Luring the Locals
The Falmouth Convention – a three-day programme of artist-led talks, field trips and artist talks – was convened by independent curator Teresa Gleadowe, aiming to ‘explore the significance of time and place in relation to contemporary art and exhibition making’. There was also an implicit objective of focusing conversation (or canvassing opinion) about a bid to bring Manifesta to Cornwall in 2014, with much of the discussion directed towards hot topics about biennials’ relationship to tourism and their responsibilities to local communities (the latter question especially relevant to Cornwall, with its longterm St Ives artists’ colony). One success of the weekend was, for me, that this question seemed significantly more complex – and far from being answered – at the end of the conference than at the beginning. In fact, most seemed to reluctant to argue the case for biennials now, more than one speaker noting that the large-scale survey show now tends more often to the hysterical than to the historical.
A broad range of curators – including Lucy Lippard, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kitty Scott – with experience of both organizing residency programmes and commissioning site-specific were invited, alongside a number of artists with links to the area: Tacita Dean (who was at Falmouth School of Art during the ‘80s), Adam Chodzko (who had a retrospective at Tate St Ives in 2008), Jeremy Millar (who is currently exploring the Cornish myth of Tristan and Iseult) and Simon Fujiwara (who grew up near St Ives).
The weekend’s focus was on the tensions between residents and residencies, and how artistic production can be enabled (or compromised) locale and localism – subjects that Lippard, the first evening’s keynote speaker, literally wrote the book on. In her key 1997 book The Lure of the Local, she argued against the ‘absence of value attached to specific place in the contemporary cultural life’.
Much of Lippard’s presentation – titled ‘Imagine Being Here Now: Towards a Multicentred Exhibition Process’ – focused on Galisteo, New Mexico, where she has been living since the early ’90s (she is soon to publish an extensive history of the area from 1250–1782). Lippard’s central criticism of SITE Sante Fe Biennial was it habit of ‘ballooning in’ artists rather than allowing for either a sustained dialogue or for local participation. As one audience member wondered in the Q&A session, when does one become a ‘local’? How many years does it take for dues to be paid?
An ambiguous note, with regard to Manifesta, was introduced: why position these biennials in places that are already known locations or tourist destinations? What about suburbia? (Lippard has previously quoted Rebecca Solnit’s definition of suburbia as a ‘voluntary limbo, a condition more like sedation than exile, for exiles know what is missing.’) She proposed a community biennial of activist organizers and local people, lighter on curatorial conceit and more breadth of accessibility. Lippard has, intentionally and by her own account, been out of the international art loop for the past couple of decades. This absence sometimes apparent, no more than in her broad criticisms of large-scale shows and biennials’ lack of interest in local politics. Resurgent interest in the legacies of locally orientated ’80s artist-activism, as well as recent biennials in Berlin and Istanbul that are far from unengaged. Lippard was closer to the mark when looking further back, noting that the art of the ’70s still defines much of what artists do outdoors – from handsome, temporary monuments to slight interventions.
Tacita Dean’s talk, titled ‘Being Commissioned’, made an eloquent argument for the ‘importance of ignorance and blindness’ – the opposite of Lippard’s thesis of understanding through long-term involvement – whereby misreadings can be creative rather than potentially dangerous. In giving an example of this, Dean discussed her early film Disappearance at Sea (1996), one of the first pieces she ever made in a place – Berwick-upon-Tweed – which she had absolutely no connection to. Defined the art of being commissioned as ‘being highly disobedient’ when faced with curators’ intentions.
Bassam el Baroni from Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), one of the three collectives curating Manifesta this year, gave an honest account of how different curatorial or artistic practices can become instrumentalized. Manifesta 8’s subtitle, ‘Dialogue with North Africa’, was apparently chosen before ACAF’s application was even selected – Baroni understandably had a number of doubts about overseeing what he called an ‘arranged marriage’ between Murcia and Mahgreb.
