woolgather art prize 2011
DESCRIPTION
The Woolgather Art Prize is an experimental showcase of contemporary artists based in West Yorkshire. Aiming to provide an accessible platform for artworks and hoping to celebrate the unresolved, the transitional, possibly the ridiculous. Ultimately championing the ‘what if’?’TRANSCRIPT
Woolgather Art Prize 2011
We all give to society;What do you want back?
It’s not Avant Garde, it’s Avant G
ive31 B
ond
Stre
et L
eeds
, May
6th
Opportunities can exist within all of us and can be underpinned with one question ‘what if’? And the fun part: exploring that question.
Thanks to everyone who made this possible.
Con
tent
s
06 - Foreword
16 - Thomas George Durrans
24 - Raychel Ark
14 - Joe Frost
22 - Geoff Latz
08 - WoolgatherIn Conversation
17 - Michael Burkitt
24 - Lucy Alexandra Howson
15 - Michael Burell
22 - Tony Burhouse
15 -Bruce Davies
23 - Verity Hatfield
4
32 - Fred Pepper
35 - Alex Sickling
25 - Elisa Grasso
29 - Nikki Hafter
34 - Robert Sharples & Scott Towler
32 - Bess Martin
36 - Liz West
26 - Alex Gilmour
30 - Jo Marsh
33 - Claire Selman
37 - Aurora Fearnley & Jenni Wren
28 - Gillian Holding
5
How do we, and who are we to judge success in the art world? How do we award
or recognise worth? How do we put a price on something that is essentially the
manifestation of someone’s idea or thought process?
Is it all a lottery of subjective decision making by people in the ‘position’ of a
selector, funder, organiser etc.? And how do these decisions impact on the winner
as well as - inevitably - the loser?
These are some of the questions that came to my mind when I first started talking to
Leeds-based artist collective, Woolgather, about their current project ‘The Woolgather
Art Prize’.
The Woolgather Art Prize is an experimental showcase of contemporary artists
based in West Yorkshire. Aiming to provide an accessible platform for artworks
and hoping to celebrate the unresolved, the transitional, possibly the ridiculous.
Ultimately championing the ‘what if…’.
According to the democratic fountain of knowledge, Wikipedia:
“A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people to recognise
and reward actions or achievements. Prizes are also given to publicize
noteworthy or exemplary behaviour, and to provide incentives for improved
outcomes and competitive efforts.”
What interested me about The Woolgather Art Prize was their approach in exploring
what the offer of an art prize means, in terms of who the ‘winners’ really are, as well
as giving artists an opportunity to be part of a valuable process. All short-listed artists
are involved equally in the collective development of a publication, a public show and
a website as outcomes of the project.
Fore
wor
d by
Eas
t Str
eet A
rts
6
“We want to celebrate not just the art product but the artistic lifestyle as
well… all the artworks will be given away to members of the public who voted
throughout the duration of the show. In doing all this we hope to encourage a
continuing wider interest in the arts”
{Woolgather interviewed by Culture Vulture}
Woolgather in one sense are acting like a modern day Robin Hood capturing
artworks that might just as easily have been situated in a white cube ivory tower
but instead giving them away to people who have journeyed to view the work
and vote. In a vigilante approach to widening engagement they are also making
reference to another aspect of attaining a ‘prize’, perhaps wrestling it back from the
psychological grip of capitalist ideology, insomuch that ‘the winner takes it all’.
“Prize is a term used in admiralty law to refer to equipment, vehicles, vessels,
and cargo captured during armed conflict. The most common use of prize in
this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and its cargo as a prize of war.”
{wikipedia}
The exhibition, which I think is an exciting snapshot of contemporary art practice
in West Yorkshire, is presented in a ‘meanwhile’ venue that fits with the collective’s
wishes for an accessible central (non art) space. The public will vote on all the
works and the winners will receive a monetary award as well as acclaim from
the visitors. In an extra twist the works will be given away over the course of the
exhibition negating price tags, commercial operations and in the spirit of captured
loot, passing it on to people who really want it and value it other than what they are
worth on the market.
7
Woo
lgat
her i
n C
onve
rsat
ion
JS - Are we going to reference anything
of where the idea came from?
CW - I think we can talk about
our positions.
AN - Right what is our position then?
[Silence]
CW - Errrrrrrrrrm us being recent
graduates, who can’t afford to make
work and can’t even show our work to
the public really.
JS - So to that extent are we going to
speak negatively of . . . I guess we
could speak in a broad sense, because
like I said, I don’t know if it is just Leeds
or if this happens to young artists
everywhere, but there is no integration
into society for us right now and that’s
what we are trying to create.
