Interim Show

Hans Op de Beeck
'Landscape for Henri'
2003

The interim show is now only two weeks away. We will discuss requirements in more detail tommorrow, the 29th November. There are a few issues to deal with:

1. Decide on a piece of work, or body of work and make your display - remember space is tight!
2. Clear studio of stuff that is not going to be shown.
3. If your work is not in a fit state to be shown then you must think of what else to do (check with staff).
4. Each of your displays must be accompanied by a text which must be typed in 'Ariel' (12 point) with your name, title - if applicable, and your writing on the work (artist's statement or manifesto or list of words etc).
5. There will be a monitor/dvd player and a projector/dvd player in room 302. You will need to share these. We suggest you print up stills of videos to display in your space .
6. Any special events will also take place in room 302 to alleviate the lack of space.
7. Repaint any part of the space that needs it.

Remember this is an interim show. This is the first display of the Critical Practice course. However, in our opinion, even if you attempt something modest you must do so with great care. This does not mean vast expense, nor does it imply that you develop a genius complex. With this in mind, make sure the work is shown at its best, clarity and simplicity are the key.

Causes and Reasons

Things that cause things to happen seem interesting to artists. We often call it chance or serendipity. However, in order to find meaning in this causality we would need to examine if the thing that causes the thing always does so. This leads to a system. Some reject the possibility of statistical likelihood (that the thing always causes the other thing to happen), because they prefer not to know the outcome. This also involves belief in an original cause that needs to be recovered in order to understand why we do what we do. (in psychoanalysis only a qualified specialist can help decode the cause) However, causes do not have motives or intentions, since we have no control over them.
Reasons, on the other hand, make us accountable for our actions as artists. If we have a reason for doing something, we can be asked why we did the thing. If we act with intention then we know what motivated us in the first place. Intention may be seen as an honest attempt to make a decision. This decision is made by the individual and results in action.
I am writing this because there was a good deal of discussion about terms such as identity/mask and chance. I wonder about their use, since often they appear as statements of unease, of not knowing, of failing to assume responsibility. It is as if we would always be blamed for making a decision.
This affects your relationship with your work. Maybe it is easier to say that something happened by chance, that something caused a thing to happen (in your work). You are not responsible. You are not to blame if it was the wrong decision (since you made none). However if you do not cause something to happen through your decision, how can you describe the result as your work? As an artist, are you simply the recipient of causes that befall your work? In any event, the decision not to make a choice is still a decision, it still has a motive.
To act on your work for a reason, with an intention in mind makes you accountable. You may be confused about your reasons, or you may deliberately mislead your audience as to your reasons, but if all your reasons are insincere then there is no point to a discussion, as your audience will mistrust your motives and actions.
The point is, we can all argue with someone who tells us of a reason for their action that does not make sense to us. Therefore statements such as 'it happened to me' and 'I made it happen' are oppositional. There is much we cannot determine around us or in our own lives. However though not all reasons are reasonable, it is reasonable to assume that you do what you do for a reason (in your work). Reasons are also choices. They allow you to select your options whenever you come to a crossroads; often we select the choices of others who have gone before us. You may argue, that choosing a particular direction because an artist you admire has taken this direction before you, might weaken your choice - that the choice is made for you. However, this simply means that you are better informed about the choices available for you. Is it not interesting to be able to make informed choices?
Anyway, to work, as actions speak louder than words, unless the words are extremely large (because then they are obviously intended as an artwork).

Please post your Manifestos here…

To be bien pensant…or not to be. To be blind.

What is Art? Ever since the nineteenth century the question has been posed incessantly to the artist, to the museum director, to the art lover alike. I doubt, in fact, that it is possible to give a serious definition of Art, unless we examine the question in terms of a constant, I mean the transformation of Art into merchandise. This process is accelerated nowadays to the point where artistic and commercial values have become superimposed. If we are concerned with the phenomenon of reification, then Art is a particular representation of the phenomenon – a form of tautology. We could then justify it as affirmation, and at the same time carve out for it a dubious existence. We would then have to consider what such a definition might be worth. One fact is certain: commentaries on Art are the result of shifts in the economy. It seems doubtful to us that such commentaries can be described as political.
Art is a prisoner of its phantasms and its function as magic; it hangs on our bourgeois walls as a sign of power, it flickers along the peripeties of our history like shadow-play – but is it artistic? To read the Byzantine writing on the subject reminds us of the sex of angels, of Rabelais, or of debates at the Sorbonne. At the moment, inopportune linguistic investigations all end in a single gloss, which its authors like to call criticism.
Art and literature…which of the moon’s faces is hidden? And how many clouds and fleeting visions there are.
I have discovered nothing here, not even America. I choose to consider Art as a useless labor, apolitical and of little moral significance. Urged on by some base inspiration, I confess I would experience a kind of pleasure at being proved wrong.
A guilty pleasure, since it would be at the expense of the victims, those who thought I was right.
Monsieur de la Palice is one of my customers. He loves novelties, and he, who makes other people laugh, finds my alphabet a pretext for his own laughter. My alphabet is painted.
All of this is quite obscure. The reader is invited to enter into this darkness to decipher a theory or to experience feelings of fraternity, those feelings that unite all men, and particularly the blind.

