Free gifts from artists – an attempt at deconstructing the obligations of sculpture.

I haven’t updated for a while, mainly because installing the exhibition took up nearly all the waking hours that I had. But I have been making notes and half finishing some posts – So now that the exhibition is open, I hope to fill in some details about the installation of the work retrospectively in the next few days.
Here is the first, one that almost got posted a week ago…

2 weeks pass, in a blink. The first one was, in theory, a short burst of R&R but then that is the great thing about theory. The second introduced Vincent, the sculptor and 250 8×4 sheets of Stirling board into what is becoming my second home, Fabrica. I am greatly relieved that the chemistry of the production group was easily a match for the five massive pallets of wood, right from the start. It is a good sign when you can recognise everyone in the room by their laugh, (as these posts have a 500 word limit I wont mention everyone by name).

Fabrica really is a unique organization, one that manages to do more than hold its own amongst contemporary art venues, but unlike many, has managed to retain an almost family like feel. Ok I realize that working like a family isn’t perhaps the most efficient way of running an organization, but it is the most human, and it reflects the artist led ethos of the organization far better than any business model I can think of.

The reason that I say this, is that in most galleries the installation of such an exhibition would be ‘executed’ by a specialist group of installers, who more likely than not, would turn the place into a macho machine fest ‘site’ while the ‘staff’ were kept out of the way.

Our team was the antithesis of that, consisting predominantly of women, wide age groups and levels of experience, skills were invented and shared and the whole process was collaboratively managed as an evolving response to the various challenges that occurred.

The work was heavy and complex, but by the end of the installation we each came away feeling that we were deeply involved in Vincent’s work, having learned a great deal in completely unexpected ways.

Taking such an approach to installing an exhibition is a huge risk, but one that provides insights for those involved that most ‘workshops’ or ‘gallery educators’ can only dream of.

Fabrica has got it about right, in making its installations a form of artist's resource, even if it does shave a few years off the life expectancy of the project managers and directors.

But then everything is sweetened by risk.

Being involved to some extent in the planning of the installation I am intrigued by what seemed at first to be a simple miscalculation in the amount of time scheduled for the work to be put up.

Making the usual assumptions, and running through the process in our minds it seemed reasonable that, with enough bodies, the work could be done in a week, with a few days spare. Two days into the installation it became painfully obvious that it would be extremely tight, if not impossible, no matter how many people we got in to help.

I got very grumpy at this point, mainly because I felt entirely responsible for what was looking like a disastrous error, grumpiness doesn’t help much in that situation. Jonathan came to the rescue by making the process just about as efficient as was possible, but it still didn’t look good.

Then Vincent, who was probably more concerned than the rest of us, said something.

He said “I would usually need a month to do this work”

For me this was a bit of an epiphany, We had made the huge assumption that this work was an installation, however it was actually a work in progress. Being used to installed works being pre-planned and executed, like some sort of fitted kitchen, we had entirely overlooked the un-delegatable nature of the task that Vincent was performing. Of course getting more people wouldn’t help, we needed more Vincent. The answer was to adjust the work-flow so that Vincent only spent time doing what couldn’t feasibly be done by others. It worked.

This led me to consider just how few works are actually made in-situ, anything that can’t be carried is usually planned, in advance, in some abstract form, using tried and tested techniques, then assembled as efficiently as possible. Not that this is a bad thing, it is just a process that requires a good deal of prediction, participation in the final form tends toward solving problems of conformity, of unforeseen variations on the pre-existing plan. – working in this manner means that at the point of construction, the actual site is likely to force compromise on the plan.
Of course it makes good financial sense, but it means the works relationship with its context is pre-conceived and to some extent assumed rather than authentic.

come to think of it, many large works often attempt to retain a bit of the unplanned, the unpredictable about them. But this is usually added as a final treatment, a finish that gets applied at the end – This puts me in mind of a certain brand of 'focacia' bread which undergoes a single daub from latex gloved fingers as it passes on the conveyor belt, allowing it to be sold as 'Hand finished'.

Vincent has, I think, bravely managed to keep the unknown outcome a major part of this work, throughout. I admire him for it.