AN - This isn’t just an art prize but
a project to establish a relationship
between the artist and the public on a
local level, to engage all in the process.
Artists struggle to establish a lifestyle
that allows them to make a living, this
is only going to become harder in the
times ahead, but we must never forget
that the core of work is never profit
driven, but a tool by which to explore our
surroundings and relate to the world,
and to share this with others, and to
prompt curiosity.
The application is open to any form of
work, complete or in development, we
want to expose work that is uncertain
and diffident in a stage of development
and not smooth and refined, raw works
not marketable products.
-
AN - Like you were saying yesterday,
yes it is local, and it’s important that
it’s a local thing, but it could be
local anywhere.
CW - It could be applied anywhere.
-
JS - We want works that belong to each
artist, stamped by individual pride in
that work, a piece that they represent
that they feel they must represent even.
We for this reason should maybe only
accept one piece for each proposal . . .
that was one thing I thought of. Rather
than saying you can exhibit three I guess
The Woolgather art prize was born out of a frustration of our circumstance.
It acts as a reaction to our thoughts and concerns, directly responsive of our
environment, as artists.
These are extracts from early conversations in the project highlighting ideals
and questions we had and in most cases still have.
8
CW - It’s actually pretty, it could be one
of the…
JS - Punch lines
-
AN - In some ways it’s a problem isn’t it,
artists are expected to give to the public,
how do they, what do they get back from
it. We don’t do it because we expect to
get something back, but at the same
time, we do have to establish a way of
living to be able to do all that. Ok so
maybe we’re not addressing that, we’re
not solving any problems, that artists
might have.
JS - But it’s about making artists feel
good about themselves, it’s like any
hero in any story: they don’t get a direct
reward for going off and saving the world
but feel an obligation, there’s a drive
in these people……..It’s not just about
the shortlisted artists who make it, there
will be lots of talent going in there, just
the intention of entering knowing your
giving your work away alone is quite an
admirable one.
CW - How do we reward everyone
I guess?
JS - I know we can’t physically do it but
it would be nice at some point.
AN - I know, it started as a monetary
reward and has moved away from that,
the actual reward money is secondary
now to something else going on.
maybe it shows a genuine integrity to
an idea that you’ve only got one shot at
it. There’s too much of an idealisation
of reaching the final goal immediately,
forgetting the strivings in the adventure,
we want the grass to always be greener,
and if it isn’t we will up the contrast
on Photoshop.
AN - The comedian Bill Hicks, he got
diagnosed with cancer, he didn’t tell
anyone, but after that his work became
like a necessity to get all this stuff out
and give it to the world before he left. It
poured out of him, he felt he had to give
all this back before he went. You should
listen to his stuff.
CW - But what you said about the artists
really wanting to just show one piece or
this is it kind of thing, works with the idea
of giving it away, and being so confident
in it that they will just give it away, just
to share.
JS - It’s like the idea of art being your
kid isn’t it, you want to release in into the
world and let it stand on its own legs.
-
JS - I’ve got a quote here……
It’s not Avant-Garde,
it’s Avant-Give
[Laughs]
AN - Who said that John it’s quite good
[sarcastic]
JS - Beautiful stuff
9
In the end we’re just putting the work
there and creating a show, we’re
rewarding that lifestyle and putting an
importance on it.
-
JS - . . . heck knows it isn’t about money
anymore . . . we’re going at this without
really any money but we’re still going to
do it anyway.
CW - (Sings) Money for nothing and
your kicks for free
-
AN - When I got home I thought about
what we were talking about last night,
the possibility of the £100 curators
choice prize, and I started to think that
actually that really isn’t a good idea,
because this has turned into something
else, I don’t think we need to do that
anymore. That was when we wanted to
put an emphasis on the experimentation
of work, but actually, us saying we
are going to give some money to our
favourite, we undermine and undo
everything we’ve just tried to outline.
JS - I fully agree with that because it will
save us some cash
AN - £100 to spend on booze instead eh
Plus we don’t know that a tiny drawing
isn’t going to win, the public could really
surprise us, you know, we have no idea.
JS - That’s it; you know we are all working
in a domain, where we’ve never had the
public really interact with our work.
AN - Yes ok that’s an educated
assumption that they will go for big and
brash, from things that we have read and
learnt but we don’t know, that’s what’s so
exciting about it, we just
don’t know.
JS - We don’t need to educate people in
art, it’s in the heart. You can’t spell heart
without art.
CW - You don’t need to learn about
anything to realise if you like it or not.
-
AN - You know when you said who we’re
targeting, I picked up when you said
young artists, I’m just concerned, that’s
not just who were aiming this at, there
might be some old guy who at 40/50
CW - 40 – Old guy!?
