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1. Popular Affront:
Some Notes for Ayling & Conroy by Mark Hutchinson
A
At the beginning, when two artists start to work collaboratively, they
must make decisions about what it is that they are going to do together.
A single artist does not have this sense of a beginning and can, therefore,
evade the conscious formulation of a working practice. All artist must
decide, in one way or another, what kind of artist to be; the difference
for a collaboration is that this process is both sudden and conversational.
Collaborations have a definite beginning and at the beginning deciding
what kind of artists to be is an urgent pre-requisite of doing anything.
So the artists involved must talk about not only what they are going to
do but also what they are going to be. In collaborations the conversation
is literal and explicit: decisions have to be made rather than assumed.
Thus collaboration is marked by the move from the statement ‘This
is what I do,’ to the question ‘What shall we do?’
B
When the British Art Show came to town, the town in question being Nottingham,
Ayling & Conroy found themselves, literally, on the periphery of Sideshow,
itself an event metaphorically on the periphery of the British Art Show.
The location of their show, Fight for Sore Eyes, on the edge of town reflected
their position within art’s dominant institutions. However, Ayling
& Conroy chose not to engage in some kind of institutional critique
and not to produce some self-reflexive analysis of their own position
as artists. Such an approach is a well worn attempt to get noticed by
the types of institution apparently being critiqued. Instead, Ayling &
Conroy chose a completely different way to respond to their role as artists:
not as agents determined by institutional structures but rather as makers
of things to be looked at. They decided to try to make something popular,
spectacular and entertaining enough to attract visitors and make their
trip to the periphery worthwhile.
For Ayling & Conroy, one way of imagining themselves as a collaboration,
of finding something compelling to do, was to imagine an audience and
to imagine trying to give the audience what it might want.
C
What is it for an artist to try to be popular? What is to be popular:
the artist; the artist’s work; the career; the movement? And with
whom is this popularity going to rest? It is, perhaps, worth remembering
that the idea of ‘the populace’ was originally a derogatory
term that lumped together all those who were not the educated and wealthy.
In other words, its generality is based upon the negativity of exclusion
rather than any positive characteristics of those lumped together. The
poor all seem the same to the wealthy. Thus, to be on the side of the
populace, and against exclusivity and privilege, should be to draw distinctions
and differences within the populace. This is to say that any radical attempt
to be popular should treat the populace as fractured and multiple. Given
this complexity, what kind of constituencies are imaginable for art? Or,
we could even ask, what aspect or aspects of a particular person does
the artist imagine appealing to? It is often said that some particular
policy will be popular with a particular group: for example, that increased
child-care provision will be popular amongst parents. But, in this case,
a parent is never just a parent; she may also be a worker; a violinist;
a political activist; etc. In this respect, to be popular is not an abstract,
universal quality: to be popular is to be popular with a particular group
of persons under a particular description.
D
What Ayling & Conroy did, for Fight for Sore Eyes, was to install
a birdwatching hide in the gallery. The exhibition was viewed through
the slots which would normally accommodate a birder’s binoculars.
The serious birder is always hoping to see something new, a species which
he (it is nearly always he) has not seen before. Thus, the hide, for the
birder, is not a place of relaxation nor a place for a receptive gaze
that records or takes in what might be seen. On the contrary, the hide
is a place of anticipation and excitement; a place for a passionate, partial,
differentiating gaze. It is an unlikely place from which to view art,
which does not, on the whole, have the tendency to fly away if someone
gets too close. So, for Ayling & Conroy, the attempt to be popular
first of all necessitated an interruption of the normal ways in which
we come to look at art.
The hide is called a hide because it is intended to hide the viewer from
the birds; here it functions to hide the art from the visitor. This obfuscation,
of course, increases the desire to see what is hidden. It is a simple
and effective way of reinvesting looking with passion: of showing that
looking is always impatient and interested.
E
It is not, necessarily, easy to be popular: to be popular by aiming to
be popular. Just think of David Brent in The Office. Brent is socially
paralysed, he is unpopular, precisely because of his attempts to be popular.
It is only in the last episode, when he has given up trying to be popular
and, in place of his erstwhile relentless cheerfulness, engages in a litany
of complaints, that he finds redemption and gets the girl. What he had
failed to understand was precisely the paradoxical social code that insists
that in order to be popular one must appear not to care about being popular.
Debates about a putative “dumbing down” in culture usually
fail to distinguish between attempts to be popular that are a success
and those that fail. ITV1 has an established record of failing to be popular,
whilst pursuing nothing else but popularity. Hollywood sequels usually
follow the pattern of diminishing returns. And in politics it is not the
popular policies, such as being ‘tough’ on immigration and
on crime, that win elections. In these, failed, attempts at popularity,
the popular is the simple repetition of something that appears to be popular
already. It is, perhaps, surprising to entertain the contrary idea that
popularity might involve originality rather than repetition.
F
Historically, in cultural debate, ‘the popular’ was formulated
as something lacking in serious qualities. ‘Popular Fiction’
is still defined in opposition to ‘serious’ or ‘literary’
literature (it is unconnected to how popular a book, in fact, is). Here,
the label of “popular” is a means of excluding some books
from a particular type of attention deemed appropriate for some other
books. However, Cultural Studies, over the last 40 or 50 years, has attacked
this exclusion. It has set out to analyse popular culture with the same
seriousness and attention that had previously be lavished on so-called
high art. In seeking to redeem the popular, Cultural Studies applies the
categories and standards formerly reserved for high art. For example,
it has been shown that watchers of popular television are, contrary to
stereotypes, in many ways actively engaged, self-aware and critical. Thus
television watching is re-appraised in terms of the values of high culture
experience. What Cultural Studies does not do, is challenge the categories,
standards and hierarchies of cultural analysis. The underlying structure
which values certain types of experience, and not others, remains intact.
G
It is precisely a certain kind of seriousness that Ayling & Conroy
eschew in their pursuit of the popular and entertaining. Their installations
are immersive, d.i.y. environments: they use chipboard walls, bright colours,
loud music and dramatic lighting. They are, typically, full of such things
as: crazy accumulations of toy cars; artificial plants; inflatable beach
toys; kitsch statues; and the plastic balls used in children’s ball
pits. They are distracting and overloaded. If taken as a set of positive
characteristics, it could seem as though their attempt to be popular took
the form of a kind of assault upon the visitor. It is, perhaps, better
to describe these installations in terms of what they are not: they are
not places to be still, quiet, disinterested, receptive and relaxed. In
this light, the assault is not so much upon the visitor as upon the received
ways in which art is encountered. The idea of the popular is one way to
try to gain some critical purchase on the idea of the cultured.
