Alicia Miller - Axis Associate in Wales

Apologies for not getting this month’s notes online a little sooner —we’re starting to translate them into Welsh to extend their reach and acknowledge the importance of Wales’s bi-linguality. So if you’re reading this in English, but want it in Welsh, just click on the link above.

I was in Cardiff at the end March for Karen Ingham’s show Wonder Chamber at Ffotogallery. I attended the opening, which was great because I talked to so many people. I met Karen, whom I’d heard about and read about, but never met; and David Drake, whom I’d met but not seen since he took up the directorship of Ffotogallery; and the artist Holly Davey, who is always so lovely to run into; and Gill Nicol, who’s worked at Ikon and Arnolfini and is one of those people who is always about and has more energy and drive than I’ll manage in a lifetime.

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Happy 2012 everyone! I know we’re a bit past the new year but the year still has a fresh feel to it and this is my first 2012 blog. Still, I’m aware that it’s mid-February and 2012 is picking up speed, so I’ve been busy of late knocking together the roster of programming that Axis has coming up across the year.

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Perhaps it’s the prospect of rising tuition fees, but the idea of DIY art school seems to have regained a sudden and pressing currency. People are thinking about, writing about, and organising alternatives to the Academy, exploring the possibility of meaningful learning and development of practice outside of the institutional construct of a BA or MA in Fine Art.

Indeed, it does seem we have become over-dependent on degrees. There is a sense that formal training in an academic setting is a necessary feature of a competitive cv – proof on some level that you are officially an artist. It is, unavoidably, true as well that an MA from a prestigious art school can ease the opening of doors. But I also think that it is equally true that strength of practice is the bottom line in establishing yourself as an artist. If the work is good – distinct, original, interesting – no one cares where you went to school.

Islington Mill Art Academy, discussion group, Islington Mill, 2007

What the academy provides is not always the optimum environment for growing your practice. Universities have become ‘corporatized’ over the last twenty or more years, required more and more to function like for-profit businesses. Lecturers are increasingly saddled with administrative responsibilities that interfere with actual teaching. There can be little room for customization of academic programmes which are sometimes rigid and unbending.

There is also the question of what happens after art school? Is the learning phase of your practice finished when you graduate? I would hope not, but it can be hard to find a critical community to support its ongoing development, though this is so necessary for artists. So perhaps the idea of a DIY art school can help de-compartmentalize learning, allowing it fluidity and focus as an ongoing process of practice?

Islington Mill Art Academy, performance at 'WordPlay' curated by Terry Smith as part of 'Talkshow', ICA, London, 09.05.2009

Experiments in the alternative art school have a long geneology with Black Mountain College perhaps the most emblematic example. Interdisciplinary in its interests, it placed art at the centre of its curriculum and had a roster of notable figures through its doors in its brief 24 year history (1933 – 1957) – Josef Albers, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, etal. More recent artist initiatives such as Mark Dion’s Mildred’s Lane, an artist residency cum ‘pedagogical experiment,’ where invited participants explore the idea of ‘being as practice,’ follow in Black Mountain’s spirit.

This ethos of exploration and experimentation has remained strong in current projects, but these are further infused with a strong sense of agency and autonomy, marked by an interest in what artists can do by themselves. Islington Mill Artist Academy, who contributed Questioning the Academy to Axis’s current webzine, is an artist collective focused on, ‘…what an education in art can be.’ They emphasize each artists’ personal responsibility for their education, making individual choices about, ‘…their personal learning process and put[ting] these decisions into practice themselves.’ Art education is reworked into a transformative personal process where the individual artist defines the terms of their development. The hierarchy of teacher and pupil is banished and learning takes a distinctly existential turn.

Fern Thomas and Owen Griffiths' Forever Academy

There are a few interesting projects here in Wales that I’ve been aware of recently. In November, Axis supported Owen Griffiths and Fern Thomas’s first term of Forever Academy, their own DIY Art School. Over two days, a group of artists met in Swansea and talked and ate and looked at work and thought about their practices in relation to one another, instead of on their own. The focus here was on exchange and what can be learned from thinking around your practice in relation to other artists’ practice. The Iraqi artist Hiwa K, invited to be involved in the project, provided gentle commentary, sharp insight and quiet humour as a colleague, rather than tutor or critic. A democratic sensibility guided discussions and an effort was made to avoid ‘critique’ in favour of dialogue. There was no authoritative pretense about what would happen, no ‘we are going to do this’ and then ‘we will move on to that’; instead, it was acknowledged from the start that it was an experiment with uncertain outcome.