JS - A guy on the cusp of death!
[Laughter]
-
AN - I suppose I was obviously thinking
about the idea of personality that’s come
out of Facebook of everyone knowing
so much about people that you might
not have even seen in years, a couple of
years ago that would have just seemed
bizarre, but now that voyeuristic way of
life has become quite normal, how do we
draw upon that?
CW - If we get all the artists to do
a video but then we get a range of
responses, someone’s made an
animation or a film and some else has
Woo
lgat
her i
n C
onve
rsat
ion
10
AN - By the time it comes to the opening
of the exhibition we want them to feel
really involved with something, not just
think, oh there’s my work.
-
AN - If someone wants to put in a
diamond encrusted fucking mash potato
plunger and someone else wants to put
in a battery with a phone balanced on
top of it.
JS - Go on show that happening
CW - You’re going to be there for like 6
hours trying to do that.
AN - If someone believes in the idea
enough and wants to give away a really
expensive piece of work then that’s fine
as well.
CW - At the end of the day they have to
give it away.
JS - [John impersonates his
future self] Oh sorry you got shortlisted,
but we couldn’t exhibit, but we keep.
CW - But we keep, we just like.
JS - Oh sorry that got sold by mistake.
CW - We exhibit the piece but we’ve
taken all the diamonds off it.
AN - Oh, oh, for the record I just
balanced my phone on a battery, a AAA.
JS - That’s quite impressive actually.
-
AN - But you know what, we’ve got all
these ideas and all these ideals but we
might be shit at it, it might be really shit,
hardly any public might turn up.
say; a stereotype but an old man who is
a painter and sits in front of the camera
and talks to it, I think that variation that
don’t naturally sit together in terms of
approach, I think would be amazing.
JS - It would be, but it’s very ideological
to think that’s how people will react.
CW - What’s worse case scenario?
JS - That we get 40 shit videos, I hardly
ever watch good artist videos.
CW - We’re not asking them to make an
artist video like it’s an exhibition piece,
we’re asking them to make an erm,
maybe even if we said right we want you
to make a video where you tell us about
your erm, who you are or whatever and
what you think of an art prize.
JS - I think what we are touching on is
the idea of dialogue.
-
AN - What else can we do that’s like
a dialogue between the artist and the
public, but draws upon that idea of
knowing a bit too much about someone
you don’t actually know?
JS - Yeah something where you feel you
can connect with someone.
AN - Yeah, so they’re not talking about
themselves and their art and become a
character that anyone can relate to on
any level.
JS - We might even see it getting born
out of this gift idea, someone giving
something of themselves.
11
JS - But these ideals aren’t promises,
they’re genuine ideals of why we’re
doing this...
AN - Ok so what if we have an
introductory paragraph that’s about our
beliefs, it doesn’t say what we’re going
to do, it just states we believe that this is
important, this is important and this
is important.
JS - Yeah I think that is necessary
-
CW - . . . it’s like you do it through the
action not through saying you will do it.
JS - Bringing it back to good old Beck’s
New Contemporaries [‘97 catalogue]
they put all their intentions in there and
heck knows the exhibition won’t have
ever really achieved that, but they put
all their hopes for re developing the art
education and the world developing, so
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with
putting those giant ambitions that we
have there.
AN - We almost need to . . . maybe a
piece of, maybe more what we need is
a piece of writing that we’ve done that
talks about our beliefs, but they’re not,
but we’ve just got to be so careful were
not going to claim were going to do
anything.
-
JS - I think we all have a shared belief in
what this thing is about now, I think we
always did.
-
JS - Stuff like this really adds to
the story. We’re professional tramps
AN - I’m exhausted after all this talking
JS - It’s just standard for me really, I just
do it to the mirror, it’s the only way I can
get intellectual debate.
AN - Oh God John
JS - If no one else believes in you, you
have to believe in yourself.
Woo
lgat
her i
n C
onve
rsat
ion
12
Each artist was asked to produce a submission in response to the question:
We all give to society;what do you want back?
Shor
tlist
ed A
rtis
ts13
unifr
eakm
ad@
hotm
ail.c
omJo
e Fr
ost
14
‘It’s a leading question, you know. I’m giving to society? I mean, how much do I
really give to society? I don’t want to sound abusive, but in terms of making art
for people I’m pretty lousy. I should get my stuff out there more to be seen, but
it’s kinda tricky. Some people just aren’t interested in what I’m doing. It’s sort’ve a
general apathy that people’ve got, they don’t care for much anything cultural, really.