Thus, for Ayling & Conroy popularism is not a pursuit in its own right.
The claim they make to be attempting a kind of popularism, as well as
the specific tactics they use in relation to that claim, are both forged
out of a negative relationship to the established procedures and protocols
of art. If one looks at established patterns of consumption, what people
really, really want is pornography and junk food rather than toy cars
and kitsch paintings. The fact that Ayling & Conroy are operating
in relation to the framework of art can be seen in other series of works.
In one, they doctor postcards of old paintings with signifiers of low-cultural
pleasures: adding an ice-cream van to a military parade; or adding extensive
body tattoos to a female nude. Another piece of work, One Careful Owner,
proclaims itself to be ‘a minimalist sculpture with damaged corner.’
Here it is the world of damaged corners that collides with the world of
minimalist sculptures.
H
For the series of works collectively called Curio Island, Ayling &
Conroy re-assemble elements of their installations to be displayed as
kinds of sculptures. This remaking presents them with a particular difficulty:
for the sculptures, as opposed to the installations, the spatial relationship
between artwork and visitor is reversed. In the installations, the visitor
is immersed within, and moves through, the chaos of appropriated, pleasurable
things. With the sculptures, these things become isolated: they are framed
and contained by the context of the gallery. Here, the visitor moves round
the work, rather than the other way round. The problem for the sculptures
is how to avoid being objects of contemplation: something that can be
surrounded and taken in. It is a problem that was overcome with the bird-watcher’s
hide, which mediated and displaced the expectations of the visitor.
I
In the series 36 Views of Mr Mountain, Ayling and Conroy engineer another
monstrous collision: a collision between Katasushika Hokusai and Bob Ross.
Hokusai is the well known, 18th century, Japanese painter and print maker;
Ross is the less well known, 20th century, American painter, who made
a career out of publishing step-by-step guides to painting kitsch landscapes
and seascapes. The odd sounding ‘Mr mountain’ in the title
is a literal translation of Fuji San, the Japanese name for Mount Fuji,
where ‘San’ is the equivalent of either Mr. or Mrs. in Japanese.
Both this series and the original consist of 46 rather than 36 paintings,
after Hokusai added ten to the original series, to meet popular demand.
Ayling and Conroy have taken these 46 images of Mount Fuji by Hokusai
and painted them using the techniques of Ross.
However, the point of this work is not so much the outcome, the qualities
of the paintings, as the pursuit of the process. It is a common complaint
of artist who work collaboratively that others are always trying to unpick
who did what within the collaboration. This work was formed explicitly
to resist such enquiries: the two artists work side by side, each on a
separate painting, which is periodically swapped.
This
strategy of artists mingling their labour is not original. However, in
adhering to the techniques of Bob Ross, this mingled labour is subsumed
under an external process. It is this double movement, of mingling and
subsumption, that displaces the role of the artist within the physical
process of production.
These paintings are not a mockery of amateur painting; on the contrary,
they are using the resources they do as a way of escaping from the closures
and absences inherent within professional art. In a very practical sense,
this convoluted process gives Ayling & Conroy something to do, as
artists, when any act of creativity, however ironic, marginal or contrived,
goes to confirm the conventional role of the artist. That is to say, despite
the demise of modernist ideas of authenticity and authorship, today’s
detached, cynical and unbelieving artists are still grounded in the specific
construction of the individual (a construction which, incidentally, is
in no way challenged by collaborative practices). So this procedure is
a way of emptying out, or making void, the position of the artist.
The problem for the
artist is analogous to that of Brian, in The Life of Brian. The problem
for Brian was that whatever he did or said, however ordinary or literal,
was interpreted on a different register by the followers he had inadvertently
acquired. His followers were only interested in signs and in interpretation
and, therefore, he could not break away from nor influence their attention.
That is to say, their interpretative practice could accommodate anything.
When Brian tells
them to “fuck off” they want to know how they should fuck
off; the followers are always looking for something more, something beyond
the surface appearance of things. Every interpretation is a misinterpretation
and doing nothing can be interpreted just as much as doing something.
J
There is something disarming about the open admission of the attempt to
be popular. Mark Cousins, the psychoanalyst, once remarked upon how disarming
it is when someone admits to liking something because their lover does.
The question of whether one likes something or not is meant to be a relationship
between one’s dispositions and the properties of the thing in question.
What is disarming is the realisation that one’s tastes are always
mediated through a third party, that there is no unmediated relationship
between subject and object. In art, the relationship between the artist
and artwork is, similarly, meant to be a relationship between the artist’s
dispositions and the properties of what she makes.
Of course, there is much talk in art about publics and audiences. But
there is little tendency in this talk to take the idea of the public seriously.
Often the idea of the public remains a general and abstract one. That
is, the idea of the public, detached from any real or possible persons,
can function as a kind of guarantee of what the artist does: the site
of the idealised and imaginary consumption of a particular bit of art.
The apparent inversion of this position, which finds a particular, concrete
group for which (and often with whom) to make art, in fact, duplicates
the mistake. That is, the real persons with whom the artist works, may
well have real properties but these real persons and their properties
do not impinge upon the practice of the artist, however much they inform
particular works. That is, the reality of real persons can be a fetish
which underlies a continuing construction of the public as general and
abstract.
In talk about art, the idea of the public is often a front; the real belief,
behind this front, is the belief in Art: a belief in the value and power
of Art.
Ayling & Conroy’s express wish to try to give the public what
they want can be interpreted on two levels. At a literal level, this could
be read as an attempt to double-guess the preferences and expectations
of those likely to see their work. But they do not engage with any particular
persons. So, at a second level, this direct identification with the desires
of the public, with popular demands, is a way to escape, rather than confirm,
the debilitating belief in Art.
K
It is an established part of the function of public galleries to run educational
programmes of some kind. Artists are, sometimes, obliged to run workshops
or give talks in conjunction with exhibiting work. In such circumstances,
art and education are kept in their distinct, discrete places. That is,
the education is ancillary to the art: it preserves and reinforces the
place of art as a place apart.
