The Poetry Trap

When a flagship piece of architecture opens a little test of aesthetic integrity is to look at the back stairs. It's around there that any flaw in design integrity is obvious (if it isn't already clear because it is a crap building). One of Buckminster Fuller's criticisms of the Bauhaus was that its designers never looked at looked at plumbing or drainage.

There is an analogy for the uses and abuses of poetry in visual arts contexts. I will talk more about this in future blogs and it is one of the issues I will be considering at the Saari Residency in Finland next week. Basically, it is a generally observable phenomenon that when curators and museum directors open there fabulous new buildings or refurbishments; after they have thought of the wine and cheese, the next accessory on the list is a poet, an opening poem, a poem read. But the overwhelming evidence suggests that their knowledge of this other field, of contemporary poetry is non-existent. So they cast around and choose either someone they have heard of or someone local. In the UK at least they means a bad poet. This is the logic that trots Simon Armitage out at every opportunity at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It is the logic that has Manchester International Festival add the poetry after-thought of Lemn Sissay and Jackie Kay as the featured poets.
http://www.mif.co.uk/events/true-faith/

The way to look at the way poetry features in the visual arts is this: Imagine that contemporary art was the peripheral artform and Poetry was the cultural driver with massive Tate Modern style palaces of consumption and inflated markets for the each emerging poetic talent. And the poetry directors then decide it would be nice to have an artist to 'do something' at one of their openings. In this analogy, they would be choosing the equivalent of watercolourists.

Continuing this dismal feeling, today I had the desperate experience of looking for a poetry book for Phil Davenport's birthday present. You could lose your will to live in the poetry section of Waterstones. To make this even worse, I then strolled into the Manchester Book Fair http://www.literaturenorthwest.co.uk/news/160 - I had seen an email announcement that the event featured some of the North West's leading poets, which was intriguing as I had not heard of any of them.

As I arrived there were a couple of Rapper's intoning a poem called "Same Old Shit" which primarily suggested that everything was the same old shit. It would be unseemly of me to say anything about this. Then a chap came on and read a poem with the immortal line "Conversation so dull it could bore the breasts off womankind". This and the same old shit seemed to sum it all up. A couple of others read but I was thankfully walking away, with a question in my mind that recurs on occasion. Maybe someone out there could help me: When honey bees sting their venom sac is fatally ripped out of their bodies. It has always struck me that this is horrifying metaphor that I must use in a poem one day, the notion of having your innards ripped out in sacrificial death. I thought there would be a scientific term for it, but can't find one. Does anyone know? As I walked away from the Book Fair, I imagined the sting being ripped out slowly.

Flailing Trees

Aside from Jeremy Deller's entertaining Procession on Sunday, Manchester International Festival's only effort at public art is Gustav Metzger's Flailing Trees.

http://www.mif.co.uk/events/flailing-trees/

According to the festival brochure "Walking or driving the same streets every day, many of us take our surroundings for granted." I wonder, does that mean anything? Anyway, Gustav Metzger "challenges this sense of security with Flailing Trees, an arresting and poignant new piece of public art that will stand in the Manchester Peace Garden for the duration of the Festival." I don't quite get this: usually taking things for granted is taken as a criticism of complacency, but apparently 'many of us' are guilty of a sense of security - I am not so sure that the absence of anxiety is a bad thing. As you can see from the picture, Flailing Trees comprises 21 willows inverted in a concrete block, "a subversion of the natural order that brings nature and the environment into sharp focus. With flourishing branches replaced by dying roots, the sculpture is both a plea for reflection and a plaintive cry for change, and is sure to provide a catalyst for debate." At the launch event, it was contextualised with the notion that cities are by definition brutal to the environmental and Manchester in particular is a city with few green open spaces and trees. So engaging with the debate: the piece is not arresting, as far as I observed no-one stopped to look at it. Although I have seen at least two other artworks featuring upside down trees so it is not particularly original, taking it on its own terms, even if I was a soft headed eco-romantic, any capacity to poignance is undermined by the clumsiness of the concrete plinth; it's dying roots are not a plea for reflection because they are dead; reflection is much more likely if the observer leaves this behind and sits in the Peace Garden itself; and aesthetically how is simplistic symbolism subversive?

