DEGREES UNEDITED

# 6 [24 January 2011]

Who are your role models?

A piece of advice given to me recently was to find people who are in positions I would like to have and work back through their CVs. Follow their trajectory back to the point I am currently at and see what steps they took next.

So who do I want to be? In five years, in ten years, in the time past that which I can't imagine. I'm not exactly sure. I've got a job title in mind, there's institutions that I like, independents I admire, great big spaces that I'd like to get my hands on. However, I'm not currently able to imagine how I get from here to there.

Maybe it is a good idea to look at other peoples' paths, it at least confirms that it is possible. And where to start? Well, MAs have  been on my mind this year so that's where I began looking. If there is one thing that worries me it is that there seem to be a number of popular institutions which it would seem that I'd have to go to if I ever want to emulate quite a few succesful careers.

This is connected to a bigger logistical problem: the current economic and political climate is not conducive to postgraduate study. I'm ambitious and I work hard, I'm not expecting that I'll get in everywhere or anywhere for the kind of courses I would like to apply to but firstly, how on earth would I pay for it if I did? Even if you are lucky enough to have familial support there's so many costs to consider and seemingly so much debt to get into.

Beyond these straightforward problems there's also something that runkles me slightly about the idea of certain institutions being the only pathway to the best jobs. Its something that makes practical sense, the best universities attract the best applicants and whittle them down to the best of the best, but the situation holds people to ransom through their own ambitions.

Now if I consider my role models, both in terms of those around me at a local level, who are doing great things with the resources available, to those who are coordinating blockbuster exhibitions at the biggest institutions in the world, they all have a few things in common:

Vision, hard working, in-depth understanding of the artists' practices, instinctive sense of what to support, good sense of humour, new and innovative approaches to engaging audiences' with contemporary art, practicality and above all personal drive to make things happen.

Now that's what I want to be. I've got a long way to go in terms of my education, CV building and if I'm honest with myself critical understanding of what I want to do. But I think its important to keep these qualities in mind and to try to live up to them as I enter into the post degree show world. Currently that feels like the end game but I've got a little bit of space at the moment after handing in my midpoint work to breathe and look forward. It seems as good a time as any to think, who do I want to be?

# 5 [23 December 2010]

What happens when you are no longer contemporary? Simplistically either you become historical or you are forgotten. Looking through survey shows recently including the Turner Prize (many remembered, even before my birth I could recognise a few names) and the British Art Show (mind boggling amount of artists with a large proportion unknown to me) I began to wonder what befalls the artist who falls out of favour? 

I was thinking of curating two sister shows about competitiveness, one directly relating to the acts of competition and one which presents artists once popular and currently not. Not revilled or forgotten just on the other side of the current moment. I'd like to pose a question about the implications of temporary success in art.

Or in other words, What becomes of the broken hearted?

This idea (which may or may not have merit) stemmed from an experiment in framing archives that I conducted in the studios. I presented a 'British Art Show Hall of Fame' that listed every artist, by exhibition, that has taken part in the survey show over its 35 year history. There were remarks that this was an act of institutional critique but much more interesting were the responses which took things more personally, as tutors and students considered their relationships to the list of names in front of them.

There is an aspirational quality to these survey shows, from Becks Futures for the upcoming to British Art Show for the established, that invites an artist to look at these lists and feel ambition and envy. So when looking back through the archives how does it feel not to recognise many names?

Trends in art are probably quite plodding in comparison to faster moving worlds like fashion and business (I imagine) but there are a number of artists names off the top of my head which would fit into the category of former golden boy.

Competitiveness is not a characteristic that is often openly declared as it can suggest desperation, just as you might not readily describe yourself as gregarious, as it might also make you sound desperate. I, for one, have been labelled ambitious which I can't help but feel still has negative connotations for a young woman in a way it doesn't have for young men.

