Friday, September 21, 2007

PEER ESTEEM





PEER ESTEEM:
YOU ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT 4 A3 (LANDSCAPE FORMAT) PIECES OF WORK ON PAPER. FOR EXHIBITION. FOR SHOW.
THERE IS NO SUBMISSION FEE.
ALL WORK WILL BE SHOWN.
ONLY ONE GROUP OF FOUR WILL BE SEEN AT ANY ONE TIME.
EACH GROUP MAY BE SELECTED AND SHOWN ON DEMAND. 
DEMAND IS MADE BY ANY PERSON VISITING THE GALLERY.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONTENT IS DOWN TO THE ARTIST.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR SHOWING/ DISPLAYING WORK IS DOWN TO THE VISITOR.
INVIGILATOR IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR HANDLING/ HANGING WORK.

ALL WORK MUST BE ON PAPER.
ALL WORK SHOULD BE UNMOUNTED, UNFRAMED, UNGLAZED, FIXED AND FLAT.
ALL WORK MUST BE ABLE TO BE HANDLED.

ARTISTS:
A.A.S./ A.S. (ALEXANDER HIDALGO & MONIKA OECHSLER)/ ALISON GUILE/ ANDREA DETTMAR/ ANDREA THOMA/ ANNA PICKERING/ AUGUST JORDAN DAVIS/ BEN FOX/ BLUE MACASHILL/ CARLOS NORNHAFEIO/ CAROLINE ELLIOTT/ CHEK-HUO LEUNG/ CHRIS CLARKE/ CHRIS HAUGHTON/ CHRIS MILLER/ CLAIRE NICHOLS/ CLARE MORGAN/ CLARE QUALMANN/ CUSHLA DONALDSON/ DAN DAVIS/ DANIEL LEHAN/ DANIELLE DRAINEY/ DAVE FARNHAM/ DAVID CAPRA/ DAVID GOLDENBERG/ DAVID THOMAS/ DAWN THOMPSON/ DENISE HAWRYSIO/ DIEDRE KING/ DOMINIC HARKER/ EMMA BARROW/ EMMA GOODMAN/ EMMA LEACH/ EMMA PRATT/ EMMA ROCHESTER/ ERICH WEISS/ EVA RUDLINGER/ FABIENNE JENNY JACQUET/ FENG-RU LEE/ FIONA MERCHANT/ GAIL DICKERSON/ GEORGE KRANIOTIS/ GILES ELDRIDGE/ GREGORY SMART/ HEIKE KELTER/ HUGH GILMOUR/ ILDA COSTA, FERNANDO COSTA & EMMANUEL COSTA/ JANE MILLER/ JESS KIDD/ JIM MCCUTCHEON/ JO-ANN KISUN/ JONATHAN ANDERSON/ JULIE DEL’HOPITAL & KYLIE BRACKSTONE/ KA SMITH/ KAMILA DZIEDZIC/ LAURA WILSON/ LAURENCE NORTH/ LENE BLADBJERG/ LEONARDO ULIAN & PIERO DI BIASE/ LEONTIA REILLY/ LEVIN HAEGELE/ LINDA DOWNIE/ LINDSAY EVANS/ LUCINDA HOLMES/ LULU ALLISON/ M. HARRISON/ MA FAUST/ MARK R TAYLOR/ MARK WILSHER/ MARY CRENSHAW/ MEISO LAI/ MICHAEL BARTLETT/ MIKE WATSON/ MIRIAM STEINHANSER/ MIYUKI KASAHARA/ MORGAN TIPPING/ NAZIR TANBOULI/ NEIL FERGUSON/ NEIL IRONS/ NEIL STOKES/ PATRICIA KANTOVANICH, THORSOA KIZIL & MARION LORETTA/ PATRICK GALWAY/ PAUL SAKOILSKY/ PER HUTTNER/ PHIL COSGROVE/ RO HAGERS/ ROBERT JEFFS/ RONA SMITH/ ROSE ROSE/ SALLY MORFILL/ SAM ELY/ SANDRA MURTAGH/ SARA CAMPBELL/ SARA WAKEFORD/ SARAH TAYLOR/ SONJA BENSKIN MESHER/ SOPHIE STRONG/ SPIKE DENNIS/ STEPHEN HARWOOD/ STEVE SMITH/ SUE WITHERS/ THEODRE WILKINS/ WILLIAM WRIGHT/ WM HUDSON