The City Gallery regularly displays children’s paintings concurrently
with, but separate from, contemporary art exhibitions. Ayling & Conroy
chose, as artists, to take over the exhibition of children’s paintings
scheduled to run alongside their exhibition. They instigated a themed
competition amongst local children, inviting responses to the title Half
a Mountain of Lard; chose the winners; and curated the chosen work. Two
observations are needed here. Firstly, the artist-curator is a common
character on the contemporary art scene, arising largely from pragmatic
rather than critical concerns. Secondly, the appropriation of amateur
or non-professional artwork is a familiar move in contemporary art. The
appropriation of non-professional artworks is usually on the terms of
the appropriating artist: the encounter takes place on the territory of
professional art. In these circumstances, that which is not-art is not
there for its particular qualities but to stand as a token of what is
not art.
However, once more we should consider what Ayling & Conroy are doing
from the point of view of what they are not doing, rather than a simple,
positive description of what they do. And what they are not doing, in
this case, is maintaining the institutional separation of the exhibitions
programme and education programme of the gallery. Rather than putting
the children’s work out of place, Ayling & Conroy are putting
themselves out of place: becoming curators in a way unbecoming of aspirational,
professional artist-curators. To take their role of curators of children’s
art seriously, is to engage in processes that are routinely excluded from
proper art. There is something at stake here: ways in which they could
fail or be embarrassed.
L
Appropriation is central to what Ayling & Conroy do but it is not
appropriation for the sake of appropriation. That which is appropriated
is not just displayed or re-presented but rather put to work: used to
displace habitual expectations vis-à-vis art. Things are used to
distract attention rather than to be the objects of contemplation; all
the bits contribute to the overall spectacle. We could say, in the best
possible sense, that the whole is less than the parts.
M
Nowadays, there are innumerable artists who appropriate the everyday images
and objects of mass culture. The familiar procedure of removing things
from their original context and repositioning them within the structures
of art, reiterates the power (which is precisely the wrong word here)
of the artist to manipulate and transform things. It is a one-way relationship:
the appropriated things do not exert influence over art nor the artist.
This is not to condemn appropriation; it is simply to point out that appropriation
is now a conventional technique for making art.
Historically, which is to say with Dada, the point of the Readymade was
not its positive characteristics - what it was, or where it was from -
but rather, precisely, what it was not. Duchamp said, in relation to his
Readymades, that he chose objects because of his complete indifference
to them. It is essential to see Dada, against its dominant interpretations,
not as a nihilistic revolt against the positive attributes of art but
as the attempt to negate the negations of art. That is, Dada started from
the position that art itself should be conceived in terms of what was
absent from it: in terms of its constraints, exclusions, divisions and
so on. Thus, the task becomes to get rid of these lacks: a task which
is neither simply positive nor negative. It is, rather, a revolutionary
task.
N
The practice of Ayling & Conroy is philistine, in the specific sense
theorised by Dave Beech. For Beech (or my reading of Beech), the philistine
is not to be understood as a particular set of attitudes and actions.
Rather, it is a structural point within aesthetic discourse: the point
of exclusion and repression against which ideas of aesthetics, taste and
cultivation can build themselves up. The philistine is the void at the
centre of aesthetic discourse; the void of the unspeakable around which
aesthetic discourse swirls. The philistine is the part of aesthetic discourse
that has no place within it. And, as such, it is that which haunts aesthetic
discourse: a reminder of what has been excluded and repressed in order
to perpetuate the elevated and cultural. In Zizek’s terms, the philistine
is the universal exception: that which is necessarily excluded from a
particular order or structure but, precisely because this exclusion is
the founding gesture of that particular order, is the only adequate thing
that can stand for the whole of the structure as such. For example, with
capitalism, the proletariat is the necessary condition of capitalism and
at the same time that which has no place within it; and this is precisely
why the emancipation from capitalism must come from the impoverished existence
of the proletariat rather than the cultured existence of the bourgeoisie.
The proletariat is the truth of capitalism; the philistine is the truth
of aesthetics.
Thus, to engage with what is philistine is not to move away from aesthetics,
art and culture but, on the contrary, to move to the heart of the matter.
Ayling & Conroy are philistine in their determination to talk about
art in terms of popularism. Talking about art in terms of popularism is
a way to avoid talking and thinking about art in other ways. The idea
of giving the public what it wants is not about educating the public,
nor elevating the public, nor bringing culture to the public. Rather,
it is a way for Ayling & Conroy to avoid being artists: to attempt
to avoid the constraints and limitations that come with the established
idea of Art.
(c)
Mark Hutchinson 2007, commissioned for 'Ayling & Conroy' at City Gallery,
Leicester.
2. In Search of the Successes of Failure by Aaron Juneau
Art
is a journey, ever changing and eternal, flowing ceaselessly alongside
its temporal counterpart that is history, intermittently crossing its
path and permeating its course, influencing and manipulating its appearance
and ultimately determining its direction. Like meandering rivers flowing
tenaciously in a concentric web, the future in all its wonder and mysticism
persists in eluding its temporal precedents yet at some point will always
come to model each of these times that resolve to forever chase it. Art
is bound to adversity in its unknowing struggle to attain this illusive
and unreachable destination that remains perpetually just beyond reach,
it too however, will always make its impression upon the future that it
longs to catch up to […]
We will always seek the unattainable, striving to reach the thresholds
of our possibilities that remain undiscovered until explored. Like the
many visible bands within the trunk of a majestic oak, each one symbolising
a year past, we revolve in much the same way from a centre seeped in innocence
and naivety. From this centre we mature, expanding and ever pushing outwards
towards the periphery of what is known, a periphery that is always growing
as knowledge and experience is gained permitting another band to be added
as it does so. It is from this innate desire to retain a continual momentum
that one is able to advance; to find the thresholds and to make the vital
decision as to whether to traverse them or not.
Art is a journey, one in which we timidly partake in as a viewer and are
exhorted to follow, or indeed to chart, in our aspiring creations as artist
or maker. The artist is presented with the dilemma as to whether they
might trace and reflect upon the established trajectory of their undertaken
journey or to disrupt the linearity of that journey by examining the provenance
of the elements constituting their cultural placement; their social and
political position in the world. Some contemporary art adheres to the
pre-established (or continually establishing) chronology of historical
events providing sequentially cohesive accounts in form of documentation
of current political and sociological climates, thus illuminating that
which might otherwise have been overlooked or misrepresented. Conversely
art that figures around a destabilisation of historicity and temporal
continuity, might examine the past retrospectively, envisage the future
prophetically or in a relational sense, might create situations that directly
affect, implicate and improve upon conditions of the present.