Considering this I began to mentally list peers of mine who would never push themselves forward for fear of being thought... what? Too pushy? These people all interviewed for a course and beat six people for their place, they all achieved grades or demonstrated capability to even get interviews and in June our work will all be presented cheek by jowl in the studios where we have spent the last three years. This is the way you get into and on in art school. So why is competitiveness such a dirty word?

Taking all this into account I am sure that in some way I need to put together an exhibition which explores competition. I am curating a show in January at the Malt Cross gallery which features Peter Stonhold and Ruth O'Grady titled Imposition which allows one artist to take centre stage and the other the opportunity to intervene within the gallery space. Both these artists are on my course and I am really excited to see their work for the show. I am attempting to support two types of artists by offering the necessary frameworks for both their practices. 

To follow this: a show which features artists who are competitive, engage in competitive acts and invite audiences to participate in competition, who could all compete for centre stage. And then a further exhibition which invites artists to exhibit works which were either part of their most successful period or made since that time.

I would never intend to mock the second set of arists. I am interested in what it means to be on a trajectory and what it means to no longer be on one. I'd be particularly interested to know if they felt that this change had come about because of their practice changing or staying the same? I would not consider these artists failures as they have acheived success.

# 4 [11 October 2010]

I am not required to write a dissertation to complete my degree. Instead at NTU Fine Art students are required to hand in 7 staged pieces of writing beginning with a statement of intent and including two 1000 word essays about the context of our practices.

Tomorrow is the deadline for the first writing task and I am done with it. During the last week I felt completely overwhelmed by moving into my third year. Too many commitments, the start of a 25 week countdown and a lot of seminars and deadlines within the first 10 weeks. I'm never quite sure that Fine Art is the perfect course for me and when under pressure I start to fantasize about alternative routes.

I've had to make a choice about what to not do. The first and least necessary thing is to apply for any MAs. Its unrealistic to think that I could be starting a curation course next September and it would be wise to build up a fund first. The second is to stop justifying what I do. I've had difficulty presenting work within the studios, usually because I've made work specifically for assessment out of fear of having nothing to show. New outlook: I have a practice, you just can't always see it. (That still needs some work).

Tomorrow is the 3rd installment of 'In Production' at Nottingham Contemporary. I'm excited and anxious. I've got an idea of a few audience members who I will be happy to see and I think the artists lined up will be great. Mainly I'm looking forward to seeing their new work and the discussion with the audience. I'm trying not to think too hard about giving the introduction. I'm a nervous but frequent public speaker.

The Research Portfolio (the collection of writing produced over the final year and handed in alongside the degree show exhibition) feels like it has started today with my first hand in. There's a lot to do before christmas, my work always seems to throw up a lot more questions than answers. I'm not sure at all how the year will resolve itself. End game approaches, only 24 weeks to go.

# 3 [30 September 2010]

Taking a trip to Birmingham today has got me wanting to write, although as usual lacking in time.

A new set of shows opened at the Ikon, Ikon Eastside, Eastside Projects and Vivid just last weekend. The highlights of the trip for me were Jamie Shovlin's 'Hiker Meat' at Grand Union and AVPD's 'Hitchcock Hallway' at Ikon Eastside. Also over at Ikon the unusual video work tucked away in the tower, 'Nail Biter' by Anthony Goicolea is well worth nipping through Donal Judd's exhibition to get to. 

Jamie Shovlin's exhibition 'Hiker Meat', takes as its jumping off point 1970s and 80s horror films, a subject I'm very fond of. The 60 mis-matched monitors playing clips from films of this era, which when watched in order apparently build up a rough idea of what the film 'Hiker Meat' would be, are central and overwhelming in the room.

'Hiker Meat' is not yet a film. It is at present an unrealised screen play but has a full score, is at the stage of casting but also of research. There is a full poster and it can be watched through a collage of film clips but as the exhibition opens has not had a scene filmed. Evidence of Shovlin's research and responses surrounds the central monitor installation, the horror film dissected into its component parts. The project, as I am pleased the press release makes clear, is at once a deconstruction and a homage to the horror films of this era. 

