Project Me

At the end of last week’s ‘cultural policy’ meeting I was introduced to Enköping’s new Cultural Development Worker – Klas.  He is also an artist, and is also looking for a studio!  We had a quick chat about how important the studio is, and also how affordable studios make a town very attractive to artists, which in turn leads to more local culturally activity and engagement.  It turns out that we have both been looking at the same former industrial building not far from the quayside.  It is far too larger a premises for me to take on so it was particularly interesting to hear that Klas has been thinking about establishing a collective studio/studio association – local authority involvement could make it a reality!

It was interesting to hear that he too has had a studio at Wip:sthlm.  The Wip:sthlm model – whereby the council stand as head-lease holder and with an artists’ organisation renting from them – is something that I had already thought to suggest to the culture department.  Thinking a little ‘non-traditionally’ (for Sweden) would further increase the feasibility of such a project: studios could be offered to a range of creatives beyond those with an art-school education.  Most studio associations here in Sweden (including the Stockholm City one*) insist on either an art-school qualification or solo shows at significant galleries/museums in order just to get on their waiting list.  Even if this was desirable (which I do not think it is) I have the feeling that this kind of restrictive thinking would make it difficult to fill even seven or eight studios in Enköping!  What I have in mind would be studios that would also appeal to photographers, graphic designers, print makers, and craftspeople.  This is not just openness and radicalism on my part – but I think that it will initially be essential in order to make the studios financially viable.  Once Enköping becomes a destination for both new and established artists then we can look at how best to manage studio provision … I am already having fantasies of several studio complexes here, with perhaps some leaning more towards the fine arts and others more towards the applied arts … but a bit of a healthy mix across them all!

Both Klas and I acknowledged that making a town attractive to artists has recognised economic results as evidenced in towns and cities across Europe.  Gentrification is far from any motivation of mine, however I am sufficiently pragmatic to realise that local authorities even in Sweden need to be seen to be making sound investments.  So being able to present the case for supporting studios in terms of increasing local business and tourism development will be no bad thing.  I have the feeling that Swedes understand that not everything has to be profit driven, that some things – such as cultural activities – are an essential part of everyone’s life and should be accessible, supported, and nurtured so long as they are not a drain on resources that could be spent elsewhere.

At the moment Klas is co-ordinating a street art festival aimed at young people on a rather neglected (and large) estate not far from where I live.  I look forward to going along and seeing how it goes.  After that we have spoken about getting together and taking a look at what might become Enköping’s first artist’s studios!

* This was one of the main reasons that Wip:sthlm decided to remain an independent when they were invited to merge administration with Stockholm City (the local authority).  I was on the management board when the decision was taken – we had begun discussions with Stockholm City several months earlier when the day-to-day running and renting out of the studios became too much for an un-paid post.  It was at the last minute that it was revealed to us that a merger would mean we complying with Stockholm City’s eligibility criteria.  As the eight or nine of us at the monthly management meeting considered the implications of the merger I pointed out that under the city’s regulations all but two of us on the committee would not qualify for a studio – at least three of us lived in boroughs just outside of the Stockholm City area, one was self taught and had not had a ‘significant’ solo show in the last three years, another was a graphic designer and another a photographer (rather than being ‘artists’).  Needless to say we rejected the merger and went on to arrange payment for an artist who took on (quite brilliantly) a good deal of the studio administration.

A quick synopsis of what has been keeping me busy in May:

• Being Tim’s assistant: costumes for a new (Swedish language) version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and three kits each consisting two mascot costumes for a holiday company
• Packing ‘Play’ for delivery/collection
• Looking for a studio
• Nature Morte opening Uddevalla/Gothenburg
• A studio visit: my first conducted entirely in Swedish
• An artist friend from London visiting for ten days: much talking, walking, visiting galleries & museums, drinking tea and eating cake!

When put like that it does not seem so much however I found myself constantly busy and with no time for making any reflections or thoughts sufficiently comprehensible for a post.  A period of doing rather than thinking – that is not to say that I was not thinking while I was doing, the activities listed above required a fair bit of thinking in one way or another, it is more that the thinking was actioned rather than transcribed!

