Gathering
The gathering of people in a place to participate in the artwork has become an important shift in my work. I feel it is no longer interesting for me to create work in isolation (although I know that the artist never works in total isolation) for the simple purpose of creating an object for display. This is not a dismissal of work created this way, the artists I have deep respect for are frequently Modernist painters. This move to co-production differs slightly, however, from the artworks mentioned above and to the current canon of Relational Aesthetics. While I insist on a collaborative approach or a kind of social contract, in each work I feel my role as an artist is to evaluate and transform these practices for myself. While post-modernity has brought into question the authority of authorship, I feel it is even more important than ever to continue developing forms of personal expression. In a hypothetical situation, if I were to ask a group of people to draw a picture on a given topic and then exhibited these drawings, this could be an interesting exhibition and the participants would feel valorised by the display of their drawings in an art establishment. But this would ultimately work directly into the established art system and reinstate its power of approval and veto. For myself, my practice is not about the simple reinvigoration of creative activity but critical creativity, in which a participant may create or contribute but must ultimately assess critically the processes and outcomes of the work. This is where the work of the artist is essential, to facilitate or provoke this kind of discourse.
Section 14