Joseph Mole

This is the first draft of the manifesto for a new artist run space in London so far things are going very slow with how things are going slowly that I would of like due to the second Lockdown but I expect things to speed up again next month when we obtain the space below is the early progress I have been making on how I would like the space to be operated and  how I want it to be. I have been looking at other Gallery run spaces of the pass including the likes of 90’s London spaces such as City Racing and Bank more recent ones in the U.K like moot and then Ferus which was part of the early foundations of creating a Los Angles Art scene.

I wanted this to be a natural progression of my work as from very early on I have had the obsession of space in the art pieces I made so it would be fitting to occupy a space myself.

The questions that I want to answer with the space are

What does the space believe in?

What does the space value?

What can I take from pervious artist run gallery spaces to make mine different?  

Below are the rules I want to follow

1. The Space must be interchangeable to value the artist showing so the work can be presented in the way it is intended.
2. The space must also Value itself and be inclusive of the work being shown but also have a clear curatorial message with each show and not try to shoehorn works together and have a natural flow.
3. The Space will act as an open studio when no exhibition is on open to the public as a communal space.
4. No ulterior motives involved it must operate and function for art purposes only; no additions of cafes, coffee, or other outside interests strictly art purposes.
5. The Space must also quickly establish what it believes in showing works we’ve chosen of artists we like and not doing something that we don’t feels work being in London bit not being just a London gallery and having strong belief of showing work from artists everything where we can to create a connection.
6. The space must strictly exist physically never have an online show, online presence should only exist to highlight and promote the physical space.
7. A monthly magazine sent to other galleries and universities listing articles about the space including the work we are currently making, artists we are liking that month as well as open calls.

I wanted to talk a bit about the art worlds current form in covid-19 and why I chose not to take part in the online graduate show. Coming from a practice that on paper is the most assessable with online viewing I want to talk about why I am against it.

Firstly I want to say I don’t agree with online shows all together to be they feel like a backwards way to look at an exhibition where the audience cannot be immersed with what they are seeing as well-being wrapped up in a digital practice to give a disguise that they are a new innovative way of looking at art and seeing an exhibition but gives an unappealing atmosphere and something that you will click through in a matter of minutes and may not getting a reaction or feeling from the pieces that you would get in the flesh.

As well as this I just don’t believe they work very well and my own reason for not part taking in online shows is the curation aspect the shows are limited in the way they can show works to me they become a group portfolio where instead of viewing my art you are looking at a picture of my work which refers to my earlier point of how you don’t get the same experience from seeing something close up and curated correctly.

I also have fears like any industry art will follow suit with the path that sport, and cinema have gone down with their Pay Per View products over charging their audiences to see a watered-down version of the experience. How long is it until there is a paywall to see an online exhibition? Is this really what we need to be doing right now? especially albeit with restrictions galleries are reopening is a temporary halt a reason to totally go against the foundations of seeing art and take a step backwards being sold as a revolutionary way to experience.

I think we need to as a cultural need to stop thinking that everything online and digital is the future I think we are blinded by the internet in to thinking everything is more advanced than its analogue counterpart before COVID-19 nobody dreamed of ever doing an online show it wasn’t an option that need to be discussed.

Also, if you take a look at Olafur Eliasson’s (insert piece name) from show (insert title) last year if we move towards online shows work like how to you recreate the feeling and specular from that show? You wouldn’t be able so why should any artists work have to be displayed in an inferior way.

As we hopefully start to come away from this pandemic and hopefully be able to view shows without restrictions soon lets also leave online shows behind too as I strongly believe that there is no place for them and inferior to going to an exhibition in a gallery and seeing work the way it is intended to be seen.

I have recently been thinking about video art as a platform a medium I love but was thinking about the I can work in it better and fun ways I could try and sell my work so a little project and challenge I am going to set myself I want to make a 100 new works and sell them from between the prices £5 and £10 every piece will come on a memory stick with a certificate of ownership of the work which when bought will be deleted from my computer and no longer have any control over the work.