In my diary there are key words or concepts for possible blog posts:

• ‘utforskning/forskning’ – ‘exploration/research’
• #gayart
• ‘driva’ (SE) v’s maintenance
• ateljé

In preparation for the studio visit I laid some heavy books on large photographic prints that had been rolled up for a few years.  Perhaps it was not the best way to flatten them … however the title of one book in particular caught my eye: Arctica; Utforskning av Polerna, which translates as Arctica; Exploration of the Poles.  What struck me in the swedish title was the similarity of the word ‘utforskning’ (exploration) to ‘forskning’ (research).  If I was a cartoon character that was the moment when the light bulb would have flashed above my head!  What I am fascinated by is ‘utforskning’ (exploration) rather than ‘forskning’ (research)! What I long to be doing is ‘konstnärlig utforskning‘ (artistic exploration) rather than ‘konstnärlig forskning’ (artistic research).  In my mind exploration is active, dynamic, adventurous, physical, open ended, romantic, demanding, passionate, it is about unchartered waters, it is about gut-feelings, it is swashbuckling!  How much more attractive it sounds to ‘explore the oceans’ than to ‘research the oceans’!  It might just be semantics but it is hard to describe the sudden rush of enthusiasm that I felt when I fell upon that word!

Interestingly if I take ‘utforskning’ to be a compound of ‘ut’ and ‘forskning’ then things become even more exciting. As I have already said ‘forskning’ translates as ‘research’, ‘ut’ though translates as both ‘out’ and ‘all over’.  Which suggests to me not only a breadth and depth of activity but also a generous all encompassingness.  I want to go back to the art schools and propose programmes of artistic exploration in place of artistic research.  Having struggled with it myself I can imagine that other artists will also find the idea of “communicating their explorations” much more fun than “communicating their research” – suddenly many of those methodologies and concepts from the sciences seem clearly inappropriate and irrelevant rather than aspirational.

Have I been dumb in my wrestling with term ‘gay art’ or has the hash-tag changed everything?  When I wrote my first dissertation, which admittedly was in 89/90, it seemed to me that ‘gay art’ was for the most part concerned with little more than 1- male nudes, 2- obvious textual/graphic reference to male/male sex , or 3- a combination of 1 and 2.  Over subsequent years I learned that Emmanuel Cooper’s The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 years in the West was not the exhaustive compendium that the title claimed it to be.  The beautifully poetic, political, and personal work of Felix Gonzales-Torres showed me that there were other ways of being/ways of seeing.  Yet still I was not comfortable with either my work being called ‘gay art’ nor myself being a ‘gay artist’.  Nowadays, when I remember to, I tag Instagram images of my work with ‘#gayart’ both as a way to broaden the range of images with that tag and to stake my place in what should really be a redundant canon.  My reasons are both political and personal.  What interests and delights me is the number of ‘likes’ I receive from strangers who I assume come across my posts while searching for ‘#gayart’.

Again the Swedish language is giving me insights in to how I think and do things.  I am very fond of imagining, and running with, connections between Swedish and English that are helpful to me and may not be founded on any linguistic or lexical truth.  One morning as I was cycling home from the gym it occurred to me that Swedes use the verb ‘driva’ to describe the activity of having a company.  ‘Driva’, in common with most Swedish words can be translated in slightly different ways depending on the contexts in which it is used, my online dictionary offers the following translations: drive, carry on, operate, run.  As I have mentioned in previous posts I am not ‘self employed’ here as the concept does not exist, I have my own company – or more accurately I “drive my own company”.  I chose the English word ‘drive’ simple because it sounds (and looks) most similar to the Swedish ‘driv’.  And then I began to wonder if I really am ‘driving’ my own company/practice.  I mean am I really actively, purposefully, consciously ‘driving’ (in all senses of the English word) my practice?  After a moments reflection I concluded that I am not!  At least not at the moment, I am maintaining things but not driving them.

I want things to move forward – this is more likely to happen if I drive!  And it is good for me to remember that I have to work my way up through the gears (if you will pardon me continuing with the metaphor) before I reach a point at which I can happily cruise along in the fast lane!