Other presentations returned to how best to structure openness when organizing residencies and how to allow for sufficient research when curating exhibitions. Hans Ulrich Obrist, discussed the 2007 ‘Everstill’ show that he curated at Lorca’s house in Grenada, for which the participating poets and artists were given a two-year research period. Obrist ended up advocating – affectingly, if somewhat ironically for a man who doesn’t seem to sleep – a kind of slowness. Kitty Scott presented the Banff Centre residency programme, and its intention to leave space for failure, while Adam Sutherland from Grizedale Arts in the Lake District took the opposing view: artists have to be useful; there has to be some legacy.
In the 2005 book Place, written by Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar, ‘place’ is defined as the projection of history onto a landscape. One definition of a successful biennial, mentioned by Millar in his closing comments, could be the production of history from a landscape. What would it mean to host Manifesta in a dispersed and rural setting? For one day of the convention, delegates were split between six different field trips. Mine, titled ‘Studios and Stones’, began at Barbara Hepworth’s studio in St Ives and continued along the coast towards Zennor, stopping at Eagles Nest (Patrick Heron’s old house and studio), the Tinners Arms (where DH Lawrence once lodged) and Carn cottage (once home to Bryan Wynter and said to be used by Aleister Crowley). Amid the quoits, this was the landscape sketched by ‘The Dark Monarch at Tate St Ives at the beginning of this year.
The convention finished with a few warnings. Andrew Nairne (Executive Director for Arts Strategy at Arts Council England) warning about ‘Hurricane George’ on the horizon (for non-UK readers: that’s a reference to George Osbourne, the Chancellor, who’s about to present a particularly bleak emergency budget). Open-ended outcomes are not quantifiable, and so are disliked by the government? Serota suggested that closing the widening separation between research, production and presentation might be one answer. Finished with hopeful suggestion that the attendees and participants were galvanized by even the possibility of a bid. Lippard voiced the final word of caution: ‘I’m fascinated by the idea of not doing Manifesta, frankly – but the, I don’t know where the money would come from…
The Falmouth Convention – a three-day programme of artist-led talks, field trips and artist talks – was convened by independent curator Teresa Gleadowe, aiming to ‘explore the significance of time and place in relation to contemporary art and exhibition making’. There was also an implicit objective of focusing conversation (or canvassing opinion) about a bid to bring Manifesta to Cornwall in 2014, with much of the discussion directed towards hot topics about biennials’ relationship to tourism and their responsibilities to local communities (the latter question especially relevant to Cornwall, with its longterm St Ives artists’ colony). One success of the weekend was, for me, that this question seemed significantly more complex – and far from being answered – at the end of the conference than at the beginning. In fact, most seemed to reluctant to argue the case for biennials now, more than one speaker noting that the large-scale survey show now tends more often to the hysterical than to the historical.
A broad range of curators – including Lucy Lippard, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kitty Scott – with experience of both organizing residency programmes and commissioning site-specific were invited, alongside a number of artists with links to the area: Tacita Dean (who was at Falmouth School of Art during the ‘80s), Adam Chodzko (who had a retrospective at Tate St Ives in 2008), Jeremy Millar (who is currently exploring the Cornish myth of Tristan and Iseult) and Simon Fujiwara (who grew up near St Ives).
The weekend’s focus was on the tensions between residents and residencies, and how artistic production can be enabled (or compromised) locale and localism – subjects that Lippard, the first evening’s keynote speaker, literally wrote the book on. In her key 1997 book The Lure of the Local, she argued against the ‘absence of value attached to specific place in the contemporary cultural life’.
Much of Lippard’s presentation – titled ‘Imagine Being Here Now: Towards a Multicentred Exhibition Process’ – focused on Galisteo, New Mexico, where she has been living since the early ’90s (she is soon to publish an extensive history of the area from 1250–1782). Lippard’s central criticism of SITE Sante Fe Biennial was it habit of ‘ballooning in’ artists rather than allowing for either a sustained dialogue or for local participation. As one audience member wondered in the Q&A session, when does one become a ‘local’? How many years does it take for dues to be paid?
