the post degree show is down. i would estimate that approximately no-one came. no, there were a few people at the opening night – but really, just a few. and then i cajoled a couple of bemused individuals into the three shops we were using, purely on the basis that they looked in the window as they walked by. invigilating it was an eye opener and a learning experience.
the show itself was, in my opinion, extremely strong. there were interesting relationships teased out between pieces and between the work and the spaces.
however…….. the bargate shopping centre is a ghost space full of units either empty or full of games machines. there was a shakeaway quite close by. our potential audience, in terms of passing foot fall, was somewhere between disinterested, dismissive and disparaging.
how would you market such a thing? and what is the point of such a thing? to sit with work so carefully created and chosen and curated and have little response or exposure was a difficult experience for me. it made me feel slightly embarrassed, self conscious and uncomfortable.
why is art important – in the context of the last three years, it has been the be all and end all. it has been my food and water (or should i say, coffee and cigarettes), and because of that, i suppose, i had a delusion that it had some status. but it does not. and the bargate shopping centre show was a stark and blatant repositioning of contemporary art in the everyday world for me.
which is interesting, as i am currently (i should be doing it right now …….) writing an evaluation of a piece of art commissioned for the creative campus initiative, part of the cultural olympiad. the project is called “park life scripts” and involved the artist, jane kilford, spending 10 days in the parks of southampton, interacting with the park users and the space. the nature of her practice is that she interacts directly with a non art audience as well as an art audience. perhaps in those small aliquots of direct contact, she is instrumental in reducing the chasm between those in the know and those bewildered by contemporary art practice.