My search for a studio continues.  I keep stumbling on the same problem – spaces are either too large (vacant industrial units more than several hundred square meters) or too expensive (vacant retail and office units that are two or three times more than I can afford).  I have not found anyone interested in taking on a larger space with me – to be honest it would take at least eight or nine artists sharing to make even the smallest ‘attractive’ potential studios viable.  I am going to raise the question of studio provision at next week’s cultural policy programme meeting.  The council wants to establish the town as a centre for culture, I am concerned that they are not addressing basic questions regarding the infra-structures necessary for making this firstly achievable and secondly sustainable.  I am going to propose that the council takes the bold move of leasing one of the larger industrial premises and subletting rooms/studios to artists, craftspeople, photographers, designers, as a concrete way of enabling creative culture to flourish.

This time last week I was sitting down to dinner with Christina after a great afternoon at Supermarket art fair.  This is the eighth year that I have visited the fair and each year is a unique experience!  There is always slight edge about the whole thing and that is exactly what makes it vibrant and vital.  Some stands host on-going projects that develop over the four days, others make slick presentations that make me wonder if they aspire to be commercial galleries or if they are pastiches of blue-chip spaces.  Most booths fall somewhere these two extremes and I found myself drawn to these. It was great to have a good chat with Felipe Castelblanco of Mote 078 Gallery.  It is always interesting to learn a bit about the person behind such an initiative.

I also caught up with some artists who I know from courses at Mejan, and saw work by artists from around the world that I found fascinating and inspiring.  I might be re-assessing my resistance to the term ‘artist/curator’ not only were there great pieces and projects curated by artists but the whole event made me realise that I could be interested in organising shows or events – just for the fun of it!  This might also be the result of no longer living in a city full of art and artists – there is an obvious lack of opportunity to see contemporary work here so the idea of filling that gap has a certain appeal (even if it has a very uncertain audience)!

It is the tenth birthday/anniversary of Supermarket – and not surprisingly there were both reflections and projections about the artist-led scene.  One of the most pressing debates was about remaining independent – what does these mean today and how can it be achieved.  ‘Independent’ of what?  This is of course a key question.  I realise that I have remained wonderfully independent (in some senses – no gallery, no external commitments or responsibilities, no-one’s agenda but my own …) however I do not think that this was the kind of independence that was being discussed.  I am not always sure that my independence has been particularly rewarding – in fact I am pretty sure that it has been the opposite, it has been pretty expensive!  Independence can be something of a luxury and while I whole-heartedly support every artist’s wish to remain ‘free’ I do wonder how sustainable it is and what it actually means.  Independence here in Sweden has tended to mean independence from the commercial market, and at the same time it has tended to mean a dependence on state, or local, governmental support – either directly or indirectly.  Sweden seems to be going through a slow but progressive shift way from socialism towards to capitalism, and of course this is being felt across the arts.  This affects not only direct funding of the arts but also the attitudes of the private individuals that comprise a city, a town, the country.  One of the longest established and most well-known artist-led galleries in Stockholm has been presented with a massive rent increase, an increase that they simply can not meet.  At least three large studio complexes in Stockholm are on ‘demolition’ contracts and waiting to be replaced with apartment blocks.

Artists have a good track record of ‘rising to the challenge’ and finding ways to survive and thrive, and this is what makes the future exciting. It also makes networking, collaboration, discussion and cooperation essential.  And these were abundant at Supermarket, and perhaps in the context of city’s feverish fetishisation of capital this is what made the fair feel even more vital.  I wish that I had been able to be there for the full four days and to have taken part in more of the programme, I think that I need to put next year’s event in my diary now and make sure I do not agree to do something else at the same time!

It was lovely to open the Supermarket magazine and see my name as one of the production team.  Although it might be obvious I had not thought of my work with translation, language/sub editing and proof reading as part of the publication’s production.  I am very grateful to whoever put my name on that list – thank you!

Play has been on my mind recently … to be completely honest Play has been on my floor recently!  Since return from Stockholm in late February the piece has been lying on my living room floor waiting to be more appropriately re-packed …  Play has been on my mind for the following reasons:

• It was referred to in an article about the ten-year history of the Supermarket Independent Art Fair.
• Over the Easter weekend Open Studio and gallery events I gave some of the Play postcards to people.
• I am considering putting up an ‘excerpt’ at home.

