Introduction
I am interested in the diary form, how an internal voice intersects with lived experiences, and how this informs my creative practice. The last twelve months of research have led me to become interested in this writing project which involves writing about artists who are working outside of established centers of art production and discourse either through choice or circumstance. These interests have come about through an intersection of my attending four annual art residencies in the small community of Wells, British Columbia. I met artists from the northern part of the province, and realized I probably would never have met these individuals if not for these regional opportunities. I also accessed a reading list provided by the Banff Centre for a thematic residency. Although I was wait listed for this residency, and subsequently did not attend the residency titled “27: Our Literal Speed: Stuff Near Art That Is Not Art Which Is Treated As If It Were Art, Is Now The Substance of Most Serious Art”[3], the reading list was compelling, and I have added these books to my personal library.
There are many examples of artists and curators writing in the style of a personal narrative, and the quality of the voice in this type of investigation can become a unique component to the structure of the ideas and arguments presented. For example, in her book titled “Seven Days in the Art World”, Dr. Sarah Thornton[4] formats her research as a week in the art world, and as such, her ideas read with a quality of candor that is refreshing by deliberately writing in language that is assessable. Also, the essay titled “Something’s Missing” by Ken Lum[5] recounts a personal experience that critiques the art world in a non-dogmatic way; in both of these examples, the language is simplified from academic language, but is in no way simple.
I have invited three artists to be a part of this project, as I find that they are producing critically important work. Nora Curiston, based in Grand Forks, Laura Widmer, based in Kelowna, and Brenda Feist, also based in Kelowna, navigate in and around the hierarchal system of the art world that streams emerging artists. Yet these artists continue to generate a cultural production that engages and contributes to the contemporary critical discourse in the visual arts, understanding that they are caught in a pre-existing system of exhibiting visual research that favours artists working in established centres. I feel that what these three artists have in common is their dedication to their practice and to the quality of the intellectual component of the work.
Recently I attended a Curator’s talk[6] by Lubos Culen who suggested that art is about when you are making it, the activity of it, and you are devoted to that, independent of the outcome. I find this a poetic sentiment, as I contemplate the work of thousands of artists who are educated in cultural production, and enter their artistic lives hoping to carve out a place where they can concentrate on their practice. As these artists prepare and submit proposals and submissions for exhibitions, we can all appreciate the Sisyphean effort of the many public not-for-profit gallery networks in their efforts to re-invent the space, content and context of the white cube every six weeks.
Yet, as Boris Groys[7] reminds us, art in our current age and history straddles several polarities. Within the parameters of inclusion and exclusion found within the contemporary art discourse, there is also the binary relationship of commodity and politics, the image and the critique of the image. The artists participating in Local(i)ty project successfully navigate these ideas within their personal lens of the sublime that underpins an authority to their practice. These artists work with an ambition to be a part of the greater art world, with the socio-politico-economic labyrinth that is before them, and as Curiston[8] pointed out, it is absurd to think about it.
Jacques Rancière suggests that we, as viewers, have become passive consumers of images and to understand this phenomenon, we should begin to understand the space between the image and the viewer, or in Rancière’s words, the “spectacle and the spectator”[9]. To understand this space, one must be cognizant of the complex histories that contain traditional knowledge as well as the fluctuating contemporary issues that are contained in current critical discourses. This important space reminds me of Duchamp’s research into the ‘law of the excluded middle’[10], which identifies the character of a place where something is neither yes nor no, an important space between this fundamental binary relationship. These three artists, Curiston, Widmer, and Feist articulate their ephemeral experience of thinking and making within this position, and engage us, the viewers, in complex and novel ways by allowing us to occupy this space/place for contemplation.
Kenneth Goldsmith[11] in his book “Uncreative Writing”, published in 2011, reminds us of the complicated authorship of ideas. The writing project “Local(i)ty” is designed to operate under the umbrella of a collective, where the ideas of these three artists are seen as active investigations of the place between boundaries, an excluded middle, where their ideas occupy an area rich in discourse.