I guess me and those guys have to meet each other half-way: I’ll present more of
my work to them and they’ve got to be more interest in it. Or, well, not just my stuff,
but art in general y’know? I don’t really want to be rich and famous and make lots of
dough or anything, seems kinda like a lousy life but I guess having people just being
interested in what I’m doing would be pretty killer. I don’t exactly know what I mean
by that, but I mean it,’ I said. I got up and started to go but suddenly remembered it
was a goddam Sunday.
mic
hael
rbur
rell@
goog
lem
ail.c
omw
ww.
para
taxi
derm
y.org
At the age of nearly forty and after twenty three years of work the only thread that
has run through my adult life is the desire to achieve something as an artist. What
that something is I am not sure I can really define but I do understand that it is a life
long work that may never reach any particular resolution; but isn’t that life anyway?
In terms of benefitting from such endeavours I can honestly say that my desire for
any kind of return ends with individual projects. I would like to think that, in some
small way, my various projects and artworks could contribute to a much needed
change in people’s attitudes towards and perception of art.
Commerce and art have become confused in people’s minds and art is only really
considered if it is a consumable that can be added to their walls or shelves at home,
yet more objet de merde with which to fill lives and empty pockets. The real beauty
in art comes not in having expensive wallpaper but in the engagement with an idea
that makes you see the world in a different way
Bru
ce D
avie
sM
icha
el B
urel
lbr
uce@
henr
y-m
oore
.org
ww
w.m
useu
mof
daily
life.
wor
dpre
ss.c
om15
Page
16
- hello
@th
omas
durra
ns.c
o.uk
ww
w.th
omas
durra
ns.c
o.uk
0789
4243
237
Thom
as G
eorg
e D
urra
ns16
ww
w.m
icha
elbu
rkitt
.com
As you read the text you are invited to:
- Empty your pockets or bag and place
the contents up on a nearby surface.
- Remove your shoes and place them
on the same surface.
- Take and peel a banana
- Eat the banana while you read, taking
small bites, chewing sufficiently
before swallowing.
- Throw the banana on the floor.
Now the banana is a bit phallic, tasty and
high in vitamin B6, C and potassium;
but let’s imagine perhaps innuendo and
dietary fulfilment are not the reason
I have invited you to chomp your
way through this fruitful experience.
By consuming the Banana you have
responded to a rather generous invitation.
I offer my work as a gift, like a gift it can
be gratefully accepted or declined. You
can eat the Banana and read these words
or not. According to artist Doug Fishbone
accepting or declining an invitation is
exactly what occurs when encountering
his work. In Trafalgar Square Fishbone
kindly dumped 30,000 bananas for
passers by to help themselves to, When
discussing the 8ft high yellow pile Curator
Tom Motson said: “That’s what the work
is all about, about the generosity of that
gesture and about the relationships
fostered through giving away the fruit, as
well as the fact that this is a truly beautiful
sculpture.” The duration of this piece was
around 11 hours whilst people helped
themselves. It should not take you as
Mic
hael
Bur
kitt
17
long to finish your treat while I inform
you that I initiate actions, events and
interruptions interfering with institutional
conditions propositioning audiences
to encounter ephemeral events that
respond to the specific contexts in which
they are situated. Or to quote Roselee
Goldberg I seek to create an audience
that are ‘not passive recipients of the
material of culture, but activists – kinetic
collaborators in the construction of idea’.
With a mouth full of banana I find this
more digestible, as the way you hear
what you are reading differs from how
it would having not taken a bite. We
have developed a bond here in the
bananas exchange. If you are eating the
banana you have begun to consume the
gift, which is good. Gifts are intended
to ‘recognize, establish and maintain
community’.
However generous this, or indeed
Fishbone’s giving appears Derrida
believed that ‘true’ giving was an
impossibility as gratitude annuls the
act of giving as the giver also receives
something in the exchange. I give you
a Banana and you enjoy it, I can now
feel happy I did this for you. Derrida felt
that ‘a genuine gift must reside outside
of the oppositional demands of giving
and taking.’ And even though I am not
handing over this banana in person I
am aware at some point, someone may
enjoy one as a result of my generosity.
In similar territory Derrida transfers these
relations to hospitality. In order to host
you must first have the power in which
to host. This requires the host to position
the guest within a set of conditions and
boundaries. For example when visiting
someone’s house that has a treasured
carpet, you may be instructed to take off
your shoes before entering. Authentic
‘Hospitality requires a non mastery, an
abandoning of all claims of property, or
ownership’ and it is precisely this altruistic
aporia that questions the nature of the
decisions we make and how they create
our identity, accentuating our ritualised
activities and the images we create. I
interrogate these aesthetics of presence
and power in my work in order to ‘play out
and challenge the orthodoxies, the rules
and separations through which and in
which we live.’