Perhaps though, necessarily, art denies such definitive categorisation.
Maybe such a prescriptive notion of arts make-up would negate the possibility
of ideological freedom and the visceral that are surely to be deemed welcome
components of artistic practice today.
.
‘Daddy, where are we?’
‘I don’t know Charley, your guess is as good as mine, if from
a slightly less informed standpoint.’
‘Stand where? Point at what Daddy?’
‘No…I meant…oh, its ok…erm, stand over there,
right, next to those flowers, that’s it.’
‘They smell funny…like plastic. I don’t think they’re
real you know…no, no they’re not, look, here, feel one, smell
one.’
‘Its ok Charley, I’ll take your word for it. Nothing much
is real these days, it’s hardly surprising. Ok what I meant was
that yours is a slightly naïve…er…that is to say, one
of lesser experience that’s all. er…a less educated perspective.’
‘What’s perspective?’
‘Wow Charley that’s a toughy. Well I guess it’s just
the way you look at something. In terms of ocular perception it would
pertain to the position from which one views something and the way that
it is perceived as a result of being in that particular position…ok…that
might be a little…right, lets see. You see that big mountain over
there? The one with the white, snow capped top with kinda blue-grey rock
below. Looks a lot like Mt Fuji actually…no it can’t be…we’re
not in…anyway, you see it?’
‘Yes, I can see it, it looks really pretty.’
‘Uh huh, that’s the way it’s painted. Sometimes it takes
on a rather malevolent façade, guess it just depends on the way
it’s depicted. Anyway, ok, so you see it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well from here it looks really small right?’
‘Yes, but I know it’s not.’
‘Ah, right, your getting ahead of yourself Charles. From here it
looks small and you are able to view it in its entirety.’
‘Well the whole of one side of it at least.’
‘Good Charley, that’s exactly it. You can see just one side
of it; one perspective…’
‘So this is our current perspective Charles, although mine probably
differs from yours ever so slightly because I’m stood a couple of
metres from you and I’m taller.’
‘So how do I see a different perspective Daddy?’
‘Well, in this context…’
‘Context?’
‘Yes context…I’m not going to…in this instance
Charley, you can get a new perspective from simply altering the position
in which you’re standing.’
‘Like this?’
‘Well sort of, but it might take a little more than a few steps
to make any significant impact on what you see and the way you see it.
A few steps would hardly constitute a paradigm shift. Let me try and show
you.’
‘Ok.’
‘Oh, you can stop pointing now Charley, your starting to look quite
imposing stood there with your arm stretched out like that. Looks almost
like a military salute.’
‘Well you told me to stand like this, I just did what you said.’
‘Well, actually that instruction was made in jest resulting from
a monumental misunderstanding on your part son. That’s how this
whole thing started in fact.’
‘I’m sorry that I don’t know as much as you Dad, I am
only small after all.’
‘Don’t blame this on your diminutive stature Charley, it won’t
work on me. I thought you were old enough to comprehend these things.’
‘Maybe age isn’t anything to do with it, maybe it’s
just that I’m coming from a different standpoint, a different perspective.
Who’s to say yours is the right one?’
‘Don’t get all rhetorical on me Charley, you’re well
out of your depth kiddo. Now do you want me to show you this thing or
not?’
‘Yes, actually I was quite interested until you started being mean.’
‘I’m not mean Charley, I’m just unsympathetic to ignorance
and absurdity that’s all. Standing there with your arm out like
one of the Hitler Youth, a miniature Gestapo, in my mind, which I might
add is evidently far superior to yours, ticks both of those abhorred categories.
In fact my dear boy I’ve found many of your actions of late gratuitous
and invidious, that is to say they are both unnecessary and muster within
me an ever increasing and insufferable rage and resentment.’
‘Daddy I wish you wouldn’t say such things, for in my “ignorance”
you know I struggle to discern their purpose. All I am left with is an
angered tone with nothing in the way of respite from such an unrelenting
onslaught of disdain. Do refrain from such hurtful outbursts Daddy, they
do evoke in me such a terribly melancholic demeanour.’
‘Oh shut up Charley, you don’t even know what your saying,
insolent child. Just follow me…
…Right let me tell you a story, an allegory if you will. Lets see
if I can’t teach you something on our journey towards teaching you
something. Perhaps you might gain a little perspective on the path to
learning about perspective. Let’s call it, An epistemological pursuit.’
‘Call it what you like Dad, if it makes you feel good. I’m
sure it will be thoroughly informative and entertaining.’
‘Yeh? Well that’s nice Charles, I’ll make sure I include
every little detail, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on anything
or not live up to such high expectations…
…Ok, this is the story of a man subsumed into a world of absurdity
and the surreal, similarly ruinous attributes to the one in which you
appear to desire to situate yourself Charles, funny that, anyway, it is
a simple tale but one that exudes meaning and profundity.’
‘One day a man was out for his morning stroll, a habitual activity
that he had indulged in for many years. This walk had no particular purpose
or direction yet was unequivocally clear in its knowing lack of objectivity.
[…] At precisely 7:30am each and every day, Thomas Andrews, that
was his name, Thomas, would commence his ambulatory endeavour, leaving
his semi-detached, Victorian town house where he had lived since he were
a child and turning left out of the front door, would make his way gaily
into town. Once in the centre of town, signified by a small square proudly
sporting two large iron cannons as its focal point, Thomas would proceed,
directly intersecting the square, passing between the two cannons that
sat nobly yet unthreateningly in pride of place.
Two redundant hunks of metal, long forgotten symbols of long forgotten
victories. Having crossed the square, Thomas, if adhering to his typified
route, would turn left onto the tree lined path of Willow Park, which,
if followed without distraction would lead to within fifty metres of his
home. However on this occasion, for reasons unknown, Thomas experienced
some sort of wild and elaborate epiphany, rendering his state of mind
one of temporary irrationality.