Procession

http://www.mif.co.uk/events/procession-2/

Zaha Hadid, Piotr Anderszewski, JS Bach

Zaha Hadid: "The Aim: to create a near-perfect environment for the audience to experience some of the world's most beautiful chamber music." Putting the strangeness of aiming for near perfection rather than actual perfection down as clumsy copy in the publicity, this ambition was repeated by the Festival Director at the launch event; with such pronouncements, you make the claim you get measured by it. Comparing a real photograph with the image on the MIF website http://www.mif.co.uk/events/js-bach-zaha-hadid/ there is a bit of disconnect between computer generation and real construction. There is a lack of drama in entering the environment because you come in from the side and the views that are included in publicity are actually impossible because the construct is packed into a gallery space. The impression you get when you sit down is you are in a cross between sets from Star Trek Next Generation and the 1967 Casino Royale movie. Sue pointed out that there is a reason why it was called chamber music and why chambers tend to be carpeted with upholstered furniture is accoustics. The Hadid form doesn't soften the hollow accoustics of a gallery, and without enough height in the room the sound was oddly harsh and deadened at the same time. This was supplemented with a continuous hum from the air conditioning and ever un-muffled fidget of the audience. For the 'sweeping' form itself, the realities of construction made it more like kite or carnival modelling. With the best will in the world, the computer just couldn't make angles slide into curves, and some of the detailing is very clumsy (pictured).

When Bach was played in the space, an aesthetic problem reared up: "...carving out a spatial and visual response to the intricate relationships of Bach's musical harmonies": sadly not. Juxtaposed with the Baroque master, the environment makes you think that the structure is the visual response to something more superficially romantic, Elgar maybe.

Piotr Anderszewski: his interpretation and his playing of two Partitas and the English Suite were imbalanced. In interpretation, he seemed to be driven by musical detail so that larger ideas in the works drifted in and out, sometimes disappearing altogether. In his playing his right hand is much stronger than his left so it had the feel of a stereo where one of the speakers is losing power.

Make It New

Manchester International Festival (MIF) http://www.mif.co.uk/ claims to be the world’s first festival of original, new work and special events. The Festival launched in 2007 as “an artist-led, commissioning festival presenting new works from across the spectrum of performing arts, music, visual arts and popular culture.” As I mentioned the other day, attending the media launch, my doubts from the first festival were confirmed for the second. Alex Poots, the Director, introduced the festival roughly with: this is the world’s first festival of original, new work and special events, an artist-led, commissioning festival presenting new works from across the spectrum of performing arts, music, visual arts and popular culture. He then handed the platform over to the first artist (I can’t recall which one it was now), who, after explaining his planned work, handed on to the next and then they had handed on to the next, etc. The first thing that stands out in this ‘presentation’ is that the director did not presenting any sense of a Manchester vision on the international stage, what Manchester contributes to the global dialogue which accrues in the circuit of biennials and festivals; admittedly partnerships with other international festivals were flagged up but that is not the same as saying something, that is membership of a club. The ‘vision’ becomes simply the concatenation of the projects – without over-arching aspiration the festival is the symplectic geometry of arriving at the same place at the same time. The absence of the vision perforce throws attention onto the projects themselves – is there an implicit position threaded through them? Well, no, not really; what there is is a sort of cultural parlour game: Damon Albarn/opera/Chinese theatre (in the first festival), Damon Albarn/Kronos Quartet/Punchdrunk Theatre/BBC Documentaries, Steve Reich with Kraftwerk, Elbow with the Halle Orchestra, etc. We can all play this game: how about the Gallagher brothers (Oasis) with Vienna Lippizaner horses performing at the Manchester City Eastlands Stadium or Madonna choreographing the Kirov with original music by the Malawi Children’s Choir. You have a go, it’s fun.