I host my work like I host this text. You
are my guest here and have an input,
to a certain extent in each and every
word; you may interpret language
differently to me, but I have a control
over the parameters within which you
can interpret. You are included in the
reading of each and every word, but in
the decision to credit this essay as my
Mic
hael
Bur
kitt
18
work there is a reminder that you are also
removed from it. As Roland Barthes puts
it, when discussing famous literature ’If
I can read these authors, I also know I
cannot re-write them’. By accepting the
invitation to eat the banana you have
begun to engage with qualia. Qualia is
the quality of subjective experience, for
example you may enjoy this banana more
than another. You have begun to have a
personal experience in your relationship
with the reading of this text. I know how I
like bananas to taste, feel and look. You
will have different banana requirements. If
you have declined the invitation to graze,
the banana remains my property, as the
items that remain in your pockets or bag
remain yours, rather than the beginnings
of a kind of hospitable commerce like say
if you were to have removed your shoes
from your person and offered them in
order to receive these words.
Gift economies are marked by a sense
of obligation in that they are bound by
the need to reciprocate. In North America
the indigenous people of the Pacific
North West Coast celebrate Potlatch, a
festival where your status or reputation
is advanced by the act of giving and
grounded by accepting gifts. This giving
or hospitality can be seen as a lust for
power as “The gift not yet repaid debases
the man who accepts it” and so our
dialogue begins in a position where you
can activate this work rather than merely
read its repeated intentions.
This agreement or pact with the
audience is my desired negotiation of
the terms of art/audience, where the
inclusion of an audience through the
qualia and emotional response in the
creative process, orchestrates meaning
in a ‘system of presentations’ not an
assessment of a works history. In this
system and continuation of presentation
the potential for interruptions remains,
whereby even the disruption of a mobile
phone ringing [from a credit company
hassling for money] can be included,
where it may not have been before.
My logocentrism requires a series of
presentations to be circulated or ‘carried’
by all those who have experienced it
to create meaning. For this reason it
is quite volatile. Writing allows for the
transmission of meaning in the absence
of the receiver and does not require
you to be here. In the transcription of
meaning in a writing system I displace
the importance of the community
established by the oral tradition, that
I favour, by creating an ‘original’, a
referent, I have made the experience
sustainable on these pages but this
allows for it to be taken out of the context
19
of its communication. Not having the
immediacy of speech is what makes
these words inauthentic and their
survivability incapable of the ‘guarantee
of the purity of its intentions’. As I must
go back and rectify the forms I have
created in the last few paragraphs so
that they can communicate, in the form
of a document efficiently. Allowing you
to engage with them at a later stage. I
have to consider the innocence that will
become lost in this duration and the purity
of my intentions. Accommodating the
institutional restraints I have to glance at
my end point, if I am to make sense of my
beginning. With room to cite, quote and
qualify. I have to re-consider.
There then becomes a breakdown
in the community established. When
ideas are fixed within a reproducible
medium such as these words on the
page, all discussion must be hosted by
the mechanisms of that market despite
my desire for them to be received as
a gift. The community cannot carry
the ideas as they lie here, they are
held in their reification. In science,
research discoveries are contributed
to the scientific community and result
in the recognition within the scientific
community for that addition in the
continuing unfolding of progress.
However until the retentive clench on
ideas becomes loosened by the laxative
effect of monetary gain, the progression
of the research is halted. The resulting
cash can be digested outside of the
community and no longer serves it.
Therefore the community established in
the exchange of gifts lose their contributor
and become unattached. There is a loss
of immediacy of creation, which nourishes
the community.
To talk about art as commodities is
almost itself a commodity. Many words
have been written with the concern that
the exchange value of a work of art
has become more important than the
work itself, and the throwing around of
‘his name’ makes me switch off onto
autopilot. So I will try not to fall into that
same, underprivileged cesspit, where
the culprits would like to see all artists
residing. But the importance of the
resistance to make work that can reside
in the crusades of commodity collection
is paramount in sustaining a community,
rather then removing one from it. Now
by ‘community’ I mean an audience, an
audience who enjoy encountering art. As
these very words and images have the
potential to become commodities I have
not included any of my works to date.
Instead, I will write of the concerns the
work attempts to address and in doing
so hopefully demand a commitment from
Mic
hael
Bur
kitt
20
the future owner of these ideas. Artist Sol
Le Witt was bothered by the commodity
collection and attempted to tackle it in
the production of his work, he said, “one
of the ideas was the relation to art as a
commodity. I thought by doing drawings on
the wall, they would be non-transportable,
therefore a commitment by the owner
would be implied, and they could not be
bought or sold easily.” I also have made
work the addresses the commodity
symptom, by creating some ephemeral
works that exist in the ‘later on stages’ as
stories, I have attempted to vaccinate my
work with the gift exchange. If you receive
these written words as a gift perhaps your
obligation could be to commit to finding my
work spoken in the future.