In Cardiff, CAAPO has recently run a two-part seminar on The Importance of Process in response to a perceived bias towards conceptual development as opposed to ‘skill-building and material led investigation’ in fine art programmes. These sessions were in conjunction with Ben Langworthy’s three week research residency at Milkwood Gallery, and invited a range of artists at different levels to debate the importance of materials and process in an artist’s development. In an art world where theory is king, it’s important to question the tenets of our belief system. This is where that critical community is built – on the ground, talking with other artists, curators and thinkers, testing assumptions, exchanging opinions and expanding the dialogue on practice.

I had lovely day this past Friday—I had a ‘looking day’. I went to various galleries to look at work. You never get a chance to look at openings. It’s all about talking and drinking; any looking that’s done is purely cursory politeness. And be honest, how often do you go back to see the show after the opening?

Richard Higlett, Viva Art Viva Wally French, 2010

First thing I went to look at was Richard Higlett at g39. Welcome to Your World / Gallery of Portable Sound has something of an absurdist sensibility to it. There is an interview with a cat (‘How often do you sharpen your claws? Do you like to hunt?’); a wall of doors; the silent remnants of a stereo system in a corner; and my favourite, a piece of text by Leona Jones analyzing the triumph of Frere Jacques as musical composition (‘The fractured chords of F major, the workaday rhythm, the onomatopoeic finale are all impressive skills…’) among other works with similar sensibilities. The Gallery of Portable Sound turns out to be Higlett’s car which was transformed into a broadcast system for the preview playing, apparently, a conversation between HAL (that computer from Kubrick’s 2001) and HAL. I do wish I’d been there for that…It’s a show about messages and communication and finding your way that is clever and funny and makes you think about how much sense there is in nonsense.

I stopped into Chapter to see the WITH Collective show.  There was an installation of a turnstile in the gallery, requiring payment to enter. I spent quite a bit of time debating if I wanted to ante-up a pound to go through, what I might see on the other side (was there anything to see?) and wondering if I would feel jipped at the end of it all (I didn’t!) The gallery attendant told me that the money went to the artist who had put his fee into the exhibition budget (perhaps to cover the installation of the turnstile?) which made me feel better about paying. But I didn’t really want to know that; it felt coercive somehow. I liked the difficulty of being asked to pay.

Kathryn Ashill, A Series of Uncertainties, 2011

And speaking about that gallery attendant…she was fab! Friendly, informative, and very helpful. Was she employed for the show? I was suspicious —I don’t remember Chapter having such outgoing gallery attendants (though I applaud it.) And then she asked me if I was the Axis Associate in Wales? Aren’t there any other Americans in Wales who like art? I’m very aware I don’t blend, but it was a little freaky. It turned out she was Kathryn Ashill whom Emma Geliot wrote about in her ‘Nationality’s Place’ response, so I guess she’d seen the nerdy photo on the blog.

Ashill and Sam Hasler have put together Experimentica 1.1 for Chapter. It’s a four day festival happening from the 12 – 16 October exploring the idea of education, ‘…a difficult form to grapple, with all its traditions and antagonisms.’ Artists Owen Griffiths and Fern Thomas will be there talking about their current project Forever Academy that Axis is collaborating on. FA proposes the possibility of a DIY art school that offers an alternative forum for exploring one’s practice by building a critical community of peers to consider creative strategies and stimulate new ideas. The first term of FA happens on 4 & 5 November at Studio Supersaurus in Swansea with artist Hiwa K contributing.

Holly Davey, Mary Ann Street 14, 2007

I ended my day in Swansea where I watched Holly Davey release a flight of doves at Swansea Castle as part of her commission We Speak Everywhere for Locws International. Locws International is running a programme of temporary public works Art Across the City in Swansea through the month of October in conjunction with The Swansea Festival of Music & the Arts. Davey, along with Bristow Lloyd, Helen Edling, Mark Folds and S Mark Gubb have been invited to respond to the culture and heritage of Swansea.

On my next looking day, I’m heading north to see Paul Granjon’s Oriel Factory at Oriel Davies (on until 16 November). I also want to make sure I see David Nash at Oriel Mostyn, a major new showing of the artist’s work (on until 13 November). Alex Duncan’s installation at the Mission Gallery looks well worth a see (on until 30 October) and keep an eye out for Milkwood Gallery’s Made in Roath: Cardboard Household (opening 13 October) which invites designers to redesign household objects in cardboard.

As promised, here’s Emma Geliot’s response to my previous post about what makes a Welsh Artist, nationality and artistic practice.