An ambiguous note, with regard to Manifesta, was introduced: why position these biennials in places that are already known locations or tourist destinations? What about suburbia? (Lippard has previously quoted Rebecca Solnit’s definition of suburbia as a ‘voluntary limbo, a condition more like sedation than exile, for exiles know what is missing.’) She proposed a community biennial of activist organizers and local people, lighter on curatorial conceit and more breadth of accessibility. Lippard has, intentionally and by her own account, been out of the international art loop for the past couple of decades. This absence sometimes apparent, no more than in her broad criticisms of large-scale shows and biennials’ lack of interest in local politics. Resurgent interest in the legacies of locally orientated ’80s artist-activism, as well as recent biennials in Berlin and Istanbul that are far from unengaged. Lippard was closer to the mark when looking further back, noting that the art of the ’70s still defines much of what artists do outdoors – from handsome, temporary monuments to slight interventions.
Tacita Dean’s talk, titled ‘Being Commissioned’, made an eloquent argument for the ‘importance of ignorance and blindness’ – the opposite of Lippard’s thesis of understanding through long-term involvement – whereby misreadings can be creative rather than potentially dangerous. In giving an example of this, Dean discussed her early film Disappearance at Sea (1996), one of the first pieces she ever made in a place – Berwick-upon-Tweed – which she had absolutely no connection to. Defined the art of being commissioned as ‘being highly disobedient’ when faced with curators’ intentions.
Bassam el Baroni from Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), one of the three collectives curating Manifesta this year, gave an honest account of how different curatorial or artistic practices can become instrumentalized. Manifesta 8’s subtitle, ‘Dialogue with North Africa’, was apparently chosen before ACAF’s application was even selected – Baroni understandably had a number of doubts about overseeing what he called an ‘arranged marriage’ between Murcia and Mahgreb.
Other presentations returned to how best to structure openness when organizing residencies and how to allow for sufficient research when curating exhibitions. Hans Ulrich Obrist, discussed the 2007 ‘Everstill’ show that he curated at Lorca’s house in Grenada, for which the participating poets and artists were given a two-year research period. Obrist ended up advocating – affectingly, if somewhat ironically for a man who doesn’t seem to sleep – a kind of slowness. Kitty Scott presented the Banff Centre residency programme, and its intention to leave space for failure, while Adam Sutherland from Grizedale Arts in the Lake District took the opposing view: artists have to be useful; there has to be some legacy.
In the 2005 book Place, written by Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar, ‘place’ is defined as the projection of history onto a landscape. One definition of a successful biennial, mentioned by Millar in his closing comments, could be the production of history from a landscape. What would it mean to host Manifesta in a dispersed and rural setting? For one day of the convention, delegates were split between six different field trips. Mine, titled ‘Studios and Stones’, began at Barbara Hepworth’s studio in St Ives and continued along the coast towards Zennor, stopping at Eagles Nest (Patrick Heron’s old house and studio), the Tinners Arms (where DH Lawrence once lodged) and Carn cottage (once home to Bryan Wynter and said to be used by Aleister Crowley). Amid the quoits, this was the landscape sketched by ‘The Dark Monarch at Tate St Ives at the beginning of this year.
The convention finished with a few warnings. Andrew Nairne (Executive Director for Arts Strategy at Arts Council England) warning about ‘Hurricane George’ on the horizon (for non-UK readers: that’s a reference to George Osbourne, the Chancellor, who’s about to present a particularly bleak emergency budget). Open-ended outcomes are not quantifiable, and so are disliked by the government? Serota suggested that closing the widening separation between research, production and presentation might be one answer. Finished with hopeful suggestion that the attendees and participants were galvanized by even the possibility of a bid. Lippard voiced the final word of caution: ‘I’m fascinated by the idea of not doing Manifesta, frankly – but the, I don’t know where the money would come from…