Unaware of the consequences of the series of rash and impulsive decisions
that he was about to make, Thomas turned right, away from the park, away
from any sort of normality and congruity and headed back into town. Having
never once deviated from his accustomed path, neither on the occasion
of an early morning Dérive, nor any other time when Thomas was
required to venture away from the nurturing bosom of his own home, each
and every experience was one of complete revelation. Never had he seen
the rows of shops containing countless wonderful curiosities, the tobacconist’s,
the off licences, the sex shops and the toy shops, all so bright and inviting
and all seemingly so full of possibilities. Thomas buzzed up and down
the streets filled with awe, brimming with excitement, his eyes glistening
like those of a child’s on Christmas morning…
…As time went on the streets became busier and louder, the people
surrounding Thomas who at first appeared contented and friendly on the
contrary seemed frantic, like a herd of stampeding wildebeest marching
intently with hysterical, desperate eyes. Thomas started being pushed
and shoved as he tried to make his way down the street, bouncing off one
determined and unperturbed consumer, clutching half a dozen bulging bags
and falling and stumbling into another, like a pinball, indefinitely caught
between two rows of adjacent buffers. Everywhere he looked there were
frenzied people with puffing red cheeks and beads of yellowish sweat dripping
down their round, greasy faces. There were only very few who remained
stationary in amongst the chaos, those being the old, withered men standing
outside the tobacconist’s, vehemently puffing on large wooden pipes
producing a thick smog which shrouded the streets, drifting with the wind
in a pungent, ghostly haze.
Finally after much difficulty and in a state of utter bewilderment and
disarray, Thomas found himself propped up against a lamppost panting in
exhaustion having run the gauntlet of the insufferable shoppers. He was
stood at the edge of the main road out of town and could hear the collective,
guttural hum emanating from the dozens of rapidly passing cars; a cacophony
of engine noise overlaying the incessant buzz from the crowds of bustling
people in the streets behind. In his absolute dissolution, hardly able
to see from the smoke and the sweat stinging his eyes, Thomas desperately
sought escape from this nightmare; some way out of this terrible place.
He tried to gain some composure and looking down at the pavement below
he noticed, written in big, bold, white lettering, the instructions: LOOK
BOTH WAYS. And so, Thomas looked up to the sky, squinting at the lurid
sun, looked back down at the floor, then stepped out into the road.’
‘So what happened to him Dad? What happened to Thomas? Did he get
hit? Did he die?’
‘I’ll leave that up to your imagination Charley.’
‘Well if he did, he kind of deserved it. Who on earth doesn’t
look left and right when crossing the road? He must have been deranged.’
‘Well Charley, there in lies the moral to the story.’
‘Where’s the moral in that? It’s eluding me Dad; I’m
failing to see it. What is it; always look both ways, the correct two
ways, when crossing the road? Or simply, don’t be a complete and
utter fool.’
‘No Charles, the moral is, stick to what you know best. Never venture
too far off the beaten path because if you do, more often than not you’ll
run into a world of trouble and who knows, you might never find your way
back.’
‘Well that’s a rather reductive outlook isn’t it Dad.
I’m failing to see either pertinence or profundity in that one.
After all if we were never to push ourselves, if we never aspired to better
ourselves, to broaden horizons, to discover the unknown, we would never
advance or evolve. We would remain stuck in the same place forever, impotent
and inane. On the contrary Dad, despite his inexcusable naivety, I find
this Thomas’ actions quite admirable.’
‘Oh do be quiet Charley, you’re beginning to sound like a
self-help tape. You and your idealistic notions. You’ll probably
end up a penniless artist with nothing to show for yourself but a few
romanticised ideas.’
‘Well better that than a nihilistic old git who wouldn’t know
an idea if one came and bit him on the arse’
‘Right, we’re here.’
‘Wherever here is.’
‘Here is here, that’s all you need to know for the time being.’
‘And what exactly did you need to show me “here”?’
‘Well if you look across the lake there, past that old log cabin
and up at the mountain you’ll notice that…oh, hold on…how
strange, it looks exactly the same. The perspective hasn’t changed
in the slightest.’
‘No, it hasn’t, does that mean we came all the way over here
for nothing?’
‘Well…er…no, let’s see…let’s ask this
man if he knows where we are…’
…Hello there, excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, I was wandering
if you could tell us where we are exactly? It’s just that we kind
of stumbled upon this place accidentally and I fear we may be a little
lost.’
‘Well sir, I can hardly say where you are now can I? Only you can
say where you are because only you are there.’
‘Ah…ok…well geographically then. Where are we geographically?’
‘Yours is not a place of Geographical distinction my friend. It
is no simple case of classification through meaningless names of meaningless
places. Yours, or rather ours, is something much more vast, replete with
intricacies and complexities. In short my weary traveller, our place is
elsewhere.’
‘Hmm…ok…hate to be a spoilsport but you wouldn’t
mind telling me how to get somewhere would you? It’s just that I’m
at the end of my tether, I’m bloody starving and these displays
of unmitigated ambiguity really do nothing for me, quite the contrary
they actually make to exacerbate an already shite situation. So I’m
awfully sorry to draw you away from your painting for two minutes but
if you could give me some slight indication, preferably not in the form
of a cryptic riddle, of how on earth we might find ourselves again I would
be extremely grateful.’
‘Just take a right at the end of this path you’re on now and
that will take you where you want to go.’
‘Sincerely, thank you so much. Come along Charley!’
‘What is it your painting there anyway Mr?’
‘It’s the scene across the lake. The cabin at the edge of
the wood and the mountain in the background.’
‘But what’s wrong with the sky? It looks like something from
outer space.’
‘The way I see it, is that my imagination is as close to inner space
as I’m ever likely to get, an inner space that’s limitless
and astounding. You make sure you never loose yours kid.’
‘Ok, I’ll try. See you Mr.’
‘See, you kid.’
‘Charley, come on won’t you, it will start getting dark soon…’
…Ok, he said if we turn right here, we will find our way again.’
‘Find our way where though Dad? We don’t know where we came
from and we certainly don’t know where we’re headed.’
‘All I’m searching for at the moment Charley, is some sort
of normality, something real and tangible to grasp onto in the hope that
it might lead us home.’
‘I’m not sure I’d know home if I saw it anymore Dad.’
‘Well I’m not sure that I would either Charley, but we can
but try.’
‘Ah, this looks promising, the trees are beginning to clear, it
looks like we might be coming towards some sort of civilisation.’
‘Why don’t you ask this man if we’re heading towards
a town?’
‘Yes, I will…Ah, yes, hello sir, I’m sorry to bother
you but you wouldn’t perchance know if we are heading in the direction
of a town?’