Back in the mid 1980s, not long after graduating from art school, I spent a day in Aberystwyth with a lot of artists from all over Wales. We’d come together for the Association of Artists and Designers in Wales (AADW) annual conference – the closest we’d ever get to a Trades Union meeting. Brian Sewell was one of the speakers, but he barely got a word in, because somehow the topic got round to what constitutes a Welsh artist.

Now it might seem bizarre, and is certainly a peculiarity of Wales, to spend a whole day talking around this issue and to be fair, since devolution, it’s been less of a burning topic. But it hasn’t entirely gone away and rears its head when there’s a question of representation on an international stage – at the Venice Biennale for example. However, with this year’s Venice outing, Wales has been represented five times and in Wales we’re getting what this artsfest really is.

Tim Davies, Drift, 2011

Venice is about a national jostling for position within a largely commercial and political context. It is not a village show with prizes for the biggest locally grown novelty marrow. And in this context anything becomes possible. In 1993 Korean-born Nam June Paik not only showed in the German Pavilion but he also won the Golden Lion. Then in 2009 Germany was represented by Liam Gillick. This year Israeli artist Yael Bartana was the first non-Polish national to represent Poland at the Biennale.

The truth is that most artists don’t particularly think about their nationality unless it’s central to their practice, but there are many who make work that stems from their sense of where they locate themselves. Of, rather than from.

Kathryn Ashill, In Memory of Balloon Girl, 2011

So artists like Bedwyr Williams, Peter Finnemore or Kathryn Ashill make work that is informed by living in Wales: Ashill uses stories, cultural rituals, memories of place or simply Welsh words like cwtch or sws (cuddle or kiss); Finnemore has made a huge body of work based on his family home in the Gwendraeth Valley and frequently refers to Wales in terms of the country’s history, but often through the lens of family history or narrative, and Williams taps into a particular Welsh sensibility in his practice, particularly his performance work, although he too has referred to cultural icons in a less than reverential way.

However it would be dangerous, or at the very least disingenuous, to bracket their practice as Welsh Art, in the same way that paintings of Welsh landscapes are not particularly Welsh either (can landscape painting be defined as belonging to a particular nationality?).

But there are many artists living and working in Wales. Some can trace a Welsh pedigree back through numerous generations. Others came here more recently, perhaps to study, and never left. And then there’s the diaspora – those with Welsh lineage who are living elsewhere. Most pursue other themes in their work and only think about any kind of cultural identity when they have to decide which boxes to tick on the National Census (this was the first Census where there was a Welsh box to tick). It becomes more of an issue when an artist leaves Wales to work and has to answer the question “where are you from?” How many times have I had to explain that Wales is not a suburb of London?

Wales has a population of only three million – just 500,000 more than the combined populations of Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol, our nearest neighbours. A small fraction of that population are artists and if we were working on the sporting rules of fielding a national team that have a Welsh ancestry we’d be in trouble.

Helen Sear, Pond, 2011

Luckily the arts are more sophisticated than the world of sport when it comes to deciding who can speak for, or about, a culture. The National Eisteddfod’s Lle Celf (the Art Pavilion) hosts an important survey exhibition each year. Entry is open to: “Those born in Wales or of Welsh parentage or any other person who has resided or worked in Wales for the 3 years prior to the Eisteddfod dates or any person able to speak or write Welsh.” This year the first prize was shared by Bedwyr Williams and Helen Sear. Similarly The Welsh Artist of the Year competition is open to any artist living in Wales or any artist of Welsh origin living anywhere in the UK.

Yael Bartana may not be able to play football for Poland, but she certainly has something to say that resonates with Polish culture. Tim Davies, representing Wales at Venice this year, doesn’t brandish the Welsh Dragon, but his work speaks of place, of nationality, of war, of the symbols of landscape. In Venice he becomes a Welsh artist. At home he’s an artist.

To get a flavour of the diversity of artists living in Wales or with an association to Wales take a look at the Axis directory.

Emma Geliot, September 2011
http://emmageliot.wordpress.com/

So what is a Welsh artist? The idea of artistic practice having a national identity has always made me feel uncomfortable in a globalized world most significantly defined by the wide-spread migration of people.

Identity has become increasingly complex in its definition, so trying to pin it to a single facet such as nationality seems a misguided endeavour. Yet we can’t seem to give it up. The Venice Biennale’s the bastion of nationally organised exhibition platforms, but how much do we really think about nation as we wander around the pavilions? Is it an arbitrary categorization, we lightly dismiss? Is there anything meaningful left in nationality?