For the last few weeks I have been reading and re-reading the texts for the upcoming Supermarket catalogue and magazine.  This is the first year that I have really been involved in the magazine side of the publication – which has involved some translating too.  It is also the first year that I have been working full-time during the preparations and I realise what a different experience it is to sit at a computer from 8–12 midnight rather than 8–12 noon, I am mostly definitely a morning person!

It has been very interesting to read about the development of the fair from it’s initial low-key and small scale beginnings to being Sweden’s (if not Scandinavia’s) largest art fair during its years at Kulturhuset.  And it was while proof reading a text about the fair’s annual residency at Kulturhuset that I saw the reference to Play.  I was part of the MOCA London team organised by the wonderful Roberto Ekholm and supported by the ever-energetic MOCA director Michael Petry.  As part of our presence we had arranged that Play would be installed where it could be shown to good effect and where people could walk through it, the piece is quite large and would not fit on our stand.  The evening before the fair opened there were a few tense hours when Kulturhuset‘s safety department threatened not to allow the fair to go ahead if my potentially supremely hazardous artwork was not removed.  Eventually shifting it about 40 centimetres resolved the crisis and the fair was given the all clear.  The event is still clear in my mind but I was somewhat surprised that it had made such an impression on the organisers who were now giving an account of the ‘struggles and successes’ that they had encountered.

It has become something of a modern tradition to have open studio events over the long Easter weekend, particularly outside of Stockholm.  I wanted not only to see what other artists around here are up to but also to see where they are doing it as I continue to look for a studio.  There were a total of 38 artists showing their work at venues in the town centre and across the Enköping region.  I did not manage to see them all, choosing to focus on ones in the town centre (hoping to get some idea of where artists have found to work) and then making a selection of more rural studios based on the group show at museum.  In many ways it was not so different from Signals that Crystal Palace Artists used to do – a good mix of styles and media shown in a collection of studios, temporary exhibition spaces, and homes.  It was nice to visit the ceramic studio of Anne who I had met at an opening earlier in the year – I like her work too.  It was interesting to see that one painter had his own gallery and studio in what must have been a small shop.  Another artist was showing in a great space that looked as though it was also used as a yoga studio.  I saw a good number of artists and places that I would not have known existed otherwise, and it made me realise that there are studios to be found.  I just have to make time to get on with it, and not be afraid of asking for what I want (in ‘awkward’ Swedish)!  The my day finished at the home studio of an artist who is keen to start some kind of informal artists’ group, I would certainly be interested in getting involved.

My day seeing the more rural studios was not so intense, in the end I only made to two studios and a new exhibition venue that was not strictly part of the ‘Spring Art’ programme.  The two studios were both, and differently, inspiring.  Both artists were very generous with their time and talked not only about their own practice but their involvements with collaborative and community projects.  Again it felt really good to be reminded that there are opportunities to pursue those ways of working here too.  The exhibition venue at Målhammar is the ground floor of one of a pair of an eighteenth century houses that are all that remain of large country estate – and was great!  It had been on my ‘to visit’ list since reading about it in the local newspaper, and I got the chance to speak with both the exhibiting artist and the owner/director while I was there.  It was really good to meet them both and to hear about what they are both doing.  I could not help but start to dream of having a show in such a space – it could be a perfect place not only for some of my existing pieces but also two or three new works which as yet exist only in notes, sketches and jottings.

I am aware of an acute sense of embarrassment at giving people postcards of Play, not because of the work or image of it – both of which I am very pleased with.  Rather it was being reminded that I still have not gotten material together so that David and Lucy can update my website, Play is the most recent work on it – and it is from 2010.

