how awareness of a particular audience has affected the decisions artists have made, and how it might inform our own art making.
it was really useful when he provided examples on how to use theories in the past to modern examples.
rough notes:
- different ways audience can react
- who has power and control?
- social change, friction, discourse, history, politics, power...
- not answers but questions to attack this
- leda and the swan (smoking room, erotic sculpture to a public gallery space)
- in monster chetwyd’s work.
- poster in street in high street, eyes of Margaret thatcher (angel of history) person walking past it might not know at all. the people, are they part of the audience or not
- ‘what is going on?’ what’s happening here? question to start.
- childe of hale, Richard whitby 2014
- context can be changed eg erotic sculpture
- how to refer to writers such as these (Michael fried etc.)
- audience community context relationship is not simple. artists do things badly, often. some artists highlight these problems, that aggravates certain groups. eg south end is quite conservative.
- a valid tactic. opening up systems
thinking of viewer and audience is a particular way of thinking of art. Clement Greenberg.
- Michael fried late modernist critic
- best art work against theatricality. anything that was theatrical was something that brought the audience into the room, that was what he thought was inferior to true art.
- hierarchy
Audience : what is an audience and what does it do?
- peter kubelka’s invisible cinema (viewer being alone and isolated in the work)
- being part of an audience, into the performance eg the band lightning bolt play on the floor / olympics opening ceremony
- antonin artaud (audience going through some sort of trauma and cruelty in order to bring out conscious problems. putting audience through extreme circumstances, almost like therapy, catharsis, go through something in order to heal)
- turner prize exhibition last year. all 4 nominees making time based work. see the work, sit down to talk about the work. books selected are about social and political issue ghat are raised in the work.
- >> bertholt brecht (alienation effect) emphasises unrealism, instead of narrative being identification, showing stories that reflect in society. audience put into action.
- Jeremy deller ‘battle of orgreave’ 2001 (re-enactment, letting former miners relive) (film is not the work. his work is the event.) (difference in people who were there in 1984. reopen wounds instead of heal... - reference to the cruel catharsis. artauld, doesn’t fit perfectly)
Community - where is art made and how does that affect it? often locals
- a group of people who are around the artist
- Raymond Williams, Keywords (new dictionary) always a positive, never negative sense... (saying this word is so open that it’s almost not enough)
- Marcus coates 2004, journey to the lower world (audience part of a community) (if that performance was in a gallery, would not be the same) (traces of ‘alienation effect’) (people don’t really understand - those Siberian rituals, taking it seriously in different context. that ritual that they are alienated from will help them think about their situation)
Context - where is art experienced and how does that become meaningful? Can that context change / be changed ?
- bringing art into play into social, economical etc discourse...
- the situation in which something exists or happens
- James castle (severely autistic, deaf artist who lived in isolation with his family. made drawings and sculptures not for anyone else) (outsider artist) very different context, art being bought, importance
- another example of changing context (muralist- Diego rivers. ‘Man at the crossroads’ destroyed.)
- Claire bishop on deller’s work in orgreave ‘artificial hells’ (argues that it is a very complicated work - multiple receptions / contexts. multiple audiences eg media gallery tv village community. dellers work is different in each context.
- woosunglee: paints on fabric, attach to whatever surface for a short period of time. so audience is not willing, bump into his work just like graffiti art. relaxed approach to constructing / not constructing an audience
- Morgan quiantance ‘the new conservatism’ 2017
- Christopher k
- rolling jubilee (raised money, the debt collective) (who’s the audience?)
- Chris kraus ‘social practices 2018’ (countercultures of the past)
- Berlin’s biennale 2012 occupy kunst werke (switching context to an art world one, negative results. gallery felt disrespected, not enough facilities, trash, big disaster) (dislocation) (people could look down at activists, like watching at the zoo, tension)
- audience, control, and chairs (turner prize) (bc its a gallery, built different contexts for different works. cinema seating, headphones sat with one or two other people, uncomfortable benches, standing with the screen in the space)
- who has the relevant knowledge? who has power? Who is in control ? relating theorists to actual work. skill.
- horror films : watching cruelty not experience it. also enjoy it. quite sadistic. artauld