‘Ha ha, that’s funny, I was about to ask you if you knew whether
I was heading out of such a place, you see I just can’t seem to
escape.’
‘Well we seem to be in much the same predicament, I’ve not
seen a sign of culture for what seems like a lifetime now.’
‘Well that sounds like bliss. How might one find such a place?’
‘We happened upon this interminable wilderness quite accidentally
in fact but I can tell you that if you carry on in the direction that
you are going, in that which we have just come, you won’t be disappointed.’
‘Well I can say the very same thing to you sir, thank you very much
and best of luck.’
‘To you too…oh and be sure to give my regards to the man painting
by the lake.’
‘Ok, I will, goodbye.’
‘There, you see Charley, just stick to your chosen path, to what
you know best and you won’t go far wrong.’
‘But aren’t you both trying to get somewhere new, are you
not discontented with what you’ve come to know?’
‘No Charles, you’ve missed the point again…
…We’re here, this must be it.’
‘What a strange looking place, why are those people in clown costumes?’
‘I have no idea, maybe the circus is in town.’
‘Even if it were, they wouldn’t be walking around the streets
still in costume would they? Surely clowns look just like normal people
when they’re not inside the circus tent performing, I mean its hardly
a desirable look is it. Who would outwardly aspire to look ridiculous?
And why are there so many? Surely three or four clowns is enough for any
circus.’
‘Well I don’t know Charley, its not effecting you now is it.
It’s a free country. People can do as they please.’
‘You say it so assuredly, as if you know what country this is and
yes, perhaps it is effecting me. Who’s to say I’m not frightened
by all of this. Any normal child would be wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, I suppose they would but you’re hardly a normal child
are you Charley.’
‘Well maybe not but that’s beside the point. Look this isn’t
getting us anywhere Dad, lets see if we can find something to eat and
drink. You go over to that water fountain over there, see the creamy coloured
one, it looks like porcelain form here but I couldn’t be sure. See
if there is drinking water in there, I’m going to ask that Japanese
woman over there if she knows anywhere we can get something to eat.’
‘Oh, ok the one with the red and blue glowing eyes? That’s
a great idea Charley, she looks really friendly.’
‘Her eyes are just especially radiant Dad, you shouldn’t be
so judgmental, besides she looks like she might be selling something.
Meet me over there by that big barrel.’
‘Ah, the big barrel next to the bionic bunny? Sure thing Charley,
regarding I don’t get eaten by some anomaly along the way.’
‘Stop being so pessimistic Dad. You have to learn to accept things
for what they are even if they are a little different. Difference isn’t
always a bad thing you know, it’s what separates us from each other,
it’s what establishes our individuality.’
‘Yeh, whatever you say…
…So did you find anything Charley?’
‘Well, yes but all she had was Chicken and Mushroom Pot Noodle’s
and we have no means to prepare them. Did you?’
‘No there was no water in the fountain, just different coloured
plastic balls.’
‘What are we going to do Daddy?’
‘I think I can see a policeman over there, come on, he must be able
to help us…
…OK STOP THERE PLEASE, YOU CAN’T PASS THROUH HERE!’
‘Oh we’re terribly sorry officer, I was just wandering if
you might be able to help us…erm…you see…we’re
not from around here and we’re yet to become accustomed to the dynamic
of the place and…’
‘Can’t you see I’m busy sir? Can’t you see there’s
been a terrible accident?’
‘An accident? Where?’
‘What are you blind? There in the road.’
‘Ah, but these are just toy…erm…they’re not real
cars…er…is anyone hurt? What happened?’
‘Well apparently some idiot just stepped straight out into the middle
of the road, obviously neglecting to take heed of the obvious instructions,
written clear as day in big, bold, white letters, to LOOK BOTH WAYS! I
mean, what did he do, look up and down? Ha ha ha.’
‘Is this some sort of joke? Are you trying to wind me up?’
‘No sir, I’m deadly serious. Can’t you see that this
here is a serious matter, a lot of innocent people could have been hurt,
it’s no laughing matter what so ever and I would frown upon anyone
who thought that it was.’
‘Right, I’ve had just about enough of this, come on Charley…
…Dad, I want to go home.’
‘I know Charley, I want to go home too. This place makes no sense,
it has no meaning, no teleology. It’s full of non-sequiters, loose
ends and blocked doorways.’
‘It’s like when you rub yours eyes and then stop and open
them to find hundreds of tiny stars shooting into your vision from the
edges. Everything is so magical in those few fleeting moments. Everything
you look at, however painfully banal, is framed by a tiny display of beatific
wonder; the most insignificant details and the most common things become
fantastic. As magical as it is, it’s always a relief when the stars
disappear.’
‘You know Charley, for once I think I know what you mean.’
Artistic practice is one of the cartographic and artists, the cartographers
of modernity. The creation of art figures around the transitory nature
of artists themselves; the itinerant wanderings spanning both the metaphysical
and socio-political landscapes that constitute successful and relevant
modes of production. As a viewer we are offered a sojourn amongst the
suspended ideologies of the artist and are asked to bring our own subjectivities
to this brief pause in their continuing journey, revealing parts of the
map that remain unrealised and yet to be charted. In as much as contemporary
arts concerns are necessarily deeply rooted in the emancipation of individuals
and the overall improvement of environmental and sociological conditions,
as mirrored by the aspirations of the modern political era, art also provides
an essential tool for a liberation of a different sort.
Ayling and Conroy proudly fly the flag for an artistic practice that shamelessly
embraces failure, flowing firmly against the teleological grain and seemingly
holding arbitrariness as the prevalent critical device. Theirs is a world
where disparate juxtapositions of appropriated commodities is considered
harmonious when paired with the often loaded imagery of populist motifs;
where a no holds barred attitude is taken to the indiscreet pilfering
of other cultures or the scathing critique of our own. Failure for Ayling
and Conroy is utilised as an efficient tool in the journey to success
and for the plotting of a cartography that will prove as dizzying and
disorientating as the one being drawn for our own hectic lives. The fundamental
difference separating theirs from much of contemporary art practices lies
in what we as viewers are permitted to see. Here an unmediated inclusion
is testament to the premises of intuition and the scrupulous examination
of the world around us that informs the work. It is often said that art
is ostensibly a means to better understand the world. Paradoxically Ayling
and Conroy present us with a plethora of misunderstandings; a wonderland
of shortcomings and broken narratives, perhaps in the hope that we might
discern a wider meaning to it all; a greater truth from a world of parody
and falsification. If we are to take a bite out of this forbidden fruit,
to indulge in this world of simulacra, we might find the ever evasive
parallel between art and life to finally have been bridged.