Motson, T. 2004. Story from BBC NEWS [online]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/3717650.stm [Accessed 16/07/09]
R.Goldberg. Performance - Live art since the 60’s. (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004)
L. Hyde. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. (New York: Random House inc. 1983) p101 J. Raynolds. 2006. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Jaques Derrida (1930 – 2004). [online]. http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/derrida.htm [Accessed 21/07/09]
T. Etchells. Valuable Spaces: New Performance in The 1990’s. In. A Split Second of Paradise: Live Art, Installation, Performance. Ed.Childs, N and Jeni Walwyn, (London: Rivers Oram Press, 1998) p31
R. Barthes. Image Music Text. Translated from the French by S.Heath. (London: FontanaPress, 1977) p163
L. Hyde The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. (New York: Random House inc. 1983) p89
P. Dews P. Logics of Disintegration. Post-Structuralist Thought and The Claims of Critical Theory. (London: Verso, 2007) p24
L. MacRitchie. The Sincerity of Events In. A Split Second of Paradise: Live Art, Installation, Performance. Ed.Childs, N and Jeni Walwyn, (London: Rivers Oram Press, 1998) p28
S. LeWitt. 2003. Sol LeWitt. BOMB Magazine. [online]. http://www.bombsite.com/issues/85/articles/2583 [Accessed 25/07/09]
21
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Tony
Bur
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Geo
ff La
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It is difficult to justify your worth to
society and then to ask for something
in return when I barely feel as though I
have even begun to contribute to it. In
many ways I have actually been well
looked after, in the current international
climate of recession and financial turmoil
and it seems presumptuous to be asking
for something in return. Even justifying
the worth of spending 3 years dedicated
to what is essentially a self indulgent
pursuit seems difficult when so many
people are finding themselves jobless.
It’s easy to become complacent.
Sometimes it is hard to remember that
we as individuals and as a species are
only inhabiting this planet for a relatively
small period of time, what, if anything, is
a worthwhile contribution to our society?
The brilliance of our species is the desire
we have to learn.
We have always constantly strived to
better our understanding of ourselves
and the world that surrounds us. This
is the reason we have accomplished
so much and advanced so far. This
can be achieved through something
monumental like scientific exploration,
the large hadron collider is a perfect
example of our commitment and
investment in the pursuit of knowledge,
or something more understated. Making
art work probably sits somewhere in
the middle of this scale. These things
may not seem like they hold equal worth
to society but they all in some way
contribute to a better understanding of
existence.
The ability to think creatively, to question
and to challenge your world are skills
that few subjects in education can teach
you. Being involved in art education
gives you the time and infinite freedom
to explore all aspects of our existence
that many initially overlook or ignore. Art,
for me, is about recording experience,
picking apart the complexities in our
lives and attempting to understand them,
an essential part of being human.
It’s going to be rare that I get the
opportunity to devote my time in this way
again. I am very lucky to have that now.
In a world that moves so fast there is no
space available to stop and consider. If
I felt like I could ask anything of society
it would be to work to encourage and
promote this questioning and pursuit of
understanding as a priority.
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Ark Nothing.
No, seriously, society owes me nothing; art owes me nothing. That’s not why I’m in it.
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I’d like more smiles off bus drivers please.
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Lucy
How
son
elis
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sso@
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Elis
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Short thought answer.
“Thank you” would be nice.
Long thought out answer.
It’s probably a good time to ask what
an artist wants from society, especially
when so much is taken away. I am
speaking of course about public funding
being removed from the arts at present.
The question also carries the weight
of what someone wants for his or her
birthday. What could society provide
for someone who can both doss and
work at the same time? To an extent it
could be suggested that nothing is owed
to a self-driven artist, but on the other
hand there is nothing to suggest that
being self-driven isn’t also being selfish.
Additionally I wonder if the question can
be about simple motivation.
A recent conversation in a pub provided
a decent explanation for why some
people create or invent. There to listen
to the Irish music, a chemist/former
inventor and myself agreed that peer
approval could be a natural valid drive.
A pat on the head or decent female
attention can be enough to keep you
churning out quality material. Though
during a recent lecture I went to on
the Motivation for Creativity, Professor
of Philosophy and the arts at Leeds
University Matthew Kieran countered,
before I even took a drink, as he said
creativity was at its best when driven
by “virtuous” motives, that creating for
its own sake was probably a decent
way to go. He went further to dump on
the previous hollow motives by saying
that creativity is actually at its worst
when driven by money or the need
to gain social standing. That in any
creative process which holds a hollow
motive at heart the results would pale
in comparison to others where the work
was driven by more virtuous motivation.