I am interested in the diary form, how an internal voice intersects with lived experiences, and how this informs my creative practice. The last twelve months of research have led me to become interested in this writing project which involves writing about artists who are working outside of established centers of art production and discourse either through choice or circumstance. These interests have come about through an intersection of my attending four annual art residencies in the small community of Wells, British Columbia. I met artists from the northern part of the province, and realized I probably would never have met these individuals if not for these regional opportunities. I also accessed a reading list provided by the Banff Centre for a thematic residency. Although I was wait listed for this residency, and subsequently did not attend the residency titled “27: Our Literal Speed: Stuff Near Art That Is Not Art Which Is Treated As If It Were Art, Is Now The Substance of Most Serious Art”[3], the reading list was compelling, and I have added these books to my personal library.
There are many examples of artists and curators writing in the style of a personal narrative, and the quality of the voice in this type of investigation can become a unique component to the structure of the ideas and arguments presented. For example, in her book titled “Seven Days in the Art World”, Dr. Sarah Thornton[4] formats her research as a week in the art world, and as such, her ideas read with a quality of candor that is refreshing by deliberately writing in language that is assessable. Also, the essay titled “Something’s Missing” by Ken Lum[5] recounts a personal experience that critiques the art world in a non-dogmatic way; in both of these examples, the language is simplified from academic language, but is in no way simple.
I have invited three artists to be a part of this project, as I find that they are producing critically important work. Nora Curiston, based in Grand Forks, Laura Widmer, based in Kelowna, and Brenda Feist, also based in Kelowna, navigate in and around the hierarchal system of the art world that streams emerging artists. Yet these artists continue to generate a cultural production that engages and contributes to the contemporary critical discourse in the visual arts, understanding that they are caught in a pre-existing system of exhibiting visual research that favours artists working in established centres. I feel that what these three artists have in common is their dedication to their practice and to the quality of the intellectual component of the work.
Recently I attended a Curator’s talk[6] by Lubos Culen who suggested that art is about when you are making it, the activity of it, and you are devoted to that, independent of the outcome. I find this a poetic sentiment, as I contemplate the work of thousands of artists who are educated in cultural production, and enter their artistic lives hoping to carve out a place where they can concentrate on their practice. As these artists prepare and submit proposals and submissions for exhibitions, we can all appreciate the Sisyphean effort of the many public not-for-profit gallery networks in their efforts to re-invent the space, content and context of the white cube every six weeks.
Yet, as Boris Groys[7] reminds us, art in our current age and history straddles several polarities. Within the parameters of inclusion and exclusion found within the contemporary art discourse, there is also the binary relationship of commodity and politics, the image and the critique of the image. The artists participating in Local(i)ty project successfully navigate these ideas within their personal lens of the sublime that underpins an authority to their practice. These artists work with an ambition to be a part of the greater art world, with the socio-politico-economic labyrinth that is before them, and as Curiston[8] pointed out, it is absurd to think about it.
Jacques Rancière suggests that we, as viewers, have become passive consumers of images and to understand this phenomenon, we should begin to understand the space between the image and the viewer, or in Rancière’s words, the “spectacle and the spectator”[9]. To understand this space, one must be cognizant of the complex histories that contain traditional knowledge as well as the fluctuating contemporary issues that are contained in current critical discourses. This important space reminds me of Duchamp’s research into the ‘law of the excluded middle’[10], which identifies the character of a place where something is neither yes nor no, an important space between this fundamental binary relationship. These three artists, Curiston, Widmer, and Feist articulate their ephemeral experience of thinking and making within this position, and engage us, the viewers, in complex and novel ways by allowing us to occupy this space/place for contemplation.
Kenneth Goldsmith[11] in his book “Uncreative Writing”, published in 2011, reminds us of the complicated authorship of ideas. The writing project “Local(i)ty” is designed to operate under the umbrella of a collective, where the ideas of these three artists are seen as active investigations of the place between boundaries, an excluded middle, where their ideas occupy an area rich in discourse.