And finally – there is a mini-Play that I had almost forgotten about.  I made it for the MOCA London booth at Supermarket so that visitors would make the connection between the installation by the staircase and the stand that we had in the fair.  The lengths of videotape fit perfectly from ceiling to floor in my flat, and being only about 50 centimetres wide and 20 centimetres deep I thought that I could easily mount it at right angles to the wall so that sticks out in the room.  I am intrigued to see if I can bear to live with the fluttering of the tape in the slightest breeze.  I am also intrigued to see how I might be able to use my home to show my work until such time as I have a studio, and even then it might be more interesting to show older pieces here and keep the studio as a working space …

It occurred to me the other evening, as I was proof reading English texts for this year’s Supermarket catalogue and magazine, that there is no reason why artists cannot work with both commercial galleries and artist-led initiatives.  Supermarket is celebrating its tenth anniversary and several of the features refer to its history and founding principles of being an artist focused alternative to the more economically driven art fairs that the authors tend to see as being controlled by and organised for gallerists and collectors.

I am paraphrasing and am sure that the authors share my view that things are never so simple as being either good or bad.  And of course I agree with their criticism of an art scene that is wholly steered by commercial ventures and investments. But then I am not currently working with either a commercial gallery or an artist-led initiative so I can fantasize about a wonderful middle way.  Perhaps my perspective reveals a great deal about a fantasy world that I believe in.  It has always surprised me that artists (often but not exclusively those not working with commercial galleries) complain that galleries ‘take’ at least 50% of the sale price.  My first job after art school was in a department store where I quickly learnt that the average ‘mark up’ on most goods was 50% of the selling price: it made little difference if it was socks or sofas.  Suppliers did not complain that the store ‘took’ 50% of the sale price.  I am surprised that galleries do not more often take 70 or even 75% when I think about how much they risk in taking on artists, especially artists without a proven track record.  Art and economics will never be easy bedfellows, but then neither were art and religion.

In my perfect fantasy world I have the opportunity to be like those Hollywood stars who make crowd-pleasing blockbusters in order to finance their alternative and art-house projects.  For last nine months I have worked almost full-time as Tim’s assistant.  It is good, interesting, and rewarding work but it has kept me away from making my own work.  It is unrealistic to think that my weekends can be spent in my studio, like most other people I need a bit of relaxation and to do those necessary domestic activities.  When regular and on-going part-time teaching was an option it was a good way to support a non-profit making practice, now that those post are almost non-existent I find myself wondering about other ways to make sufficient income without sacrificing too much time for the things that I really want to do.  Suddenly the possibility of handing over some of the things that I make to people who will promote, publicise and sell them seems very very attractive!  I think that I need to pay a bit more attention to Jeremy Deller and Grayson Perry.

Last week I went to the Eskilstuna Art Museum to hear a lecture by Johan Strandahl, he gave a very good and very amusing presentation about his work.  His practice often has him making his own versions of everyday things, it is the way in which he tackles the task in addition to the final object or image that makes his work brilliantly resolved.  One piece consists of two almost identical photographs, each photo shows a wooden table on which is a bag of plaster, several bottles of glue, and a rasp.  The photo on the left shows the objects in their original state whereas the photo on the right shows the result of Strandahl’s processes of de- and re-construction.  He takes a plaster cast of the table, files the table down to dust that he mixes with the glue and fills the plaster mould with.  He then files down the mould and puts the plaster dust back in the bag and puts the bag, the glue bottles (now empty), and the rasp on the new table in the same position as their predecessors.  The museum was also showing his ‘Kitchen’ installation where he has literally made his own Ikea kitchen.  Taking one of their model kitchens as inspiration and blue-print he has handmade all the components and shows them as a mirror image of the store bought version.  Both the fridge and cooker that he made work, though he confessed that the fridge does not reach an equally cold temperature.  It was inspiring to see how his work has developed over the ten years since he graduated (as a ‘mature student’) and to hear how passionate he is about his way of coming to understand the world that he lives in.  He mentioned that much has been made of the relationship between the price one pays for a mass-produced product and the labour it takes to do it yourself, this however is not his reason for doing what he does.  He said, quite simply and honestly (and I hope that I understood correctly), that his practice gives him amazing insights into everyday life and he hopes that we are able to share some of that through his artworks.

Before I heard him speak I was not sure why I felt it so necessary to visit the museum and attend his lunchtime lecture.  I am very pleased that I did and I left with a renewed, if still incomprehensible, sense of purpose about my own practice.