I am halfway through my V&A venture - drawing the museum, mapping my presence. Devoting a day to a particular quest enhances certain aspects of everything - the journey, people I pass, what I notice. This is all about the journey really, because it is about the intent. Behind the scenes. Art is very much about behind the scenes, the process, although for me the process is not the work. I do love these days when I go out as an artist, my artist hat firmly on, my artist eye in. I can let other thoughts and considerations go and fully allow the artist to take the lead.
Walking here, on the tube, arriving, the imaginary visual flipping effect is full on, as if one can see the architectural drawings, the blueprint, the scan, the computer model. Usually I enjoy imagining a thing rendered differently - it's like a reminder of what a thing is to see it or imagine it sketched, photographed, painted in oils, smudged in watercolour, style upon style. That's probably one of my favourite pastimes. However today it went quite far and was a little disconcerting, like having scifi or terminator-like computer glasses that won't switch off.
I have been tracing and smudging my way along edges of the V&A, luminous paint and ultraviolet ink on my fingertips. I thought it may push me out of my comfort zone, but it hasn't really - it feels much like I tend to anyway when I am looking at things and photographing - hoping the group of students or whoever will pass on so that I can have the place more to myself. I am very conscious not to ruin things, even invisibly, and am keeping to the edges of things mostly.
It is making me more aware of the barrier of glass between me and the precious object. I can place my hand in a certain way and photograph it as if I am touching the gold. Ownership.
A woman beside me in the cafe has spent some time dragging extra chairs to her table. She is still by herself. It is as if she is waiting for invisible friends.
I brought with me a little UV torch to see if the pen would show up - it doesn't in this light, but as I tried, I noticed how it lit and altered the objects inside the cabinets. Thoughts stir of benign ways to alter the objects - contribute to them.
I was also very struck today by very ornate enamelled miniature portraits, encrusted with jewels, once a treasure and lover's keepsake. Unknown man, unknown woman, over and over. Unknown. It seemed the saddest word in the world.
All day I have been thinking about how art, when it is shown and disseminated, must matter to people. It must refer to more than itself. It must matter to people in the way that a novel or symphony or a film does, contributing something to the understanding or experience of life, directly or indirectly, deliberately, or deliberately by default.
Art can do this. I am currently surrounded by art that speaks on many levels. Some objects are now rendered precious and given new significance by weight of their age and their provenance. The context of museum, of gallery, frames and adds layers of meaning to a thing once produced for a completely different reason. Much in the V&A is domestic, religious, industrial. Nothing is made specifically to go into a museum. Yet as soon as our fingers leave making a piece it already ceases to be contemporary, and joins the flow of the context of time.
4th March 2011
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