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Introduction to everything
by Martina Kapopkin
Press delta chip to access study period 1993-96
From our vantage point here in the year 2057 it is hard to remember that the multi media publishing empire that is now the everything Global Publications MatrixTM began as a small visual art magazine in the East End of London.
As we study the few surviving texts we will see that their emphasis tended toward the importance of site and context to the production of works of art. It also tended to emphasise the importance of historical continuity.
The fact that artists have always set the agenda in contemporary art is now a given. The importance of the Damien Hirst show Freeze (1988) was much vaunted at the time and, in the way that the media had of creating an ear piercing and monotonous feed-back on any subject, the assertion that the show was "historically" significant had gained an almost biblical authority even by 1993. This assertion was repeated by the gallerists who went on to represent that generation of artists in the early 90s Karsten Schubert and Jay Jopling.
In fact we can now see that Freeze (like the Salon de Refusé, the Armoury show, Their Chromakey and Ours, the Situationist and Fluxus events) conformed to the law of inverse perspective; they got bigger (and continue to get bigger) the further away we get from them.
These texts also reflect the debate that was occurring within the pages of British art publications (Art Monthly, Third Text and everything) as to the significance of this event and the reading of contemporary British art in the light of it (see Stewart Home, Something's Wrong and John Roberts, Dave Beech, Alasdair Duncan). These articles tended to be skeptical of what appeared to be a developing hegemony within the British Art Scene and served to problematise the use of phrases such as "young British art" and "The New British Artists". They argued that such emblems had become counterproductive and created a false national mask over a practice which came from an international tradition.
One of the defining factors of a contemporaneous reading of the then young generation of British artists was their self determination. They were enterprising, they set up their own shows and sought to find new formats for presenting art within a context of increasing philistinism. In the early 90s it was simply unrealistic to expect a social revolution in the sense that the generation of artists who had preceded them had done. When Anya Gallaccio, therefore, famously stated that "we are Thatcher's children" she was making a statement of fact rather than a statement of political allegiance; she was describing the incubus in which this generation had grown up and the terrain on which they operated. The work of these artists and the artists that came after them can therefore be seen as an immanent practice.
We can only conclude (given the scarcity of surviving texts) that the differences between this generation and the generation that preceded it are as significant as are the similarities. Historical links which serve to emphasise the connections are indicated in many of the texts included in this module:
The importance of Robin Klassnik's Matts Gallery is central to many of the artists initiatives which followed. It came out of a tradition of contemporary art within London which formed a line through the Fitzrovia Cultural institute, Indica Gallery, Inflatable Art and Mayfair Illuminations (See Medalla). These initiatives took advantage of the availability of property during a slump (a situation repeated in the 90s) and centred around groups of artists who shared a loose agenda (Anne Beane, Stewart Brisley, Paul Burwell, Richard Wilson, Stephen Cripps, Derek Jarman).
Matts formed an exemplary model for galleries such as The Museum of Installation and City Racing in the way in which the space was used and the way in which the artists involved were treated. (The emphasis was on the specificity of the space and the collaborative nature of artistic practice). Matts in turn takes a great deal from Jaraslaw Kozlowski's Accumulatory Two providing a link with Eastern Europe which was at the time overlooked.
By 1994-6 there was again a perceptible shift in the way art was presented. This tendency could be best described as the creation of a disjuncture between the space and the work displayed and a consolidation of the use of narrative structures to carry the meaning of the work over and above the space itself.
Instances of this tendency would be Plummet, Cabinet Gallery and Interim Art.
Andrew Wheatley of Cabinet said in 1995 "the old vision of the principle, public galleries, independent and the commercial sector - as being three distinct areas - is really a thing of the past. We begin to see the emergence of curators and gallerists who are working in a very similar way to a lot of artists".
Again the domesticity of such spaces was due in part to economic imperatives but all succeeded in creating what William Shoebridge termed "Legitimate Centres".
Indeed many artists seemed to be developing the idea of what was later termed "the virtual institution" (Gregory Green's Caroline, Michael Landy's Scrapheap Services - both 1995-6); a place or institution which exists because it has been given a name and which provides an umbrella for a number of activities across disciplines (see The truth is out there). We therefore see the creation of a site which is not necessarily a site (but rather the idea of a site which may or may not be embodied in physical space) and which is temporary and mobile. This created the possibility for the presentation of art that formed around a "point of annunciation" (see I Haven't Been Feeling Myself). It followed from this that the gallery as a building was subordinate to the ideas it carried and not defined so rigidly by the space. In this sense a group like BANK (whose curatorial practice caused a disjuncture between the art displayed and the art produced by the group) could move site and reincarnate itself, or the gallery can be placed in a box (Words and Pictures) or a magazine can move onto a web site.
These new models derived from a confluence of influences too various to list but which the bland simplifying influence of time has allowed us to bracket thus:
- The example of artists and galleries such as Klassnik, Hirst, Salmon, Emin, Lucas, Independent Art Space, Factual Nonsense and BANK,
- The new breed of flexible gallerists (Jopling, Paley, Wheatley, Joshua Compston )
- The economical expediency of collaboration
- A new approach to leftist politics and art theory: The Deleuzoguattarian notion of 'nomadism' gave a theoretical grounding for art works which are 'flexible', 'temporary' and 'developmental', three phrases which occur regularly when discussing this trend.
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© Martina Kapopkin 2057
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Image above:
Michael Landy
Scrapheap services
Image above:
WORDS & PICTURES
Issue 5
photo: Joseph Ortenzi
Image above:
Joshua Compston at the Hanging Picnic,
8 June 1995.
Photo:Anthony Oliver
Thanks to Paul Sakoilsky.
Image above:
D & G
a project by Alasdair Duncan and everything editorial |
