“Since the early nineties, an ever increasing number of artworks have been created on the basis of preexisting works; more and more artists interpret, reproduce, re-exhibit, or use works made by others or available cultural products. This art of postproduction seems to respond to the proliferating chaos of global culture in the information age, which is characterized by an increase in the supply of works and the art world’s annexation of forms ignored or disdained until now.”
Bourriaud
N.(2002) Postproduction, Culture As Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the
World, New York, Sternberg Press.
In the
introduction to the small book Postproduction, Culture As Screenplay:
How Art Reprograms the World, Nicholas Bourriaud asserts that the
material used by artists is no longer primary, that it is not raw matter but
instead there is a cultural market where objects are already pre-informed. We
can claim that nothing is new but where does originality, creation and
innovation and ethics sit in Bourriaud’s and our world? How much of this
assertion is fuelled by the internet and has the mixing up of materials created
a new space for art?
....
An interesting discussion and contributions from the group. This is my tuppenceworth:
I would say that nothing has been new for artists for a long time, and that since, say, the early 20th century, art has often been a comment to interpret, reproduce, re-exhibit, or use works made by others or available cultural products.
Although I admire much work which refers to others, the instinctive, uneducated part of me has always found that essentially rather boring, as if the artist has nothing to say for themselves, and can only quote and requote things said by others. Especially since the '90's, this reworking has been something of a shorthand to credibility.
In this strange artworld which seems so often seems to depend upon layers of dubious endorsement, the perceived cleverness of reworking and updating previous artists ideas seems to prove its value, worth and intellectual depth.
Since referencing and knowledge is unavoidable, and part of the cultural continuum, itis clearly a valid stream of practice to work this way, but I sometimes feel cheated by it, duped, as if I have to accept that it is brilliant because it is adding a comment to a novel by someone else. I'm thinking Chapman brothers.
We live with such cultural treasure, and appropriated work seems to me to be most successful in video, eg Christian Marclay The Clock or Elizabeth Price The Woolworths Choir of 1979.
Something about authenticity and integrity is the key.
…………………….
Artists imagine or reimagine.
Some artists seem to recycle others' thoughts and insights, because they get them or are into them - Jeremy Deller sometimes talks like that and comes across as a recycler of other ideas.
What of the artist's vision?
It's not exactly an artist's job to imagine something never imagined before, but perhaps to have a unique view or combination of thoughts, which manifest as a culturally rich idea.
Where do the ideas, images and thoughts come from?
There's nothing new in the world, and yet new interpretations spring up all the time.
I think it's all about that balance of reworking and reiterating other artists, or adding a completely new and individual interpretation.
…………………….
Like Jennifer I also look at my work as if it is found during certain stages of working and completing a piece. It's like that attempt to see it with fresh eyes, and to see it for what it is.
Amelia picks up the big danger of appropriated work - how to tell it apart from everything else, and how to guess the artist's intention. Sometimes it's new, sometimes it seems lazy or glib.
I rather like the layers of reinterpretations and additions which have been given to certain works, like the Mona Lisa having a moustache or smoking a pipe. When that first happened in the late 19th century (don't quote me!) it was radical and new, and now it is a bit of a joke, although a good one, to update or subvert the image. Equally, Duchamp's urinal has been made by other artists to new effect - in glass, in gold, and so on, adding layers of meaning.
It's easier to see why significant works must be reappropriated and reinterpreted by new generations when looking at literature, like all the spinoffs from Shakespeare which just add richness to the original - Rosencrantz and Gildernstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard, and Desdemona by Toni Morrison. We don't seem to do that in art so much, although surely we are dealing with the same big human themes.
……………………………..
I like the ideas in Amelia's post, about reusing some of Matisse's cut outs, and remaking other works. Intriguing proposition.
But of course, all art work degrades - paintings are not as they were when fresh, video, tape, and film degrade, digital media corrupts and loses its integrity.