On Saturday I'm heading to Manchester to see among other exhibitions and screenings, 'Unspooling- Artists Cinema' curated by Andrew Bracey and David Griffiths. Depending on how I find the exhibition, it could potentially link back to 'Hiker Meat' and the following work as i try to examine the curation of film and video.

'Hitchcock Hallway' in experience runs in a similar vein to Mike Nelson's 'Coral Reef', which I mentioned in an earlier post. The audience enters a small confined space, only to be confronted with the same small space, again and again and again. The same blue carpet, white walls, gloss white door and silver handle in repetition extended over a longer period that might be initially expected. While Mike Nelson has set up an extended narrative through his numerous and repeating interiors, in which characters feel absent and artefacts are weighted with information, the collaboration behind AVPD have created a minimal but increasingly tense situation, in which I felt caught and compelled into action.

Part of me wonders if this is really the place to be writing in so much detail about exhibitions. For some reason a small white block with a limited amount of space seems to contain a lot more freedom for me to express opinion than a daunting blank word document. Its probably because of the speed at which a post can be produced, skimmed and then sent. There's no feeling that this is going to be examined in detail and flaws underlined.

I now know my tutor: Craig Fisher, my weekly meeting time and my first two deadlines. Sometimes knowledge can fail to make you feel empowered. My first critical review deadline is much earlier than I had hoped and my statement of intent, which has laid dormant in a folder for the last few weeks, really needs a lot of work before the 12th.  

Off to work now. Really need to carve out some space for thinking. Doesn't seem to happen when I'm within the studios. Thinking about what AVPD say, 'the human being is a spatial animal unconciously affected by the fundamental laws that define our everyday lives'. I can't help but feel that as my environment is key to my productivity I would much prefer to be in the relative quiet of a busy office than the sprawling open plan studios.

# 2 [5 September 2010]

Still a month until I start my third year at Trent and I'm starting to consider what I have done with my summer. I'd hoped to spend more time in London taking in the Blockbuster summer exhibitions. I managed to visit the Hayward, the ICA, Tate Britain and Modern, the Sepertine and the Royal Academy, but over a two day trip they all went past in a blur. I had also hoped to spend more time reading, more time travelling and more time earning money for the new term. Four months seemed like such a long time in June.

I have been trying to keep a few notes on topics for critical writing over the summer. I've been wanting to write about the big exhibitions which thematically link installation artists, as has been seen for a few years at the Hayward over the summer (Psychobuildings, Walking in My Mind and to a lesser extent Ernest Neto), for a while. I'm interested in the curation of installation work in large scale institutions like the Hayward, which allow for serial submersion in artists' visions. Taking on this strand of immersion, of the exhibitions I have visited so far highlights for me included Mike Nelson's Coral Reef and Oscar Tuazon's My Mistake, along with the screening event of Cameron Jamies' video work put on by Nottingham Contemporary at the Savoy Cinema just last week. In Nelson's Coral Reef entering the exhibition felt like dropping off the edge of the gallery, even stranger when leading off from the overwhelming public spectacle of Fiona Banner's jets. In a similar way Cameron Jamies' collage of footage and droning sound offers a clean break from the world as they induce a trance like state and Tuazon's minimalist wooden structure plunges the audience into a consideration of the gallery space, its limits and potential, without distraction.

As Nottingham has become quieter, which I was warned it would, I've started to think more about the outside world. Nottingham can feel like a very insular scene, although Germaine Greer recently describing New York as parochial reminded me that every community is just a bunch of people. Last weekend I got to spend a few days in Bristol for the first time and later this month I am planning to head up to Liverpool to see the Biennial and try to get a more thorough feel for the city and its galleries. Seeing art in new places has to go higher up in my priorities after Sideshow/BAS. I'm keen to find the independents in new cities I visit and now feel like I have a few starting points due to the Tethervision 'Hither and Thither' project.