This might sound churlish, and don’t get me wrong, I am not critical of the individual projects per se (although some of them invite some trenchant commentary - the excerpt of the Rufus Wainwright neo-romantic elevator-music opera played at the launch was terrible) – I have already booked tickets for the Bach concert in the specially designed space by Zaha Hadid - but then again, how ground-breaking is Bach? I’ll probably also see the Marina Abramović curation at the Whitworth Art Gallery (although, I am drawn to this in the same spirit of the shopping list, the chance to see that many live artists in one hit); no here, I am more concerned by the MIF qua Festival, its underlying fallacy and the recurring issue of corporate language. Let’s put aside some of the peripheral ripostes to the ‘vision’. Factually, the world’s first festival of original new work would surely be the 1895, or in modern times, the 1948 Venice Bienniales. Moreover it is almost a defining characteristic of contemporary international arts festivals to be made up of new work and special projects, so claiming distinction on this ground only convinces people who don’t attend many real international festivals.

The glaring and operative word in all this is “new”. I am reminded of TV presenters who introduce a live performance broadcast from the studio with “Live and exclusive…” as if the artist could have achieved quantum uncertainty and be live somewhere else at the same time. So Laurie Anderson (who was terrible in Salford a few years ago) performing with Lou Reed might be new in Manchester but it’s not actually new. Anyone of a certain age and musical orientation would salivate at the prospect of Steve Reich and Kraftwerk playing in the Velodrome, but it is only the parlour game juxtaposition and venue which are new. I saw Reich in 1998 at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and while the old classics that he performed were great, the later Hindenburg was very disappointing and it was clear by then that his creative powers were waning – that was ten years ago. To be fair, MIF does not claim a Poundian ‘Make it New’ but it certainly lays claim to newness and in some press communications to originality too. This is one of those Government-speak things, like ‘excellence’, which infect our cultural language. They offer up a category of partial newness or relatively new but not so new to challenge anything. A section of my next book seems to appropriate comment here:

Lines synonymous with their content in either order concatenation between
breathers and catalysis between breathers and catalysis worth nothing unless
they predict something new; non-trivial zeros except on the line iff it
redirects here if something is new to us it is new to everyone; people perceive
the existence of these risks and react by shopping or perseveration…

In MIF artistic risk is demonstrably missing. I felt this very clearly when the Whitworth Gallery curator was proudly recounting the challenging moment when Marina Abramović proposed that the Gallery spaces be emptied of the collection and replaced with her curation of live art performances. If you hear this empathising with endless storage problem of most galleries, you can read this as the Gallery breaking new ground, and to that extent it is. But I am reminded of when I was started working with Ulrich Rückriem; prior to meeting him, Robert Hopper the late Director of the Henry Moore Institute convinced me that Rückriem was one of the 5 great living artists. At that stage as a curator you know that whatever the artist proposes is what you are going to do, because if you don’t accept the proposal of artists of a certain status, you announce to the world that you are not committed to work of the highest quality. With Abramović’s status, the Whitworth is not actually taking an artistic risk.

This line of argument suggests at least some credence to the claim that the festival is artist-led. However, my perception is that, while it is well organised, it is not actually led in artistic terms. In the absence of an over-aching meaningful vision at its heart, MIF has an under-arching institutionalist market-orientation inertia. Classic proof of its privileging of institutions in comparison with its piecemeal attitude to artform and artists is the Manchester Open Commission. This year’s festival sought to commission a Manchester artist or arts organisation to create a major work. Remember this is in the context of the festival organisers trotting out the cliché about Manchester being characterised by its feisty go-for-it (madchester) city with attitude reputation! Out of many submissions, they chose the proposal from the Cube architecture gallery (http://www.cube.org.uk/) to commission Gustav Metzger. This projected work is an fallacious eco-stinker which I will return to analyse in future, but here I am interested more in the choice of the Cube as representing a Manchester artistic statement. Although its programme has improved in recent years, it is still a pretty uninspired node in the city landscape - limited as it is by the paucity of contemporary architecture in Manchester and the scourge of the Access Agenda. There are artists in Manchester who function on the international stage and some younger talents that soon will. But MIF went for Cube. This is the most telling statement of the festival’s inclination to institution before artist. Primarily the festival’s success is measured by fulfilling the requirements of its sponsors and the City Council’s tourism & marketing performance indicators, not artistic drives – and it shows in the programme.

they never run, only call

I meant to write about Rachel Goodyear’s superb show “they never run, only call” at International 3 http://www.international3.com/exhibition.php?E=40 while it was still on but didn’t get round to it. But I have been carrying the experience around with me of her intense concentration of the drawings since I saw it. And this was magnified the other day when I happened to be in Manchester Art Gallery for the launch of Manchester International Festival – of which more in future posts. No, the specific trigger for reconsidering Goodyear was seeing the Gallery’s newest acquisition Antony Gormley’s Filter (pictured). “It’s a hanging figure made of flat mild steel rings welded together. The sculpture is hollow and holes in the rings allow you to glimpse inside the body, which contains a suspended heart.”

