here is Andies contribution that she emailed thru from the responses she was sent. please post your comments and i will turn it into a template to make photocopied exhibition notes from once we have got the go ahead. x p
“Words and thoughts are pointless”
If the above is true, then what use is any attempt to facilitate engagement and critical dialogue in an art gallery? There have been many disillusioned responses with the way New Zealand contemporary art has been presented in Prospect 2007, with the efforts of the Association of Collaboration proven to be no exception. However, self-reflexivity and evaluation are fundamental to our interests, thus every scribbled post-it note has been processed, and we’d like to share some of these thoughts, ideas and feelings with you…
-I’ve never been more bored. Prospect has become mundane, predictable, tired, blasé, indifferent, incompetent, unencouraging. This work could be from the seventies, that work could be a repetition of that work, and this work could be a regurgitation of every work ever made. You could have saved time by putting a pile of FLASHART magazines in the foyer…
The Contemporary Art Mobile Response Unit supported a profusion of responses, though some felt their words were falling on deaf ears…
-You can say its rubbish as much as you like-they will still do it again next year. Proof that institutions just don’t listen unless you say what they want to hear.
The Contemporary Art Mobile Response Unit not only encouraged responses to the artwork but also inspired visitors to engage with one another’s responses
-You are allowed to say, “I don’t like it” and not have to explain yourself
-It’s not that you don’t like it, it’s that you don’t understand it or vice versa? (as Mrs V my 7th form art history teacher often used to say)
Other criticisms centred on the didactic nature of contemporary art survey shows
-Just because you use big words, doesn’t mean that what you think about art is more important, or even relevant. Art is for enjoyment, not for being a pompous ass over.
Some felt intimidated by the pressure to make spontaneous and insightful comments on the spot
-I think my own thoughts are becoming less clear... I am fading with every exhibit
While others used humour to make sense of their experience
When I went to the toilet after seeing the show I felt I might be in an installation…
If nothing else, on viewing Prospect 2007, perhaps some left with a new appreciation for contemporary art.
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7 comments:
Hey this is great. I thought it could be overwhelmingly negative and a downer but it comes across as just pretty honest and describes some real experiences. Obviously this is a selection from the responses though maybe we need to say that?
Sorry this post may be way too late to be useful.....
Sian
yea cool thanks sian :)
perhaps if its not too late we could add 'a selection' into the sentence:
'and we'd like to share (a selection) of these thoughts, ideas and feelings with you...'
cheers
xA
wow, I thought that the collection of responses we sent to you/Andie was supposed to be the philosophical ones! I am wondering, because of the similarity in content to Toms bunch, whether you two could merge your collations, collaboratively like, into the one roomsheet.
Sian and I went through a similar process when creating the popcorn roomsheet and it worked well I rekon.
I am also thinking that we could continue with this process for the remainder of the responses, merging and remerging (but not submerging) untill we have a report style document which we could submit to heather?
What do you think?
yea i wondered what 'category' the comments you sent me were to fit under...i thought they were meant to be positive but that wasn't the case. Posted back the comments this morning, might be good to merge with Tom, what do you think Tom? How should we go about it?
I think that the same should be done for the remainder of the responses until we've got one big roomsheet anthology. Brill xA
yeah, i'm a bit confused as to which collection was mine, and which was andie's. mine did have a jumble and really negative stuff as well as some other bits and pieces. i think they would work pretty well together given that they cross the same territory. shall i subsume andie's collation into mine? it would make it quite long i think.or on opposite sides of a bit of paper?
i also like the idea of just mixing new ones into the jumble as we go instead of creating new sheets.........
great idea tom, i like the idea of jumbling- that'd be wonderful if you have the time to mix 'em together? then maybe post it/email it to the association account?
talk soon
xA
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