Roley Poley

Who thinks an artist's role is simply to make stuff? If only. This week is about the role of the artist and there's a menu of options. Which role do I fancy? Not sure yet but probably one without any sauce... 

Reading:
Art Makes Society: an Introductory Visual Essay (subtitle Doing not Viewing, becoming a bit of a theme) by Elizabeth de Marrais and John Robb
Taking AIM!  The Business of being an Artist Today - note the word 'business'
Art without Artists - discussion of the role of the curator

Also read:
The Artist in the Modern World A Conflict Between Market and Self Expression by Oskar Betschmann
Art Practice as Research by G Sulllivan -  could this be a role for me? 
Listen to Tate Podcast Art as Protest. Enjoy a wander round Bloomsbury with the Tate Art Walks. 

We had our first Artist talk. face-to-face online with a practising artist. Kate McLeod sculptor 
​ Makes unfired clay figures without armature or internal structure and so clay falls apart easily raising quesions about materiality and ephemerality.  And makes them hard to exhibit! Clay has to be kept wet and is propped up with things she collects - eg chairs. 
Question: how does she draw the line between materiality ie letting the clay do its own thing and be in charge and her own intention for the work so that it looks lke a fugure or whatever, She uses milliput to repair and lets it be different to clay so it stand out - is clearly a repair (wabi-sabi) beauty in imperfection but also letting the process be very apparent
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So what possible roles are there? According to Elizabeh de Marrais and John Robb (above) there are four potential roles for the artist: 
1 create sites of activity for shared interaction
2 create and asserts representational models for social models
3 create cultural capital marking out people through shared forms of knowledge or access
4 create a medium for exclusion, resistance and challenging power relations

Wow. That's a menu to reckon with. Where does that leave me? Hovering between all of the above and a bit hungry. Cheese and tomato roll anyone?

Read on for a peek at landscape  poetry

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