Following a conversation with John Russell
My placard, which was resting against the studio wall, was made to be held. It has both functionality and mobility. It could be problematic. It could piss someone off when presented in public. As if picking it up was the same as picking a fight. But, for the purposes of this presentation, I’ve chosen to be politically passive.
Political art ends up preaching to the converted.
Peter Plagens, 1991
John recalled his encounters with altarpieces. Specifically, portable ones. At first, he thought he was looking at something sacredly static. Elaborate ensembles that framed the products of Christian art. He continued to say that many of the altarpieces he saw in the museum were actually made to be moved. The mechanism involved slotting the bottom of the framework onto a stick. The motive was to take religious worship to the streets.
We did something similar in TOB1 during our placard parade.
We discussed the disparities between my placard and an unfinished canvas that hung on my studio wall. What are the spatial considerations and restrictions of the canvas? There is a definite end and deep edges only seem to confirm that end, a finishing line it were. At what point does a canvas become more boxlike, entering the realms of three dimensional work?
When you create work within certain dimensions it becomes ossified in that particular moment. Framed.
Jackson Pollock’s huge works were created on the ground, paint spilling onto the floor surrounding it. This extension of work momentarily blurred the line between art work and the place in which it was created. By working in this way it seemed he could choose where the work ends, but the reality is that as soon as you pick up the piece and hang it, the work has created its own boundaries. Its own end.
If something, an artwork, can be moved away from its original timeframe, or place of creation does this mean that particular moment no longer contextualises the work and it has been reborn? What happens in relocation? Much like the travelling altar; its functionality and context remains but the location within which it operates shifts. Saints formed the imagery for these rich and complex items. These icons are identifiable, insofar as their attributes and qualities remain recognisable today. However, their flat, plain impressionable faces allowed people to utilise the the functionality of Saints. Acting as a blank canvas. People used saints to project what they needed to see onto it. To aid worship, or to repent. This sort of iconography allowed illiterate peasants to experience the Holy. This sense of perception, this optic visuality, of viewing across a surface is something I want to explore in my art making.
I want to explore the possibilities of plainness and what minimalistic qualities can communicate. Stripping forms right back. But also the very idea of navigating surface area. Portable altarpieces made the gateway to God more accessible by pulling religion out of its framework. But its context remained.
How can I make artwork that will be interpreted identically yet indefinitely in infinite locations?
CONNIE HOPE 