During his siting visit, Gormley said “The work hangs in space as if in orbit, open to light and the elements, it is a meditation on the relationship between the core of the body and space at large... It suggests that, while movement, freedom of choice and the exercising of will is one way in which life expresses itself, there is another axis: the relationship between emotion and spatial experience." I was particularly struck by these comments in part because my next book “Space” is examining these very questions; but as I say, when I say Gormley’s metal sausage, Rachel Goodyear became an even stronger presence. The work itself I have already dismissed formally with the reference to metal products; but the sculptors claims for his work are more interesting because of what they tell us. Some of the chaff can be cleared straight away: it is not open to the elements because it is in an environmentally enclosed atrium. There is no suggestion of orbit or movement because it is suspended at a height, relation to other structures (lifts, staircases, etc) in the space and angle to suggest stasis not movement. And then the two claims that it suggests 1) movement, freedom of choice etc are herein represented. 2) that there is a relationship between emotion and spatiality. The first one hardly needs repeating – there figure is static. It’s casing with arms at its side and legs together suggest no internally generated motion (something you would expect even a subtle indication of if you were going to claim a relationship between the internal emotion and the external space), and as already noted there is no external motion either; it can’t even be said to hover in the space as it quite clearly hangs, nor is there dynamics that move it because you can see stablizing wires so there is no suggestion of imbalance or spin. But, as if to anticipate formal critique of the metal sausage, Gormley says: "My work continues to be misinterpreted as some form of representational art. It's useless if you take it as that. It's an invitation for you to think of yourself being there, an invitation for you to think of those moments when you are, like it is, detached from the flow of everyday life. We're always doing something, fulfilling some kind of command, some kind of duty, some kind of work and this piece is trying to think of a human being as being not doing." That is dangerous ground for Gormley to tread because this claim of existentialism invites not a location as representational art but rather a comparison with artists who could actually make work that coalesces being, such as Giacometti. However, I think there is a way in which Gormley’s self-casts engage with “the flow of everyday life. We're always doing something, fulfilling some kind of command, some kind of duty, some kind of work”; in the context of the UK’s regimental institutionalising ontology Gormley’s work does say something to us: it is the apotheosis of the mediocrity expected of us; as (most of) his oeuvre are casts of himself, they represent are our standardisation, but without ontological insight the artist, mediocre himself, this New Banality to which we are directed to aspire is writ dismal and large which ultimately is more denigrating than hopelessness. Gormley’s planned installation for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, http://www.london.gov.uk/fourthplinth/plinth/gormley.jsp, “One & Other” inadvertently but openly displays this for all to see. No doubt it will be surrounded by some bollocks of celebrating ordinary people (in the context of the imperial sculptural landscape of the square) but actually what it does is offer up our interchangeability and therefore lack of value. No doubt the selected 2400 people will have be unutterably worthy New Labour diversity, but I find the safety net around the plinth the hilarious Health & Safety coda – the work celebrates its absence of artistic and physical risk.

Criticising Antony Gormley is really too easy to take so much space, ordinarily I wouldn’t give it brain space. It was the context of remembrance of Rachel Goodyear’s show – even the title “they never run, only call” could be a description of establishment artists such as Gormley (or Motion and Armitage for that matter). But to mobilise her to that cause would be a disservice and a paltry use for something so powerful. It may seem strange to compare stodgy metal sculpture with fine small scale drawings, but it is an ontological comparison: Goodyear’s investigations are mystical, edgy, humorous and sexy, desperate and transcendent. Even ontological grounds though, it is still an unfair and unnecessary comparison: Goodyear is fascinating and Gormley is Official stodge.

So what was the other thing that bothered me? It is the same underlying problem in the Manchester International Festival, the launch for which I was in the city gallery and will write on in more depth in another blog.