But I didn’t get a drink from him.
The drive to create is as important pretty
much should be the paramount motive
in art. This makes it difficult to quantify
what possible reward or support would
be sufficient as a return for any service
to society you achieve whilst doing your
personal work. Anything given back to
the artist ought to probably be measured
against the impact of your work,
extremely difficult as that is.
It difficult to ask what as an artist I’d like
back from society. I suppose at first for
me, as a student, it would be appropriate
to think about where I can apply myself
more to society and that would tell
me what I could receive in return. The
reduction of arts funding to me seems to
indicate of a loss of public interest in the
Ale
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26
arts. At least up to the point at which the
same someone who might enjoy a free
trip to a gallery also supports the populist
move to stop that. The government itself
may be alienated from some but the Art
world too has as ever the problem of
alienating a large audience sometimes
with its oblique work sometimes a
reliance on in-jokes. If it was about
building bridges with society at large
I might think about adding humour to
my work. Right now online there is
another community developing with
an understanding of its own in-jokes.,
showing that wit and keen insight are to
be found globally. On some websites the
creation of small amusing images is a
way of communicating ideas and jokes
in a more simple accessible way than
actually talking. In some cases it could
be said the incentive here is to receive
a growth in your own social standing,
albeit in an extremely socially awkward
way but for me these sorts of pictures
and animated media online is for me
art of another kind. It can be highly
entertaining and intelligent at the same
time. If there is a need to approach the
public then I’d be inclined to try making
your art amusing (easier said than
done) perhaps to create or join in with a
shared joke that would reach both sides.
If there remains the age old accusation
that the general public is too focused on
home media like television I’d suggest
that an artist try to find decent space on
television. Seeking to involve people is a
difficult problem, I see the best approach
to be making or attempting humour, if an
artist truly wants to approach it’s desired
audience.
But from all this what would I like back
from society? Conceivably I could ask
for many things. As someone who is
just starting out though and trying to
figure my own practice it doesn’t seem
wholly fair to ask for anything other
than support with my education. If my
work were to in anyway benefit society
the proper reward for that would be
incalculable to measure. Moreover I’m
still not done trying to understand what
work I can make. It could be that even
trying humour is frankly a waste. That I
should seek to imitate my piece I display
at Woolgather and try to explore trauma
or other emotional aspects to humanity.
Personally I don’t believe I’ve given
enough quite yet to ask for something
back but if I can request a response from
my work at all then if it’s pleased you a
thank you would be nice. And a drink,
too please.
27
cont
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gillia
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Gill
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Hol
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In life, there can be no expectation of
receiving in the absence of giving.
In this era of spending cuts and
uninformed dismissal of the value of art,
nothing is more important than artists
actively and publicly demonstrating in
a meaningful way the contribution they
make to society.
Without public demonstration, much of
the wonderful, thoughtful and thought-
provoking art freely accessible to all may
slip by unnoticed; worse, unappreciated.
Without public demonstration, other,
louder, less appreciative voices
may prevail.
Without notice or appreciation, art loses
its place within society.
The Woolgather Prize provides
a channel for meaningful public
demonstration by artists of the
importance of giving. It provides
me as an artist with the chance to
unconditionally give, with no expectation
of material reward, but with the hope
that this gesture, just one of many, will
facilitate ever greater recognition and
appreciation of the visual arts both in
Leeds and further afield.
28
Nik
ki H
afte
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ogle
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29
In the most literal sense, through my
project ‘with love from the artist’, I am
giving items of clothing to anonymous
strangers, and asking in return that they
email me a photograph. The labels I
attach to my items of clothing read
as follows:
-
If you have found this item, and you
want it, then it is a gift for you. All I
ask in return is that you please please
please take a photograph of it, in its
new home with you, and email it to
me at:
I look forward to hearing from you,
With Love From The Artist
x
-
Seems straight forward enough, as
the sub-heading of my blog states:
I want to exchange an item for an
image. In reality though, my request
is a bit more complicated than that,
because I am asking that somebody
both find the garment, as well as read
and take seriously the note attached
to it. Additionally, and perhaps most
importantly, I want that person to want
the garment.
In reference to the contents of lost
property offices, artist Christian
Boltanski says:
“all these objects are waiting for love,
waiting for somebody who’ll say ‘I know
you, you can come with me’.”
By abandoning things out in the world, I
am willingly rendering them lost property.