Aaron Juneau 2007
3. Ayling and Conroy at City Gallery, Leicester
By Charlie Levine
For me this exhibition
at City Gallery felt like an ‘art gallery show.’ It filled
the white space easily without being too brash or loud, which is unlike
what I have perhaps become accustomed to with Ayling and Conroy’s
previous works and installations. (I’m thinking particularly about
Eyesore Sundae, an installation at Spectacle Gallery in Birmingham that
was filled to bursting point with its loud acid house music, fluorescent
lights and ball pool, various themed rooms and tunnels.) This show felt
different, slicker, less in your face. Paintings hung on white walls,
sculptures filled the gallery floor and there were two small plinths with
small brightly coloured figures upon them. It appeared well thought out;
the show looked comfortable in the space and each piece looked like they
belong with each other, although each work was quite different it was
coherent.
However, on closer
inspection, there was something odd happening, the paintings were not
as innocent as they first appeared. Each painting in the series 36 Views
of Mr Mountain are executed in a particular style, oil on canvas, the
compositions and subject matter of the paintings were unusual and did
not accompany the style in which they were painted; Japanese in delicate
subject and Western in clumpy style. They are the result of the anomalous
combination of Bob Ross and his step-by-step guide to painting and 18th
century Japanese painter, Hokusai. The sculptures on the floor too grew
in intensity and distraction and became obstacles to narrate in both space
and story, in particular Curio Island version 4, a play on a bird watching
booth, where you can sit and observe the gallery from a new hidden perspective,
blue balls the once seemed to buoyantly surround this booth change into
a flood of colour, a disturbance in the sea of white, as they begin to
surround you in a menacing manner. The small neon reclining nudes aloft
white plinths epitomise for me the Ayling and Conroy within this show;
the blends of the authorative white gallery plinth with the small Morph
like figurines.
This exhibition at
first may not strike you as typically Ayling and Conroy, yes their use
of colour, knowing nods to culture and art history with a touch of youth
is still there albeit in a subtler way. It is not as immediate. It is
not the case either that it appears watered down, it is not Ayling and
Conroy diluted, it is Ayling and Conroy exploring how they can still keep
the style and meanings within their works and its display, but play with
it. Just as their work plays with the viewer and their role along side
the art works, they have also played with the pre-conceptions of their
work. They have shown confidently that they can manipulate an exhibition
space as well as their audience and the interpretations of their work.
Ayling and Conroy seem to understand themselves and their directions more
with every passing year. Their work is developing and moulding into something
very important. They have a distinct style and subject matter and they
have the ability to let it evolve. Their work is intelligent, charismatic,
mnemonic and fun and one can’t help but be excited at the thought
of where this pair will take us.
4. Curio Island - Review - Double
Acts, Pheonix Gallery
by Joanne Lee
Ayling and Conroy - Curio Island, Phoenix Gallery, BrightonThe work is
sited in an entrance foyer, with steps descending to the street outside,
but the doors are locked, and the main entrance to the building is now
elsewhere. The installation feels a little stranded here (by the artists’
choice, I’m sure – they have spoken of it as being truly an
island away from the other exhibited works in the Double Acts show.) Phoenix
Gallery used to be a commercial premises and this space retains something
of its former atmosphere: it’s the sort of place one might wait
for job interviews or meetings, lulled by the traffic outside or wondering
where the lavatories are to be found. The work echoes (crazily) the big
displays of fake plants so beloved of corporate entrances.
The title strikes me first: Curio Island. I imagine an island made up
entirely of curios, a place perhaps resembling some vast and permanent
car boot fair. The contemporary retail universe is full of Babylands,
Kingdoms of Leather, Sofa and PC Worlds. Once, rather memorably, I encountered
a Kebab World. I can’t help but conjure a land populated solely
by babies, a world made entirely from sofas and a place where kebabs are
the only foodstuff, and supplicants pay homage to the great sculptural
idols of the Doner Kebabs that turn slowly, knowingly, ineffably…
(My imaginings owe a lot to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities with
its tales of fantastical places such as Armilla, a city entirely constructed
from plumbing.) It amuses me that, not five minutes walk away from the
current Brighton location of Curio Island one can find Buffet Island,
lapped maybe by a tide of hoisin sauce…
‘Curio’ suggests we will encounter knick-knacks, bric-a-brac
and gee-gaws: things that have no function other than decoration. I like
these odd words variously used to describe ornamental bits and pieces.
It’s as if we have struggled to name those thingamajigs that are
altogether useless except for the gathering of dust and memories. A curio
suggests something that grandparents might display on shelves or inside
china cabinets: we appear to have little love of curios these days. Today’s
fashionably minimal homes do not wish to clutter their sleek surfaces.
In fact the items presented in Curio Island are rather too big to be your
average bric-a-brac. The constituent parts of the installation certainly
have something of the jumble sale or car boot fair about them but more
particularly, they evoke for me one of those back rooms in garden centres
where you find a peculiar juxtaposition of old stock that failed to sell
and is now marked down in the hope of attracting a buyer. I think it’s
the combination of ornamental sculptures with a rustic barrel, fake pink
flowers and green-brown rushes; it’s the white fountain and the
coir hanging basket liners and their improbable conjunction with an inflatable
parrot and multicoloured plastic balls. There’s a terrible melancholy
in such places, where dusty items languish unloved and unwanted, a melancholy
echoed for me in ‘curio’ itself, a word redolent of Victorian
houses, and of the past itself. This melancholy oozes through the installation
too, as it sits at a distance from the other works in the exhibition.
The afternoon sun struggles through grimy windows and there is silence
but for the muted growl of traffic outside.
As I wander around, the work slides in and out of focus. What at a distance
I took to be a rather lumpy wall painting resolves itself as a plastic
inflatable parrot, which has been carefully filleted in half and stuck
to the wall to form a ready-made painting. Upon closer inspection, the
small elegant nude to the side of the installation has had tattoos adhered
to her alabaster body. It’s rather playful – it recalls the
naughty urge to draw moustaches on posters of pretty girls - however there’s
something quite obscene, not to say violent about the thick chrome pole
onto which she’s jammed: it makes me squirm uncomfortably. On top
of the assemblage there’s a bucolic sculpture of a couple, surmounted
by the fronds of plastic rushes all out of scale with them (the rushes,
relatively speaking, are as big as trees!) The lovers are perched on top
of a bit of wall, but the romantic scene appears to have been painted
magnolia, that dullest of domestic colours. Curio Island oscillates and
echoes, provoking competing, contrasting images... And I can’t help
but feel that the collaborative double act has a lot to do with the complexity
of my response.