Paper, textiles, fabrics, wood, paint surfaces, everything is subject to change over time.
Even recent works become yellowed.
All art is ephemeral in the end, the only difference is timescale.
Do we make work so that it might last forever, so that it might last as least as long as we live.
I'm reminded of engraved granite gravestones which look startlingly fresh, and will probably outlast all others as the stone fades over centuries.
Like everything else, we have to let our art go, and we can't determine its lifetime in any form.
………………………
14th July 2014
An interesting discussion and contributions from the group. This is my tuppenceworth:
I would say that nothing has been new for artists for a long time, and that since, say, the early 20th century, art has often been a comment to interpret, reproduce, re-exhibit, or use works made by others or available cultural products.
Although I admire much work which refers to others, the instinctive, uneducated part of me has always found that essentially rather boring, as if the artist has nothing to say for themselves, and can only quote and requote things said by others. Especially since the '90's, this reworking has been something of a shorthand to credibility.
In this strange artworld which seems so often seems to depend upon layers of dubious endorsement, the perceived cleverness of reworking and updating previous artists ideas seems to prove its value, worth and intellectual depth.
Since referencing and knowledge is unavoidable, and part of the cultural continuum, itis clearly a valid stream of practice to work this way, but I sometimes feel cheated by it, duped, as if I have to accept that it is brilliant because it is adding a comment to a novel by someone else. I'm thinking Chapman brothers.
We live with such cultural treasure, and appropriated work seems to me to be most successful in video, eg Christian Marclay The Clock or Elizabeth Price The Woolworths Choir of 1979.
Something about authenticity and integrity is the key.
…………………….
Artists imagine or reimagine.
Some artists seem to recycle others' thoughts and insights, because they get them or are into them - Jeremy Deller sometimes talks like that and comes across as a recycler of other ideas.
What of the artist's vision?
It's not exactly an artist's job to imagine something never imagined before, but perhaps to have a unique view or combination of thoughts, which manifest as a culturally rich idea.
Where do the ideas, images and thoughts come from?
There's nothing new in the world, and yet new interpretations spring up all the time.
I think it's all about that balance of reworking and reiterating other artists, or adding a completely new and individual interpretation.
…………………….
Like Jennifer I also look at my work as if it is found during certain stages of working and completing a piece. It's like that attempt to see it with fresh eyes, and to see it for what it is.
Amelia picks up the big danger of appropriated work - how to tell it apart from everything else, and how to guess the artist's intention. Sometimes it's new, sometimes it seems lazy or glib.
I rather like the layers of reinterpretations and additions which have been given to certain works, like the Mona Lisa having a moustache or smoking a pipe. When that first happened in the late 19th century (don't quote me!) it was radical and new, and now it is a bit of a joke, although a good one, to update or subvert the image. Equally, Duchamp's urinal has been made by other artists to new effect - in glass, in gold, and so on, adding layers of meaning.
It's easier to see why significant works must be reappropriated and reinterpreted by new generations when looking at literature, like all the spinoffs from Shakespeare which just add richness to the original - Rosencrantz and Gildernstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard, and Desdemona by Toni Morrison. We don't seem to do that in art so much, although surely we are dealing with the same big human themes.
……………………………..
I like the ideas in Amelia's post, about reusing some of Matisse's cut outs, and remaking other works. Intriguing proposition.
But of course, all art work degrades - paintings are not as they were when fresh, video, tape, and film degrade, digital media corrupts and loses its integrity.
Paper, textiles, fabrics, wood, paint surfaces, everything is subject to change over time.
Even recent works become yellowed.
All art is ephemeral in the end, the only difference is timescale.
Do we make work so that it might last forever, so that it might last as least as long as we live.
I'm reminded of engraved granite gravestones which look startlingly fresh, and will probably outlast all others as the stone fades over centuries.
Like everything else, we have to let our art go, and we can't determine its lifetime in any form.
………………………
14th July 2014
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