Out of place: the distancing of art from context

In his survey of the origins of the museum, Crimp draws attention to the foresight of Goethe in 1798 stating that:

There was a time when, with few exceptions, works of art remained generally in the same location for which they were made. However, now a great change has occurred that, in general as well as specifically will have important consequences for art. (Crimp,1993: 97)

A major influence in the removal of works of art from their contexts was the emergence of new cultural codes and social interactions brought about by the industrial revolution. The ability to travel led to an exoticism where collections of iconographic objects, divorced from their ritualistic function and context, were imbued with the mysticism of awe and aesthetic beauty. Museums were established as Temples of Excellence to house such works so that visitors might enjoy a quasi-mystical experience, a belief that art as an icon of perfection was transformative, akin to religious belief (Frank, 1991). Crimp reminds us that ‘art before the invention of the art museum, simply no longer exists for us’ (Crimp, 1993: 98). He suggests that this loss is not only the result of removal of objects from their contexts for art museum collections, but is also influenced by the emergence of photography,

the modern epistemology of art is a function of art’s seclusion in the

museum, where art was made to appear autonomous, alienated, something apart, referring only to its own internal history and dynamics. As an

instrument of art’s reproduction, photography extended this idealism of art to a broader discursive dimension, an imaginary museum, a history of art.

(Crimp, 1993: 13)

This new-found ability to record and classify assisted a science focused on observational material as evidence to measure and construct new values. John Tagg asserts that through accessing the minutes of various select committees, the trace of the historical gaze could be followed uncovering the ‘way that gaze was engineered and institutionally sanctioned’ (Tagg, 1992:84).This objective gaze sanctions the value of art and as Carol Duncan observes,

is the all-pervasive force that makes possible and unifies the market system.

Criticism thus guards the door to all available high-art spaces, sets the terms for entry scouts the fringe spaces for new talent, and tirelessly readjusts current criteria to emergent art modes. (Duncan, 1993: 174)

These standards prevail through a museum practice that defines, distinguishes,

categorises and places art firmly within the arts-historical continuum ‘through displaying, interpreting, and publishing the work as part of a monographic or thematic program’

(Jacob, 1995:51).

Added to this, the construction within which images reside gives further definition to their reading. Our experience of art, contemporary and historical, is mostly via reproduction where an image is framed by the page and accompanied by

appropriate textual analysis. Publications, through the pressure of their form tend toward reinforcing the obscuring of relationships pertinent to a work. As cultural theorist Martin Lister points out:

Publications tend to privilege and reinforce the singularity and discreteness of the images that appear on their pages. Each image is framed by the edges of the page, each one is placed in considered isolation and held apart from the other (invisible) images sitting on the other closed pages. Each one is individuated by title and date. Of course, we turn the pages and make the

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mental effort to carry one set of impressions to the next, but the pressure of the form continually works to obscure the relationships. (Lister, 1998:1)

Iconic representation is persistently reinstated through popular culture and deeply ingrained in society. This version of art history as a chronology of genius, style and genre via iconic respresentation also evokes the mythical ‘artist’, singular and autonomous. To move beyond this, we need to be more curious, we need to delve deeper and discover the socio-political relations of a work’s provenance.

A typically reductive example is The Art Book, designed as a stimulating fun-packed history of art for a mass audience. Winning the Illustrated Book of the Year award in 1994, the book is a popular commodity, the introduction to which states that it is a

‘whole new way of looking at art in an A to Z format that debunks art-historical classifications by throwing together brilliant examples of all periods, schools, visions

& techniques’ (Phaidon Press, 1994: unpaginated).

It does exactly that (and in its ‘de-bunking’ de-bases any socio-political significance of the work it frames); Beuys sits beside Botticelli next to Buren and so on, each artwork accompanied by a short paragraph of information. When we get to ‘K’, we read:

KLEIN Yves. IKB 79. c.1959

IKB stands for International Klein Blue, a paint which Klein mixed personally

& then painted. Its brilliant colour is maintained by the addition of synthetic resin to the blue pigment. Most of Klein’s paintings are blue, as blue was an important colour to him, conveying a sensation of spirituality & freedom which is peculiar to his work. (Phaidon Press, 1994: 251)

This description, focused on product, short-circuits any intention, process or concept on Klein’s part to overtly challenge preconceptions about art and the art market.

This reductive description also fails to recognize that IKB 79 is a series from Klein’s

‘Blue Period’ (so called after Picasso) and a patented product that can’t actually be faithfully reproduced in a publication. These are issues to do with arts value and consumption. To then reference Klein’s ‘blue’ as ‘conveying a sensation of

spirituality & freedom’ denies Klein’s artistic sensibilities and his explorations of the material and immaterial that were at the heart of his practice. Klein’s transactional works have symbolic function: they are concerned with the transformative potential of material properties and issues to do with how art is valued. For instance, with Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility (referencing the use of gilt grounds in mediaeval painting) Klein sold works made with gold leaf that were to be paid for in gold, and half of this gold was then to be returned to nature in respect of ‘the mystical circulation of things’ (Weitemeier, 1995:69).

In Vision and Difference Grizelda Pollock cites Raymond Williams’s observation that

‘nearly all forms of contemporary critical theory are theories of consumption. That is to say concerned with understanding an object in such a way that it can be profitably and correctly consumed’ (1998:3-4 emphasis in original). In response to Williams’s suggestion that an alternative idea might be to ‘consider art as practice and the conditions of practice’ she points out that:

there are many who see art history as a defunct and irrelevant disciplinary boundary. The study of cultural production has bled so widely and changed so radically from an object to discourse and practice orientation that there is a complete communication breakdown between art historians working within a normative discipline and those who are contesting the paradigm […]

aiming to make improvements, bring it up to date, season the old with current intellectual fashions or theory soup. (Pollock, 1998:17)

Pollock, relating this to the feminist problematic, argues for a collective critique of social, economic and ideological power. Rather than isolate feminist art history, she suggests a consideration of feminist interventions within art histories. Similarly, artists’ intentions and processes, concealed through the institutional framework of art history, are revealed through an understanding of the relational aspects of the

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social and cultural conditions of their emergence – art of place.

Representation of arts practice is vital to understanding the processes that artists engage in and essential to their visibility and livelihood. Artists need their work to be well represented and understood so as to secure their next job, commission or funding award. This thesis explores the context-led processes of responding to a particular place and is inextricably concerned with matters of representation.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, interfaces of location and memory was initially conceived of as a connective concept to assist the dissemination of context-led arts practice. As such, a key intention of this research is to move beyond reductive representation and re-connect responsive outcomes with the context of their emergence, Arlene Raven’s self-questioning is suggestive of ways in which to do this:

Without a criticism based on creating market value through personal value put forth as ‘objective’ worth, what is left? Crucial for me is that my writing, arising from my seeing, attempts to be educational and includes information gleaned from interviews, research, and a knowledge of art and history.

There is something that can be added to the experience of artworks - data and insights that will place them in literary, geographical, historical, critical, political, or thematic contexts. (Raven, 1995:159-60)²