1975

Marcel Broodthaers (1924–1976)

Fine Art Club

Hello again. A few of us, specifically myself, Jon Klein and Beth want to restart the Fine Art Club. To do this we need names and £2 from at least 20 people in order for the Union to give us official society status. Any one interested? We also want to produce our own publication written and produced for and by the Fine Art Club. And we'll change the name of the Fine Art Club, cos that's frankly a bit rubbish....

Posted by Charlotte

Talking Turkey

We had intended to post individual feedback on the interim assessment on the blog, but in order to respond to the needs of the situation, decided on raising a few general issues here. We'll talk in greater detail on tuesday.

Housekeeping
1.Turning up on time seems to be an issue. The interim assessment is a rehearsal for the real event in January.
2.Project Proposals are missing for much of the work.
3.Many displays are not labelled (whose work is it, identify vhs-tapes, description of work etc).
4.Work not related to the module (old work, other modules) should not be there.

Critical Practice
The term suggests work which benefits from a critical awareness of the issues surrounding it. Your work exists in a context which frames it, offers guidance, provides problems. Much of the work we saw is highly internalised, it appears as if it is made without any sense of 'belonging in the world'. The fact that it comes from you is not enough as a means of validation.
While some of you have barely begun to formulate a new body of work, others appear confused as to how to proceed - there seem to be too many options. The engagement with 'the things that surround you' is the key here, and in some individuals' work you can see the difference!
But all of you are needed to shape this pathway. While we can guide and monitor, it is also up to you to establish its direction and identity. This can only be done through your work which ensures your 'membership' and the privileges that come with it: namely the ability to help shape your own experience on the course and that of your peers in the future.
Downhearted?
Read 'Bouvard and Pecuchet' by Gustave Flaubert, an account of two never-say-die-no-hopers, and Voltaire's 'Candide', a truly uplifting comedy of errors. For introspection that actually functions creatively read 'Species of Spaces' by Georges Perec.
Not enough? Watch 'Quince Tree Sun' by Victor Erice (ILRC Library) a superb meditation on patience.
Remember Lacan's 'Mirror Stage'? This is instumental in the establishment of individuality. It is especially interesting as an analogy for the development as an artist: we look at ourselves (our other) as a means of looking at the world. We are in the world, yet separate from it. We deal in representations. This means that, as artists, we cannot make/discuss 'things in general'. It is our specificity, our peculiarity, our precision that needs honing.
This statement is not an invitation for introspection - instead, it offers a methodology (that you must develop) for interaction with you surroundings. How to read, interpret and finally act on the visual world!
How to begin?
Well you must describe/name your work: 100.50.10.1. Good luck!

100,50,10,1.

PLEASE POST YOUR LISTS HERE…

Write a list of 100 hundred separate words to describe your practice, then edit the list down to 50 words, then down to 10 and then down to 1. This should result in 4 separate pieces of paper.
Your lists are to be pinned up in room 302 next Tuesday morning (15th November) by 10.30am.
See you all then

Nico & Charlie

Please post your walks here…

Philip Guston

Painting, Smoking, Eating
197 x 263 cm
Philip Guston, 1973

Tuesday 8th November 2005

Hello Critical Practice students,
Tomorrow morning (Tuesday 8th November) by 10.30am, all of you will need to have pinned your work up in your spaces ready for Interim Assessments, Please remember to fill in the handouts that we gave you.
None of you need to be around in the morning but we will see you at 2.00pm for the Artists' Readings Seminar and to talk about your walks.

Nico & Charlie

Francis Alÿs

Zocalo, produced by Francis Alÿs in 1999, captures 12 hours of footage on Mexico City's central plaza, known as the Zocalo. In the sweltering heat, members of the public seek shelter in the shadow of the giant flagpole.

Welcome

Welcome to all members of critical practice at LMU. This weblog has been set up as a means of exchanging ideas between everybody in the group. You will find updates from staff on the programme, together with a useful jumble of ideas, stories, hearsay and so on.
We hope you will post your stuff on this - that is the main point - we need to get discussion going, as well as exchange info.
We are new to this and we hope you will all do your bit to help create and update the blog.

Nico & Charlie