The recent BBC 4 series, Romancing the Stone, which supposed to document the stages and developments in the history of sculpture – thankfully I only saw the last episode, which was on 20th century British sculpture, running chronologically from around Epstein to Hurst et al.
Throughout the show I couldn’t shake this rising feeling in my guts, and the thought, I really despise art!
It was a whistle-stop ride along a fanciful line of ‘progression’ in sculpture, from turn of the century interests in primitive, non-european sculpture, into some war memorials, Epstein’s rock drill, then the omnipresent Moore, and on into Hepworth, Paolozzi, Whiteread, Hurst, Gormley etc.
This discussion was handled in terms of form – the move from the analytic to the abstract to the anything goes of the now. And of course running beside this was the rising chart of ‘expression’ – from pictorial representation, to symbolism and intuition. In the course however, there was this subtext which went unstated, unquestioned, that self-expression – the artist’s ability to portray, or imbue his/her own feels visually, hermeneutically, in things – was somehow in advance of the ability to create beauty or aid peoples lives or simply add something, anything, even just a tiny thing, to the sum of human achievement.
Consequently, or perhaps owing to this, all of the artists interviewed for the programme sounded self-absorbed, shallow, and utterly conceited – often coming out with flippant and cringing one liners such as Whiteread’s, "I’m interested in forgotten spaces," or Hurst’s, "I access people's worst fears." Oh dear god, is this all there is?
Having said all that though, I should also point out that there were a few redeeming moments too, like when the presenter accidentally pisses Anthony Gormley off by comparing him to Moore, or when Damien Hurst pretty much calls the presenter an idiot – which although it pains me to, I must agree with. (He is an amazingly irritating man!)
Oh well, maybe modernism is just old hat now, or maybe presenting a complex interconnected history of ideological and methodological approaches to sculpture as a linear arrow of progress is misguided and harmfully constrained.
Anyway, I was only watching in the off chance of gleaning some insight into the great genre of, mystifying yet inescapable, lumpy sculpture. Alas, barely even a credit.
All the best,
Michael
I watched this a few months ago and had very similar feelings. Then again I can't recall ever seeing any particularly useful/insightful television about art apart from perhaps Art Safari years ago. I remember this was the programme that introduced me to relational aesthetics back in something like 2005
ReplyDeleteActually this reminds me of my review from last year that you so enjoyed reading, cut'n'pasted below....
ReplyDeleteModern British Sculpture
Royal Academy
As an artist who is coming to terms with the fact that I may be a sculptor, or at least an artist that deals with sculpture, this exhibition initially seemed to be a must see. As the first large scale exhibition of twentieth century British in three decades this was a subject I felt that I needed to understand in a more cohesive manner in order to greater contextualise my own practice.
Unfortunately despite brave words,
“The exhibition takes a fresh approach, replacing the traditional survey with a provocative set of juxtapositions that challenges the viewer to make new connections and break the mould of old conceptions.”
This was an exhibition that failed to fulfil these promises, in fact I was left feeling that I had added little to my piece-meal, ad hoc, understanding of modern sculpture.
There were several aspects of the exhibition that jarred with me. From the first room of primitive objects vs primitivist sculpture a tone of self-congratulatory mediocracy was set. Displaying these two sets of objects was together was hardly novel, just the physical placement of a dialogue seen in every text-book on the subject.
Overall the curation of this exhibition frustrated me. Inconsistency in display for example, some works simply displayed, some behind painted lines that the viewer must not cross and yet more behind velvet ropes, a weird hierarchy of proximity dependent on the value or status of the work. On top of this, interesting work was often displayed in the far corners of rooms, dominated by the larger pieces. Perhaps this was to cement the facile narrative imposed by the curator. Viewers were not so much encouraged to make new connections as to observe the connections made through curation and then hammered home by the accompanying texts on the wall of each themed room.
That is not to say that there wasn’t high quality work on display, more that the work was hindered in many cases by curation and one was left more with the feeling of having ticked off seeing some big names than having viewed the work: The artistic equivalent of an American tourist ‘doing Europe’.
Toward the end of the exhibition I had adopted a policy of deliberately avoiding any text and trying to view the work without preconception instead. This led to the one point where the exhibition succeeded in breaking one of my personal preconceptions: I admired a piece of work by Sarah Lucas.