Richard W. - Lindsay Anderson lived bythe motto "Never Apologise, Never Explain”: Google tells me so did JohnWayne… Like Richard W, I am constantlyunderwhelmed by gallery exhibitions, though I hold that the form still hasvalidity: I enjoyed the Alasdair Gray presentation at Talbot Rice in 2010, forinstance, largely because it surveyed his posters, design work, sketchbooks andephemera. I spent a good deal of time in the exhibition as there is something privileged about being able to see things that were not intended fordisplay – like sketchbooks. I’m much more persuaded by them. Having said that,I am also glad that Jeff Koons made the metallic balloon dogs possible. Its interesting that Richard W. openshis thoughts with an apology for art history – reading the earlier communiquésfrom Alexandra, Sarah and Richard R., I thought I’d make the obvious point that‘remoteness’ includes a temporal as well as geographic element. One of thethings I have appreciated about studying art history in a more concerted wayover the last few years is the distance it gives from practice, and I find that(studio) practice can benefit from taking a long-range perspective on arthistory. Nearness to, and familiarity with, current art practice/the work of your peers can produce anxiety ifyou are working in a studio trying to produce work yourself. It also strikes me that art history provides some of the longest established models for recording/interpreting works at a distance for 'posterity'.
I wonder about the risks ofanticipating experience by framing it through the word ‘local/locale’, RichardR. Could we reframe the terms of the debate by thinking about it in terms of‘intimacy’? Social media deploys in an intimate and personal way -participation is highly individuated. Related to this is the issue of ‘pace’in general – we routinely say that the pace of life in rural locations isslower: it seems to me that this is critical. Does social media speed upexperience, complicate it, concentrate it, slow it down etc.? I teach Fashion studentsand we discuss the (often) negative effects of social media in that sphere –these are largely due to speed/intimacy/consensus. How does 'pace' determine the desire of institutions (I include lone wolf 'curators' etc. as institutions) to take control of organising and marking up the mediation of artwork. What is a decent gap between experience and mediation? ('instant' (uploading your images and using a hashtag?) 20mins (filling in a feedback sheet?), 6 months, 12 months, a decade?) When - as institutions - do we marshall mediation and re-communicate it?
In relation to the point made byAlexandra and picked out by Sarah: "there arealso artworks that I have not had the opportunity experience in person and itis the space afforded by new and social media that has brought them to myattention or allowed me to follow by distance. It has the power to unlockimagination, reveal activity in different time zones, and attempt to capturethe un-capturable of ephemeral or conceptual intervention." Are we looking to experience some“truth” in/about an artwork? Sarah asks if there are works where no-one hasfirst-hand experience (if I was going to get into a philosophical debate aboutit, I might be tempted to argue that ‘first-hand experience’ – the recovery oftruth - is impossible for every art work: Michael S. you'll probably recognise the (not-so) covert operations of a 'dyed in the wool' Derridean, there). What springs to mind in relation tothis (for me) are the fantastical descriptions in Hypnoerotomachia Poliphli andÀ Rebours.
Hope some of that is of some interest to some of you...
From: WILLIAMS Richard <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 10:38 AM
Subject: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Curmudgeon
Hi folks - just wanted to say I'm an old curmudgeon, but genial with it (hi Joanne!) and not to be taken too seriously. Do take me to task.... :) R
________________________________________
From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of WILLIAMS Richard <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 22 January 2015 16:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Hello from Richard Williams
Hi folks -
SOME THOUGHTS ON EXHIBITIONS
Richard Williams here, Prof. of Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh. I teach in art history, though my interests extend a good bit beyond that. Just like to offer a few thoughts on the topic of exhibitions.
I've worked in an intellectual environment - history of art - that privileges the experience of 'real' art objects in 'real' space, and many people in the area are involved in curating as a result. It's been a bit slow, consequently, to embrace both new media artforms and the dissemination of existing art.
At the same time, on a personal level, I've really come to loathe art exhibitions to the point at which I will do almost *anything* to avoid them. I'm not making this up. It's a pathological dislike. I don't much like crowds, and nor being in highly controlled environments, and spending money on things I don't like puts me in a bad mood. Perhaps more than anything though, I've just lost the habit. I don't watch broadcast TV, buy newspapers, or eat Instant Whip. Exhibition-going just seems to be one of those old habits, and the colossal production of exhibition space at the end of the 20th century is rather baffling.
So what about new media? Well, I can't think of anything about it that I don't like (apart from email. But no-one on earth will be using it in about 18 months). I still like art, and talking to artists, I love films, the whole world of image production is still of enduring fascination - and so on. What's great about the new technologies is how they let you experience all of these things in spaces of your choosing. To be able to watch high quality streamed video content in a decent teaching room with students, where we're in control of the situation, is a real pleasure, and one that feels no less authentic than the coercive space of the exhibition. It seems closer, if anything, to the studio, where there's a sense of things being (productively) incomplete.
Many people in the art world have a powerful residual sense that new media means somehow second hand or second rate. I don't feel any of that. I'm no techno-utopian, and I recognise as well as anyone that some technologies are as coercive as anything in the material world. But my sense from experience is that new media generally means 'better'. And if it helps me avoid exhibitions...well, that's fantastic :)
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