I have been thinking about my future after my degree, which is helping me put off worrying about the coming year, but at the same time presents me with a whole new set of problems. I am aware that I am lacking in background knowledge in art history, exhibition design, etc. so taking control of my education (rather than my career which is far too unwieldy) seems the obvious answer. I've been thinking about Gallery Studies, as a starting point to Curation. Possibly a long route but I'm hoping they will provide a more general form of education in how to think critically about exhibitions and galleries. I'm trying to get more up to speed on the big ideas of Curation (I see the capital 'c' as denoting an academic approach, as opposed to my current vocational angle), which involves reading important texts like 'Inside the White Cube'. I had a lot more fun reading and looking at the pictures in Jeremy Deller's 'Life is to Blame for Everything' a very small and slim book that chronicles his DIY/alternative exhibiting methods. I think I need to find a balance between practical experience and research. I'm normally far too academic for fine art so its funny to find myself feeling too practical for curation.  

Since the last blog felt like a document of what I had been dong this summer I thought that this post should concentrate on what i had been thinking about, which is why it may feel a little less coherent. For me it feels useful after not writing about art for a while to pin down a few ideas and worries before I get back to producing writing for the portfolio.

# 1 [18 August 2010]

Hello, my name is Beth Bramich and in October I will begin my third and final year of my Fine Art BA at Nottingham Trent.

Over the summer I have a placement position at Nottingham Contemporary, which began in July and will end in November. This internship is with the Public Programme and my role is to assist the curator of Public Programmes, Rob Blackson, for one day a week.

In addition to this I am the curatorial intern for Sideshow 2010, a Nottingham based festival of independent art, which will take place from the 22nd October to the 18th December. I began work on this project today and found out more about how I will be involved in the next two months of preparation and during the festival.

Since Easter 2009 I have been an intern with Tether, an independent art collective who maintain a gallery space, The Wasp Room, in Nottingham and hold events both at their HQ and in alternative venues in the UK.

I have contributed two articles to Nottingham Visual Arts, a local arts magazine. The first was a review of an exhibition curated by Walden Affairs, an art centre in Holland, earlier in the year. The second article will be published in the first printed version of Nottingham Visual Arts in September and discusses the Nottingham independent art scene and the new online archive of independent art in the UK compiled by Tether which will be released in September.

On the 12th of October the third in a series of video events 'In Production' that I have co-curated with Rob Blackson will take place. I am very excited that I have so far confirmed Ellie Harrison for the upcoming event. In the series so far exhibited artists have included Alia Pathan, Tracey McMasters, Simon Raven, Tether, Theo-Reeves Evison, Thomas Darby and Duncan Allen. The format for the events is to invite 3 artists to present a recent and in someway still unresolved video work with a short introduction from the artists. After the audience has seen the video work they are then involved in a discussion which is led by a few key questions from the artist. The aim of the events is to showcase video artists in the Midlands and to create a forum for constructive critical feedback.

That is an almost complete introduction to my current activity. I am not from Nottingham originally and this is my first summer in my university town. I decided to stay so that I could take advantage of the opportunities in the local art scene in the run up to Sideshow, as well as working with the new Nottingham Contemporary as they prepare for the British Art Show.

It is my ambition to pursue a career in curation after I finish my degree. I am looking into possibly continuing my education with post-graduate study in Gallery Studies and Curation but I am still considering my options.

The Fine Art degree at Nottingham Trent is very open and encourages self direction and professional ambition. My current practice attempts to merge the role of the artist and curator, my research attempts to support my curatorial interests by discovering more about exhibition design, appropriation, exhibitions as a medium, (interior) architecture, installation and narratives between objects/images/contexts. That's a very imperfect list. I need to start finding a way to articulate my interests and how they will lead over the next 9 month to work for my degree show.

I've been recommended starting a blog a few times to help me organise my ideas and keep an archive of artists and exhibitions that I would like to write about. I hope that it will be useful in this way. I'm optomistic but nervous about the next year and certain that time will pass very quickly for me.