A Walking Art Gallery... 'What the Flock?!'

This is a follow up on my last blog. What seemed to be a static, one off happening has turned into one that is moving through time and space. Over the last week I have watched the spray painted stencils, which existed on the main route from Hyde Park to the University, become faded under the foot of many a student on the way to lectures. I thought these were the only remains. However, this morning I witnessed the return of the flock, or more precisely of 'what the flock?!' Cardboard cut outs of black sheep on sticks were yet again stuck in the marshy grass of Hyde Park. This time with the date 10/10/10 printed on them. What did the date mean? Perhaps it was informing us of the beginning of the exhibition, proper, or even more interestingly the end-date. This got me thinking about the life-span of exhibitions. Conventional exhibitions usually advertise when, where and how long the exhibit is going to be. We are too often used to planning to go to an exhibition at a certain time and place. However it is becoming an increasingly common occurrence to stumble across artworks in public domains, which, repeating what i said in my last blog, gives us an entirely different experience. It is a much more confrontational kind of experience, we see it and experience it whether we like it not. For example, like in the case of the Mysterious Banksy, who has given rise to graffiti art.

I thought my questions would be answered when I caught a glimpse of a black sheep out of the corner of my eyes whilst sat on the Parkinson steps. I looked up to see a parade of people dressed as sheep with the trade-mark black-sheep-on-stick in hand. They were anouncing the date through a megaphone. I ran over to see if they would shed any light on what the flock was going on, but apparnetly they had no idea either. I was simply instructed to go to http://www.whattheflock.org.uk/ at 10pm on the 10/10/10. The 'exhibition' was now moving to cyber space. This is interesting as the internet is increasingly becoming a platform for new-media art and an art space in its own right. This is reminisent of the previously blogged Art experiment 'Second Life' by Hayley Goodsell. Creating virtual environments in which art can exist, or virtual environments and web pages that are actually art, again bring to mind the question of the art gallery. What constitutes an art Gallery? As you have suggested Mark work by the likes of Christo, who makes huge landmarks such as the Reichstag, Berlin (1971-95) into art objects by wrapping them up, thus making the environmental space surrounding it the viewing gallery. Therefore if the art object exists on your computer screen your bedroom becomes the gallery. It won't be long until an 'art gallery' app will be come available, if it hasn't already, making anywhere you are an art gallery.

After checking out the web page, which is linked to LUU, I began to wonder whether it was an art project at all. It could be anything to do with LUU from elections to the promotion of yet another weird and wonderful society or even a marketing tool for a new product. In any case I think it is an intriguing 'project' that raises issues surrounding what constitutes an art gallery. I can't wait to see what is to be revealed on Sunday.

http://www.whattheflock.org.uk/ ... watch this space!

Alex

Museums and Critique

At last I've managed to find some moment to Blog...(it's been a bit manic this semester...) anyway, it appears that at the heart of Rebecca's post on 'Bigger Splash' (and Hattie's reflective comment) is the suggestion of a kind of ambivalence (I liked the arm wrestling your dad analogy) towards critique...it's rather like the museum (or in this case the RA) was openly inviting critique only in the acknowledgment that such critique merely acts to reinforce its own position and authority? There's a distinct connection here with the stuff that Banksy and Bristol Art Gallery did a few weeks ago (did you go Rebecca?)...thousands of people queued round the block to see a metaphorical stoning of their grandmother...the stones turned out to be sponges (and they weren't even wet ones!), so no damage was done.....I'm sure there's more to be said on this thread?

mark

Bansky and the Bristol Museum ?(sell out)?

In a belated response to Rebecca's comments on the Banksy Exhibition at Bristol Museum (have you seen it yet Rebecca?...what's it like?) I thought I'd add some further ingredients into the discussion. I noticed a report in The Art Newspaper on the exhibition (appropriately in the 'Art Market' sections), stating; 'all of the 100 works exhibited are for sale, and The Art Newspaper understands that a work showing a policeman on a child's rocking horse sold for £140,000.'.....

Kate Brindley, the museum's director, is reported to say that Bristol Museum would not get a cut of the proceeds, but "it was usual practice" for living artists (excuse the obviousness there) to sell work shown in public galleries. Did I miss something here? When did this become 'usual practice'? (Saatchi, perhaps, but you can't actually 'buy' the things off the wall at the Duke of York's Headquarters (can you?)...and I'm aware of 19th century precedents - I'm a museum historian! (of sorts...). It is clear that public museums play a significant, and synchronic, role in the art market - but surely Bristol Museum is not (should not be?) Gagosian?

Or is it another subtle subversive move by Banksy?
Mark

I tried not writing about Banksy at Bristol Museum, but failed.

I might as well qualify this right at the start by admitting that I've got a soft spot for Banksy. There, I've said it. It's interesting that an insidious inverse snobbery starts to operate alongside increasing success and mainstream visibility. Waldemar Januszczak's piece in the Sunday Times typifies the lazy sentiment that he was clever and subversive on the streets, but boring, dumb and repetitive now that his work is shown in a 'legitimate', 'establishment' context. For one thing, this fudges the artist's trajectory; following this logic, Banksy 'sold-out' at least seven years ago when books of his graffiti became available to bourgeois art school posers like me. Perhaps I just have juvenile taste, but I think it is possible to be both funny and clever. What is perhaps less clever is the way in which Bristol Museum has sought to market this exhibition, this viral advert could only have been made by a provincial museum, it's the same impulse that led Gordon Brown to pretend he likes the Arctic Monkeys. And the bit of mythologising about the director of the museum not having been informed about this exhibition was just not believable. However, what I think this exhibition will do is draw a huge and varied audience who will to some extent re-negotiate the museum's collection in order to discern the embedded (and sometimes subtle, yes, subtle!) interventions made by the artist. I can't wait to go and see it.