to meld the ordered and rigid system of councils with the fluid and changing system of art…They may not understand you, your project or even your intentions, but they do understand hierarchy.)

  Comments [0]

• The Goo Thickens...

  by Anthony Schrag 3 Oct 2007

  September 20th

  We all have those instinctive responses to issues or problems that we return to when faced with a new problem or project. Some deconstruct it logically, and others may go for a more emotive response. My first impulse is to climb on stuff. I think this comes from being raised by monkeys in Africa. I’m not sure. Either way, I began this project by vaulting into the physical. (See Photos)

  In my practice I often use my body’s (or a body’s) immediate physicality and those universal responses as tools to explore the topics. Dealing with bureaucratic institutions – such as the Glasgow City Council and its Health and Safety dictates – this became quite difficult (more on this later) and this has forced me look at different “tools”. Also, quite early on, I became uniquely aware that this – being a social issue – needed to have more than just a simple representational response. Climbing on a building just ain’t gonna cut it as a comment to the very real poverty and violence within the city.

  I had suggested I take some of the young guys on “parkour” or “free-running” tours of their area. Get them physically active, engaged and validated – promote some positive self-esteem. However, this was virtually impossible when there are serious restrictions on limiting our movement through the city, especially with ‘children’. Rules like: You cannot raise your body more than one meter off the ground; You cannot climb on City Council property; Running in public is dangerous. And despite the fact that the youth were already doing such activities, and doing something with the validation of a cultural institution would have vast implications for their self-esteem, it was obliquely discouraged, due to legislative and legal concerns.

  Over the past couple of months, Magi and I have been charting the youth groups’ responses to this topic. Most of them couldn’t care less if they were from the catholic or protestant camps. Yes, we found examples of gangs, of violence, of deep-seated, oppositional, social problems. But we found these were all rooted in poverty, not Sectarianism. In fact, we found few examples of religious violence within the youth groups. It was, however, present, ironically, in the council and churches and older generations. It all crystallized after an interesting discussion in GoMA entitled: How Sectarianism Hurts Our Churches.

  In it, the religious leaders (Episcopalian, Anglican, Catholic) discussed how upset they were that Sectarian violence happens, how they were dedicated to its eradication, but, Gosh Darn It, they were sick of the graffiti the kids left all over the buildings and this, really, was the scourge of Sectarianism. Children, I got the impression, were the real problem.

  Afterward the debate I had a conversation with someone in the GoMA office. It went a little like this:

  “There seems such a disparity between those people living on the schemes, who experience violence & poverty everyday, and those who sit around and talk about them (& make art) in safe & hallowed halls.”

  “Yeah, but its always been that way. And what’s the alternative?”

  So, it became clear that not only were there rules and restrictions limiting the movement and free-will of youth groups, and not only were there geographical restrictions of their estates and limited travel opportunities due to poverty, but it seemed like ‘powers that be’ – be they Council, Church or older generations – were imposing Sectarianism onto a younger generation. There were ‘People’ deciding that ‘Sectarianism’ was an issue, perpetuating it, and exhibiting it, and creating policies about it, but very little actual engagement with the youth who were living it. … Things about this issue were finally coming clear to me. The structure was revealing itself, and more importantly to my work, was revealing how to subvert that.

  Ideas begun to form. Goo began to have a shape.

  Comments [0]

• The Sneeze...

  by Anthony Schrag 2 Oct 2007

  Early Sept., 2007

  I have been asked to Blog. Blog. I have never really understood what that means, or even ever really liked that word. It has a ring of unpleasant jargon to it. As if were slang for a toilet, or some sticky mess. Or the materials you expel when you sneeze; something not so formalized, at any rate. Something without too much order. Which is really how I am feeling about my whole project, right now – like I’ve just sneezed it out my nose, and its dripping through my fingers and I’m staring at it in both embarrassment and disgust.

  I suppose that is part of the natural development of any project – that sense of horror and embarrassment of all the unformed goo and muck of your ideas and thoughts. The work comes in shaping all that into something interesting and engaging. That, at least, is the intention.

  As an introduction, the Gallery of Modern Art (Glasgow) has a programme called “Blind Faith: Human Rights and Contemporary Art”. Currently, they’re focusing on Sectarianism and its related issues of Territorialism, Neighbourhood and Identity. I was accepted to a 6-month Artist-In-Residence to make work relating to these issues – despite having neither cultural nor sociological reference to the topics.

  However, I am interested in power-dynamics: in structures and trying to look at them differently. I am fascinated in taking an established perspective and trying to find alternative viewpoints. Which, I suppose, is applicable to entrenched and systemic issues such as Sectarianism. I was, however, slightly disappointed to discover that “Sectarianism” had nothing to do with Secretaries. I think I could have done A LOT more if I was given a 6-month residency about “secretaries.”

  Of the residency, 50% was spent on my own work, and 50% working with youth groups with my fellow resident, Writer-In-Residence Magi Gibson. In December, we will have an exhibition at GoMA’s gallery 3 of both our own work, as well as work we’ve done with the youth groups.

  The youth groups themselves were based in Toryglen, Shettleston, Balliston, and Easterhouse. For a wee Canadian, visiting these schemes and estates was a fascinating experience. External advice from friends on hearing I was going to these areas was “wear something stab-proof”. On arrival, however, we found estates filled with lovely people, just in horrible circumstances. However, they were great kids and we dragged them from their comfort zones into the hallowed halls of GoMA to make ‘art’. I face a daunting task in that I – being the only one with visual arts training – am finding myself responsible for the form and shape exhibition with a group of people who have no training – or with different training – and formulate that into a cohesive and formally and critically interesting exhibition.

  Ho Hum. So, no Pressure.

  Anyways, this has no direct reference to my actual “Public Art” project – that being the reason I am writing this bloggy, sneezey, gooy mess and all.

  Comments [0]