I have also been thinking about Video as a platform and something else I would like to explore is setting up a website dedicated to the discipline giving more awareness to artists working with video and allowing them to talk about and share their work not as exhibition but more as a  grouped portfolio of Video artists how maybe don’t get as much as of a platform as they would like.

Lastly I think I should talk about the ideas I am having of actual work I want to be making everything feels a bit melancholic at the moment which is a feeling I’ve always associated with October and November any way I wanted to explore that in a piece there feels like this the world feel like a non-place and the is a global anxiety which I find really interesting with the start of a new decade there was a lot of hope and expectation which has probably been drained out of them now so I think I’d like to explore that

I

I’ve been think about the usage of boredom as a theme and it can be weaponised in the space. Either with the space the work touches or the space left empty within the work. Looking at the canvas where the paint doesn’t touch, the video piece with empty space, and the the space left within an installation. And how the space embraces the boredom within the work to create powerful interesting pieces of work.

Robert Irwin work is really good to talk about for this if you take a paining of his like this one called Unreal Nature and then later an installation titled theres nothing to do here and its perfect.

You can see the that there is a lot of unused space within the line painting Irwin has created space deliberately which adds power to the lines if you at the placement of the lines as a gesture these small lines through placement create power that leave the viewer drawn to the painting despite the painting being mostly empty.

And then with the installation something that I can relate to more within my own practice looking at this work you can see the the theme from the painting is in there and how he has weaponised boredom even with in the title “theres nothing to do here and its perfect” reveals that the artist knows that he is playing with the theme of boredom and the work described would sound boring but using space has managed to weaponise boring and make something truly in and genuinely interesting through the artists chosen simple but effect gestures.

Looking with film and video for example taking Warhol’s Empire a 485 minutes of the Empire State building with the camera sorely focused on the building with all this space presented in the foreground creates this feeling and counteracts the boredom with the artist in the work to create a piece of work exciting and hard to look away from. And there is a sense that the boredom becomes optimistic as the viewer is drawn in and becomes one with the space.

I’ve been reading about Robert Irwin a light and space artist in the book ‘Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees’ written by Lawrence Weschler, the book illustrates 30 years of interviews with Irwin. In which he talks about growing up in La becoming a painter before moving on to more physical structures and is a great way to explore the evolution of somebody’s practices, where he moved on from painting into these great big installation room pieces.

I found the book relatable as it is also putting light on the way I work and where I want to be as an artist, he moved on from painting which started with exploring the space within the canvas which began an obsession with space.

I found this relatable as my practice revolves around space and has moved on from video art in a more installation-based way of working still incorporating video but film being an element than at the fore front of what I do.

Irwin also talked about finding the aesthetic which with him began with cars in the 40’s and the maintenance of cars inspired the way he works and some similar happened with me looking at buildings and road bollards the way these structures were painted, built, or broken in the middle of the road and the way they occupied the space started to take over the way I thought about things.

Irwin showed me what work and shows could be like without limits what you can do in a space.

For example, above is “1° 2° 3° 4°”a piece of irwin’s work that shows the space becoming the work. This piece involves Apertures cut into existing windows to have a space in 4 dimensions. height, width, depth and time.

As well as the central garden at the Getty centre Irwin was allowed to build a garden as piece of work in Getty centre.

.

I think the question that Irwin asks and is ask is what is the art within the space work? Aswell as how a physical piece becomes not existent in the space?

 Which is something I strongly want to push within my practice as I work on similar themes of non-existence and space and how to make it on a big scale but still be authentic to the subject and figure and to myself and the origin of my practice.

During this time I think the discussion of the topic of what is art, when is art and even how is art has come up, for example of when is art is there times in history when art shouldn’t be made and in the time of Covid-19 should art be continued to be made if an artist can’t create in their discipline normally does it all take a back step instead of putting something different out. I do think an artist does have to stay working because art is a sport.

