Berlin (i)
This time last week I was on day five of a six-day trip to Berlin. About now I was making my way from Zimmer Straße to Linden Straße before heading back to August Straße and on to Rosa Luxembourg Straße. It was my first time in Berlin – what an amazing interesting place.
It was my second Biennale experience (the first being Venice last year) and it could hardly have been more different. I wasn’t expecting a repeat of Venice in fact I don’t know what I was expecting. What I found was a vibrant young art scene in which the biennale seemed just one aspect.
The first few days of my time in Berlin were spent with Francois (an art-lover I met in Venice and have met with a few times at shows and fairs in London). It was great to have him meet me at the airport and whisk me off to the biennale as soon as I’d dropped my bag off at the hotel – though I have to say I’ll never attempt to ‘do’ the biennale in eight hours again. He was quite pleased that we’d seen it all (save for a video in the KunstWerk basement), I felt that I hadn’t had sufficient time in each location let alone with individual artworks. It was an interesting insight into how he sees art. Francois has a job that involves a lot of international client liaison and he’s able to schedule meetings on Fridays and Mondays which gives him the weekend to visit shows, fairs and biennales that ‘conveniently’ fall when he makes these business trips.
I had every intention of going back to at least two of the biennale venues; after all I had two and a half days to myself after Francois left on Sunday afternoon. In the event there was so much else to see that I didn’t make it back to any of them.
On Saturday Francois had arranged for us to visit Sammlung Hoffmann – a private collection of contemporary art in a specifically designed private apartment. It was the first time I’ve visited a real private collection and seen museum quality work on the walls of a private residence. Most of the rooms have no evidence of being at all domestic, perhaps this is what made the dinning room with it’s table, chairs, furnishings and Polke one of the most fascinating. Beyond that was a less formal room with a couple of high chairs and some dried orange peel twisted around the architectural banister – this our guide informed us was a piece by Mrs Hoffman and her grandchildren. As if on cue a door opened and Mrs Hoffmann stepped though. She was, of course, the perfect host and hoped that we’d enjoyed visiting her collection; she spoke at some length about the biennale and the Berlin scene before thanking us and wishing us a pleasant afternoon.
Off to Berlin tomorrow! It's an awful admission but I haven't been before.
Going to the studio this afternoon. We were broken into last week and it's the first time I'll have been since then. Rupert has been and fitted new locks. Nothing was taken or damaged – I'm relieved but also a little hurt, is there really nothing of value there?
Today I replied to an email asking if I'd like to be involved in a schools project later this year. It's a project that I did a couple of years ago for an art centre in north London. It felt good to reply positively while also highlighting how I want to work.
The email, like others I've received, gave a certain amount of information about what the organisation wanted from me but it wasn't very discursive, and it certainly doesn't feel as though I'd be entering a 'partnership' with the gallery and the school. This is something that I'm very aware of now (since Eastbourne). It would be interesting to ask the gallery and school if they consider the artist to be project partner or a hired specialist. The email detailed the number of schools involved, the number of hours at each school, the age range of pupils, the artist's fee and the materials budget. Am I being unrealistic to expect a gallery to decide these things in discussion with the artist and the school?
In my reply I expressed my interest in the project, I explained that I have a set day rate and that I don't work for less than a day. I divided the artist's fee by my day rate and told the how many days I could offer.
It took me a long time to write what amounted to about six lines and another while to decide if I should hit the reply button or not. I hit it with some trepidation.
Although it's an entirely different situation the experience resonated with my feelings on reading the letter from a group of sculptors in April's a-n magazine. That is that artists are often the poor relations even in dealing with the organisations and institutions that should be supporting them. How have we gotten in to this situation?
What next?
I'm getting impatient to get on with things, the trouble is I don't know what things to get on with, what to do next ..
It feels likes there's so much to do, too much to do and I can't seem to make sense of it all. This is unlike me – usually I'm pretty well organised. Perhaps I should set myself an arbitrary starting point and … start.
For the last few years I've 'maintained' my practice however my concentration has been very much focussed elsewhere. To be honest I think I'm daunted by the new 'freedom' I have. When I couldn't really do anything it was easy to fantasize about everything I'd do when I was able to. Now that that time has come I've about three years worth of ideas, schemes and plans to sort out. I'm feeling rather out of touch with the art world.
I'm in danger of acting like that tired child who refuses to go to bed. If only I could admit I'm exhausted and allow myself a bit of time out then perhaps I could start to make good sense of things …
In no particular order;
• get some good documentation of recent (and not so recent) work
• finish some/one of the things that's lying around the studio
• go to openings and galleries
• REALLY look at up coming opportunities
• get a website/online presence
• find some better paid work
• go back to college
• get some good advice
• move to the coast
The last two Sunday's I've been invigiliating Forensic (a group show at 55 Leroy Street, London SE1). Yesterday the visitors were a bit more hesitant about my work. The piece invites people to 'spy' on the rooms above and below the first floor exhibition. This done by peering into spy holes located in the ceiling and the floor. The spy holes (like the ones usually found in domestic front doors) are quite discrete – what's most obvious is the ladder that enables access to the one in the ceiling.
I have a real sense of detachment from the piece. And don't know how I feel about it. Although it sits well with the other work, and Linda Duffy (the show's artist/curator) likes it, I'm a little too aware of it's short comings. I've had good feedback from artists who know my work. They saw aesthetic and conceptual connections with my previous work, and while I appreciate this the piece is a little too blunt for my liking.
It's probably not insignificant that I was working on ideas for this show shortly before John died. It was installed in the days after returning from burying his ashes in Sweden. Perhaps my sense of 'lack' doesn't really belong to the work at all.
If anything I'm disappointed that there's so little of me in it. It was a site-specific project and although it embraces this it has less wit, intelligence and ambiguity than I would like.
The show runs for another two weekends – I won't be there as I'm working elsewhere but I look forward to hearing visitors feedback and reading the comments …