III. Fragment (consider revising)
You are invited. Almost as far as. Regard. Critically. Giving all the indications. Quality. Capability. The new social art: collaborative, participatory and post-autonomous. Etc. Yes. Something like that. Maybe you’re new. Speak. Clearly. Or have been passed over for so long. All that. Exceptional work. In terms of originality, significance and rigour. Or recognised both nationally and internationally. An important and much respected Artist. A Star. Leading. Emerging. Etc. You. Come in here. Take it as a what? In search. What would you call it? Recognised. And. Not really worth it. Nobody worth. Note. Or maybe out of generosity. No rigour. Who. No criteria. No honour. Well passed your sell by date. Of course this is all very well. Some of you no doubt don’t really get a chance. Or at least whatever chances: Small, insignificant, unrecognised, unprized. You take. Remember. Whatever worth you can muster. Prestige. Ranking. Disappointment. In the face. Maybe you thought you could. Be an artist. Do it yourself. Like. Them. Why not? Terms and conditions apply. The overwhelming dictator. Submission, engaged meaningfully. For the record. All passing conversation to be. Taken. To be developed. To be bitterly incorporated. Like a practice. A research. You just have to keep. Going. Studio paid. After all these years. And like all great Art. It is impossible to say what makes these works so extraordinary. They just are. Of course there’s the struggle. Having a talent is not enough one also requires your permission for it… right, my friends?

IV. Fragment (consider revising)
You are invited to respond. In voice. As well. Into the microphone. We provide what? A little room. All changes captured. The process of fixing one’s gaze. Regard de l’étoile. An academy. An opportunity for you. Comrade. Recognition? Maybe. We will be regarded. How? A function vis-à-vis Institution. Wider community. A Stable. Customers. As if. The dead and the named constitute something more. Or both. We are. Friends? Yes. An act of friendship. Social. Engage. An almost piteous. Face value. Maybe you thought you could’ve been an artist. Remember that time. Your shadow. Practically. A dissemination of material. Well it’s a list of shows. Really. Significant. Important. Like a kind of administered. As if administration alone. Provides. Professional. And petty jealousies. Maybe. You were slighted once. Maybe as a technician. Or an assistant. Or an invigilator. At a gallery. A better one than this one of course. Or at Art School. Like an. Applied for funding. For your own practice. Didn’t get it. Took it as far. Now look where You are. Fucking cunts. And look where they. Anyway. For those who wish to listen. Welcome. If you think of your future you are one of us. Everyone is welcome. If you want to be an artist join us. A place for Everyone. We congratulate you here and now. But hurry. So that you can get in. We tried our best. Spent what money we could. Took out an advert. Trusted in what they said. Tried to provide. An expanded field. Of participation. Words most usefully used. Creativity. Freedom. And. Down with all those who do not believe in us.

4 comments:

john brown said...

Hi there

thanks for the responce, i have reposted the question under the most recent post. I look forward to you responces, many thanks

john Brown


Hi there my name is John Brown

I am currently writing a research paper entitled “The products of critique: What can artist run initiatives in contemporary London hope to achieve from questioning the modes of the institution?” I was directed to this blog by Phil Griffin (tutor at Kingston University school of Fine Art) He said that he had spoken to Edward Dorrian at Five years gallery, and that if I wanted to direct questions to the gallery then to do so through this blog.

I am primarily interested to find out what drove you to open the Five years gallery. I understand from your website that the gallery aims to create a working environment where the relationship between Fine art practice and Curating can be considered and scrutinised. Have your experiences as working artists informed this want to look into this relationship, and if so how?

Edward Dorrian said...

John,
Five Years sets out. Allowing relative autonomy and freedom to the artists it chooses to show. Opportunity is further given to these people to ‘curate’ a second show but without presenting their own work. Sub-contracting out as it were to extend independent authorial/ curatorial content. Does this necessarily allow for disagreement? For a conflictual rather than consensual notion of a shared space?

Defining ourselves in relation to what I assume you mean by Institution (Art Schools, Museums, Commercial Public Galleries, Art Fairs, Art Press, Critics, Arts Council, Local Council, Research Funding Bodies, Culture Industry, Urban/ Social Redevelopment and Commercial regeneration schemes, Public and Private Funding Bodies, Charities, etc, etc) evokes the problematic term: Relation.

There are those at Five Years who believe that it is by occupying a marginal position in relation to the idea of the Institution (it’s established models) that our activities maintain their greatest challenge to those models. In doing so, new terms and conditions are called for. An avoidance of what might constitute the limitations of institutional structures. The hope, I guess, is to reframe Institutional process from one that is stifling, market beholden, compromised and essentially conservative, into something genuinely open and radical.