Every way you look at art it shows it competitive face of being a sport. I’m not saying this outrightly all bad it’s have a slight competitive nature that helps us improve our practices and seek out more knowledge to become better artists but there was always something about the system of the art world that felt like sporting events private views is always what Imagine big horse racing events are with the artists talking the place of the horses.

As well as big galleries being the equivalent of top tier football clubs representing artists like athletes being transferred which I’m all ok about it’s the way of networking and getting your work represented and how you can sell yourself and your practice as one so they can sell you too.

But It’s the peer competition that is the thing that gets difficult for me, yes as I was saying in part it does help you improve as any sport does having competition to fight for place and voice but that was the refreshing part of the Chelsea Mafa it had a collective mentality whereas artists we were contributing together.  

This brings me to how is art I’ve found myself quite discounted in the last few months and its to almost like I’m coming back from some time out as I’m racking my brain of how my practice should continue I’m not overly struggling to make work but its changed of how I’m making work at the moment being under resourced and the when the art is being made because I’m not always happy with what I’m making and there are ways to relax your brain about it as you can make good art without making bad art and creativity is the enemy and you should innovate not create.

Its as if I’m having a mental tennis game between my brain and my practice to try and make the work that is right for this time which I believe I am winning.       

During lockdown I’ve been trying to find something to keep me motivated with the limited resources I’ve had first of all I found the first thing that got my brain feeling active was organising what ever I had and putting that to work no matter how out of date or restricting they were.

Which left me with;

A laptop

a dslr that Struggles to hold much memory

a half working ipad to film longer shots on

at the same time American artist Tom Sachs started an instagram feature called I.S.R.U as well as answering any questions people interested in I.S.R.U every Monday on Instagram live

I.S.R.U stands for In Situation Resource utilisation where it shows artists making work in the current environment we have all been placed in.

Which has left me thinking about my work and how my ideas I was starting two months ago have been put on hold and what work is suppose to be made right now and whats the difference of the studio environment to this environment with conflicting opinions being thrown around by the likes of 5G nuts.

So I think I need to find some form of Solace within in my environment and my practice adapting and taking influence from Sachs’ I.S.R.U program to find a calmness and what inspires me in this time.

I found running and walking around my town has helped as I’m noticing things such as high rise flat blocks peaking out tall trees, the trees looking like a shade of green I’ve never seen before, desolate roads on an evening that would usually have cars racing up and down them.

All these things have help me stay motivated and thinking about what I should be making right now.

Which fits in to my practice I always aim to play with the viewer and try and make them feel uneasy but I think there needs to a feeling of calmness with feeling uneasy.

I’ve been looking at office blocks turned to flats where Harlow has the most in the country they are being described as Human Warehouses.

I wanted to start by taking about of the buildings

Terminus House

Above is Terminus house I wanted to talk about this building as a child I saw this building as a positive thing it was a sky scrapper like building with departments ran by college librarians orchestrating driving theory tests, often rude to people that would come in but it felt nice and comfortable, then it almost felt over night it building was transformed in a monstrosity almost like an evil layer you’d see in cartoon being dubbed as “Human Warehouse” these sparse offices have been converted in to studio flats where families who have struggling are being forced to live being disguised as affordable living but the living conditions are poor and the flats are only just affordable.

You have to question how the 5th richest country in the world has allowed anybody who is rich enough to convert offices in to housing that are suppose to be temporary but are being overly relied instead of creating affordable living . There are also no regulations in the uk how big a proper should be as well the uk passed a law in 2013 called permitted development rights which means properties don’t need to have windows.

Floating ideas around for whats next for me to do I want to explore the non-place even further but the atmosphere and work will be essentially Essex exploring the nostalgia of growing up there juxtaposed to being optimistic to the way things are right now.

Tackling themes that I haven’t really explored before and branching on just self representation.

Also how places like Harlow and other Essex towns struggling in the failure of neoliberalism, and looking to the future and exploring the most authentic and positive way of representation through the medium of film and the discipline of moving image.

I want to create an optimistic chaos.

Below are some works that influence me