Etymologically speaking ‘curio’ is a shortened form of ‘curiosity’.
Items were once described as curious, or curiosities if they were ingeniously
or elaborately worked (or if, as natural objects, they appeared to have
been fashioned in this way.) Natural and artificial curiosities were displayed
side by side in Renaissance Kunst and Wunderkammern (the so-called ‘cabinets
of curiosity’ that have been proposed as the forerunners of museums
and galleries.) Curiosities were something considered novel, rare or bizarre,
and curiosity came to name any excess or superfluity in an artefact beyond
its proper function. Theologians of the time warned against the power
of the curious artefact with its power to distract, and of the desire
of the ‘curiosus’ to make his/her own interpretations, without
recourse to the proper guidance of the priesthood. In our own times it
would be the priestly caste of art professionals who might seek to steer
a reading, but I’m pleased to report that the curious objects of
Curio Island elude their knowing grasp. The work, rightly, cannot easily
be defined and it continues to distract me.
Joanne
Lee 2007
5 . Ayling & Conroy Interview - Double Acts, Pheonix Gallery
Interview
by Laura Mousavi of Permanent Gallery, Brighton
Did
you make a conscious decision to work as a duo, was it out of circumstance
or a happy accident?
H - It was a conscious decision. Bruce was helping out
with an exhibition that I was organising, and we were collaborating on
a couple of artworks.
We both had an interest in curating, as well as our individual practices.
The more we worked together, the more it felt appropriate to join our
independent artistic practices and curational interests, under the Ayling
& Conroy umbrella. I have always enjoyed collaboration. I find it
helps push an idea to its furthest reaches, because there is a critical
dialogue from the early idea stages.
B - I guess its about the way you see collaboration,
I think Hannah and I were very sure about the way that we wanted to collaborate,
using the name ‘Ayling & Conroy’ was a way of merging
what we did together under one brand.
I think this was important stage for me as, before this in my artistic
practice I was very single minded about creating artwork, and collaboration
didn’t really come on the radar until I started working with Hannah.
Within my solo practice I always found it really long winded, from creating
the artwork to getting the feedback, and that’s why I find collaboration
so exciting, is you get an immediate discussion around an idea, and the
ideas develop that much further.
Artistic
practice can often be solitary, there is a single person accountable for
reflecting, processing, creating, do you believe working as a duo produces
a particular kind of art work, and if so how would you characterise it?
H - No we don’t believe it creates a particular
type of artwork, I suppose it depends on the type of collaboration. Bruce
and I do not have individual practices anymore. We are not interested
in keeping a separate identity, or emphasising each individual’s
input into the work.
An idea is passed between us until it works. Both artists are reflecting,
processing and creating, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes alternatively.
Both are equally accountable in our case.
B - Just by the nature of two people working together,
it always raises questions, about how that relationship functions, I think
this is partly about the way we collectively think about art, and artists
in general about being strange creative beings, an the creative cliches
‘from the soul’ etc. I like the idea of collaboration, because
it interrupts this assumed ‘naturalness’ about creativity,
as there must be a dialogue, and agreement between the two parties. I
am not sure that collaboration is that rock n’ roll anymore, but
for us it is a very effective way of producing art.
Do you have individual concerns which
are somehow combined to produce a work or is the work the outcome of a
single idea which occurs through joint discussion and shaped between the
two of you?
H - Definitely the latter one. Artwork created by Ayling
& Conroy has its own identity and concerns.
B - We are trying to develop the form in which the whole
of our practice takes, in that works relate to the practice as a whole,
rather than, producing disparate pieces of work.
There is a playful and humorous element to your
work which suggests an enjoyment in the making, what is your relationship
to making art and enjoyment?
H - I think it’s intrinsically linked to our personalities.
It’s not just about our own relationship with the artwork, but our
relationship with the people who see it. We try to make artwork that is
approachable, accessible and enjoyable.
B - I guess in a way we see artwork as a form of entertainment,
and ultimately we are trying to create artwork that we would like to see.
The process of making is one that changes all the time, we really like
it when we get an artwork to a stage when we can get it produced by other
people, but we often find it difficult to let go of the making process
at the beginning, and with the Curio Island sculptures they need a lot
of work, discussions, and playing with objects until it feels right, and
so its not something we can hand over just yet.
Do you ever encounter opposition in the collaborative
process, and if so, do you see this as a valuable way of informing the
making of an art work or as a hindrance to its realisation? Or how necessary
is conflict to your process? Do you see conflict as impacting positively
or negatively?
H - No. There isn’t any opposition. There maybe
a heated debate, but this generally relates to the aesthetics at the outcome/realisation
of an idea. There are constant conversations about the work and ideas.
If an idea is strong enough it is discussed, developed, and is then made.
If it doesn’t maintain enough conversation, it is generally forgotten
about.
I think for me, if there is a conflict the idea isn’t resolved,
and needs more discussion. It is neither positive or negative, its just
part of the process of making an artwork.
For this exhibition you have produced an 'island'
can you talk a little about the piece and why you where driven to make
an 'island'?
H - Curio Island (version one) is a remake of a previous
artwork ‘Eyesore Sundae’, which was a big installation.
B - The Island relates to the physical distance of the
artwork from the rest of the exhibition, away from the flock, so to speak.
The artwork was also an attempt to develop a self-contained sculpture
from two huge installations that we had made last year. The ‘island’
was a way of visualising a series of sculptures for group exhibitions,
from this mass of materials in our studio.
We wanted to create a series of sculptural artworks that could fit into
nearly any group exhibition, the island was a way of thinking about sculpture,
in this cut-off sense, a sort of sculpture franchise. But actually in
practice, the sculptures are uniquely made for each exhibition, and not
the ‘place-and-run’ approach that we dreamt of in our studio.
We tried also to think about the context of the exhibition, and the ‘duo’
aspect. It was really important to show one piece of work on its own,
and not two paintings for instance, we wanted to project this idea of
the ideal collaborative sculpture.
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