For me, I often feel this is a situation shot through with a kind of failure. I’m quite fond of Peter Bürger’s description of the catastrophic scenario represented by the historical avant-garde’s failed attack on the institution of Art. A failure that sees the attack itself Institutionalized. In this scenario, the Artist is left resolutely stuck inside the place called Art. Something akin to King Midas, everything that was otherwise turns to Art. Maurice Blanchot (Adorno too), with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, describes this predicament of failure and loss as the very process vital in Art. Bürger extends the struggle.

In the end the more the call for new terms is demanded, the more the old ones are reinforced. It is perhaps by way of failure then, that a self-determined critique of institutional power can engage eloquently and humanely with Art’s political and social import. The risk of failure, though is that it is just another academic term. Loser.

Hope to achieve. Alex, Marc and the others will have their own views!

It might be useful to refer to a draft of a three-way conversation transcribed in Art For Everyone* (Edward Dorrian Feb 2007) and it’s subsequent blog replies. This draft wasn’t intended for manifesto purposes (not everyone involved was unsceptical about it’s worth) but it does give a rather faltering picture of a discussion introducing what could be described as perspectives on certain notions of the relationship between Institution and self-organized groups like ourselves.

*see also: Failure/ Rank Cheeseboard show 022; Self-Service (Painting) show 033; A Promise of Happiness show 011; Peer Esteem

By the way John. Do you see yourself as an Artist as well as a Researcher?

john brown said...

Hi Edward

I think that I see research as an integral part of my practice. I think that there are people who feel the need to separate and distinguish the practice of making visual art and research but I feel for me the two re-enforce each other.

I would like to thank you for your definitions of the word institution; it really did open my eyes to a wide birth of things this term can cover. This has really made me think deeper about my research area, and what I aim to gain from this body of work. It has to be said that my definition of the institution in my first post was a bit foggy, but from now on be assured I am referring to the institution of art museums and galleries in relation mostly to the institution of the artist run gallery system.

I found your response to my last question very helpful. I find the format of your current show (Peer esteem) very interesting. The notion of the visitor as controller of what show they get to see is a very fresh idea. It seems to question to an extent the censorship which is unavoidable in large art institutions such as the Tate (censorship as a means of referring to the impossibility of showing all work within the collection, and the marginalised position these circumstances force on many art works).

From talking to Amanda Dennis of the Artist run gallery Auto Italia (Peckham) it has become apparent that the audience of many artist run spaces, is primarily artists. This seems to water down the potency of the questioning stance the action of letting the viewer determine the show creates, because a very specific and to an extent (it can be perceived) elitist audience get to engage with this action. Do you feel that your questioning can be effective if it is only being engaged with by a specific audience?

lost child said...

hello this is Esther Planas
a catalan spanish scapee...hidded in this organ..
Five Years:
hello
what a great time
to get this issue on the plate
on the menu on the aperitive
and dessert....
art artist artistas artistes ....
welcome to the limbo of the Goethe
simbolic walk...
Virgil..can guide you..
and tell you all about it!
the Limbo..is a good place?
is a good place!!
is a fucked place?
is a fucked place!!
Like in the rest of our metropolitan
life that has infected all cities all towns
art art artist are a huge Army!
artist run spaces alternative to the sistem
that Controls and Distributes what is
Worth and Not..that Decides who is History
and Not and the most:
Shooses and get any of us/them to be
An Olimpic Good Comodity for the Heaven that
they Direct and Comand...
Who sees us?
Our work our messages our exixtence?
Welcome to the Archive!!
Welcome to the Re-rechearch!
Welcome to Les Pucces!!
Welcome to the FleeMarket!
Welcome to the Arqueological new Site!!
Welcome to the Car Cemetery!!
Welcome to the Ebay!!
Welcome to the Rumble!
Welcome to the Left overs of Excess!!
Our items can be called Merde!
Our presents defecated for mum and dad
the Sistem Patriarc...
but our Shit..is for Us!
we play with it!
Get real dirty!
smached in to the face of our friends for funn!
is FUNN!!
Shit Party...and no more presents for Father or Mother figures.... The sistem can Root!
It is great to Shit and spread it all over walls
over tellys over faces and dresses!
A huge Shit Cake for all the NO Birthday tea Party!
Our Sacred defecation is our Sacred Secret!
we love to eat it!
to give it to you!
we are generous..just that..
We decide this is only a Kidds party that have
done a Rebellion against giving their shit to
a big Hole mouth Sistem...
And we go to the catacombes..
and dance with skulls!!
fuck and masturbate with bones!
There is lots of Gold GOLD GOLD
to find out in this depth..the Limbo shines!
WHat a great show SHOW !
and failure FAILURE is a Must!!