They are strangers on the landscapes
where they are left, and ultimately I
am asking somebody to recognise
them, adopt them as their own, and
transform them from strangers into
belongings. The photographs I receive
mark a fantastic endpoint to and bear
testament to that process, turning it into
a more tangible, visible, documented
reality. We can see where the thing was
abandoned, and where it has ended
up, and we can imagine the moment of
recognition between item and finder.
However, in beginning the project I
wasn’t naive enough to believe I would
receive feedback from everything
I distributed, and experience has
proven that the response rate is in fact
generally rather low. For many of the
items I distribute I will have no further
knowledge of where they end up or who
found them, only my own documentation
of where I last saw them. But still these
Jo M
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jo.m
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31 instances are not failures, because the
nature of the project is that I relinquish
all control over what will happen after I
have walked away. So what I am asking
of the individuals who cross paths with
my items, is to make a decision. Given
that I’m not present to enforce any kind
of outcome, what’s left to the finders is to
read my request and then take their own
course of action; choosing not to reply is
as valid as choosing to reply.
In her essay ‘Reciprocal Generosity’,
Mary Jane Jacob says:
“in the social contract that is the art
experience, the audience member, or
viewer, is a recipient of what the artist
makes: the artist gives, the audience
receives.”
If we take this to be true then my action
of distributing clothes reflects my
practice as a whole, and what all artists
do in the larger sense. We put things out
into the world and invite other people
to receive them. Through ‘with love
from the artist’, I’m inviting the broader
audience to enter the imagined space
containing these items and ideas, hoping
they will come with me.
I want to keep working. I need other
people, individuals, ‘society’ to be
a part of that. So ultimately, what I
want in return is for said people to
engage with my work, to be part of it
on various levels, in order that I may
have opportunities to keep on making
it, to keep on involving them in my
explorations. In the end this is necessary
if I am to sustain my work both financially
and creatively.
Christian Boltanski, Tate Podcasts 2009, ‘Talking Art’.
Mary Jane Jacob, ‘What we want is free, Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art’,
geof
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Thank you for your attention and enjoy the rest of your day.
geof
flatz
@gm
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Cla
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The significance of the Woolgather
Prize is ‘Giving’, which is inherent in the
values and morality of Gift Culture. A
culture or market compliant on humane
collisions, reciprocation and exchanges,
given from a good heart, favour or at
equal value usually outside a monetary
system. Of course, to its discredit,
the ideals of giving are never entirely
altruistic and often for self interest.
However, in directing the gesture of
‘giving’ collectively, adds a sense of
shared distribution stripped of hierarchy.
Hence, the human instinct to create
towards a collective goal.
By nature of the Woolgather Prize, what
we want back is something we have
already gained. Firstly in act of initial gift,
and in the opportunity to be conductive
to a platform allowed to go to vote, the
sense of public inclusivity testing the
democracy of the Arts.
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Happy adj. –pier, -piest.
1. Feeling or expressing joy; pleased.
2. Causing joy or gladness.
3. Fortunate: the happy position of not having to work.
4. Aptly expressed; appropriate a happy turn of phrase.
5. (Postpositive) Inf. Slightly intoxicated. –‘happily
adv. –‘happiness n.
Vicarious adj.
1. Undergone at second hand through sympathetic
participation in another’s experiences.
Acceptance n.
1. The act of accepting or the state of being accepted
or acceptable.
2. Favorable reception.
3. (often foll. by of) belief (in) or assent (to).
Recognition n.
1. The act of recognising or fact of being recognised.
2. Acceptance or acknowledgement of a claim, duty, etc.
3. A token of thanks.
Collins Concise Dictionary (Revised Third Edition), 1998. Published by Harper Collins.
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Fear
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& J
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nWe don’t want anything back, we want society to give. Part of the reason that we create art and showcase it is to inspire and influence others, whether that is through conversation, communication, visuals or duplication. We believe it is an organic process that grows through perception and can challenge or inform a single mind or groups opinion. We like to hope that art can change the world.
37
We all give to society;what do you want back?
38
Design by Workshop www.thisisworkshop.co.uk
Printed by Smallprint ISBN - 0-943396-04-2
The Woolgather Art Prize is an experimental showcase of contemporary artists based in West Yorkshire. Aiming to provide an accessible platform for artworks and hoping to celebrate the unresolved, the transitional, possibly the ridiculous. Ultimately championing the ‘what if’?’
22 shortlisted artists’ work will be presented in Dyson Chambers, Leeds from 6th May 2011. Throughout the exhibition the viewing public is invited to vote for their favourite, leading to prizes of £500, £250 and £150 being awarded to the chosen artists. The money is a gesture to assist towards the ongoing endeavors of a creative lifestyle.
www.woolgatherartprize.com