Carwyn Evans, California of Wales, 2007

In 2008 I participated in a panel discussion at the Newport School of Art, Media and Design on photographic practice in Wales. The discussion was focused on the question of how much this practice was driven by a notion of ‘Welshness’? I felt this had to be considered in relation to place; how did Wales in its socio-cultural and physical geography situate a practice?

Place can mark you in quiet and specific ways and it can change the way you think and see. Years ago, I knew an artist who had grown up and made work in America’s deep South—Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas—an area rich with its particular histories and traditions and a landscape unlike any other I’ve encountered. When he moved from the South to the South West, where the land and the history and the culture was vastly different, he told me he didn’t make any work for about a year because he didn’t know how to, in a place so unfamiliar.

But place isn’t nation really, is it? Anyone can be in a place but not everyone can be part of a nation. Is nation something that binds us beyond the particularities of place? But does this, then, inevitably lead us back to an assumption of commonality among ‘Welsh’ artists and is the only possible commonality, the commonality of place? It’s an unsolvable cipher, it seems to me.

When I moved to Wales, shortly after participating in the Newport panel, I realised the currency of ‘Welshness’ is significant, perhaps intensified by a post-devolution Wales which values its distinctive cultural heritage. This idea of ‘Welshness’ is both potent and potentially problematic, but an inescapable part of living in this place.

I am American (as you might have guessed) and my nationality marks me in ways I was never aware when I lived in the States. I am easily identifiable in my small rural community because of it, having to mind my Ps and Qs. I am also more aware of my affinity with other Americans abroad; we can always talk about the differences between us and them. My experience is constantly situated by the separation of the place where I live and the nation that I come from. This tells me that nation does have some meaning if only in the shifting and unstable space that it describes.

I’ve thought a lot about ‘Welshness’ in the three years I’ve lived here. I’ve drawn no definitive conclusions about what a ‘Welsh’ artist is, except that I think thinking about it is important. I want to hear what other people think, so I’ve asked Emma Geliot to write the next blog in response (coming soon). And please post your thoughts in response to both of us.

I’m just back from the Venice Biennale. I’ve never actually been during the “vernissage” as it’s called—the three day preview before the official opening. It is a scene… the art world from all corners of the globe (but mostly Europe) descend on Venice for an extravaganza of art viewing, networking and parties. You see everyone you ever worked with or had a passing discussion with at an opening, for that matter. You come home exhausted from nights of little sleep disturbed by late night drinking, heat and the inescapable mosquitoes (unless of course you can afford an expensive hotel with air conditioning)! It’s good fun.

Tim Davies - Scatter

There’s a good showing from Wales at the Venice Biennale. Tim Davies’ exhibition in the Welsh Pavilion is great and makes a strong statement for the vitality and excellence of artists working in Wales. It is beautifully installed in the Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, a 16^th century former convent. Curated by Tom Rowland, the show covers something of the diversity of Davies’ work including three works from his Cadet series, two new works made in Venice for the Biennale—all video works—along with a large installation of postcards from his Bridges series. His production moves between mediums and materials and yet, while diverse in its explorations, it remains cohesive. I think about his exhibition 50^th Year to Heaven at Chapter last November, where he showed his text based works alongside videos and a burned matchstick piece (stunning!), and find the same thing. There is an energy and restlessness in his practice that reveals an active mind engaged in testing out the questions that arise as he negotiates the world.

Mike Nelson

The Brits are well represented at the Biennale. The British Pavilion, showing Mike Nelson, is the definite must-see work. It had two hour waiting times to get in and was never without a long line stretching down the middle of the Giardini. It prompted the Axis crew to line up an hour before opening on Friday morning and participate in the most undignified spectacle I’ve witnessed in a long time—upwards of a hundred curators and arts professionals running with all their might, upon the opening of Giardini, the hundred yards to the British Pavilion. Though I arrived gasping for air, it paid off and I got into the Nelson with a five minute wait.

There’s also strong work by Karla Black in the Scottish Pavilion and the Arsenale. I ran into a curator friend coming back from her show as I was on my way to it, and asked him what he thought? ‘What’s not to like!’ he said. Indeed, her work has an ebullient and fantastic feel. Influenced by Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic practices built on children’s play, it revels in its materiality and reminds us of the sensual enjoyments of colour, texture and smell. The New Forest Pavilion, organised by ArtSway, also shows some excellent work—particularly Sophy Rickett’s specially commissioned, sombre and meditative work To the River on the Severn Bore.

tactileBOSCH

There was also an exhibition of artists who showed at Rhôd, including tactileBOSCH’s Kim Fielding, in a restaurant in the Dorsoduro that was well worth a look (sadly, only open through the vernissage).

The Venice Biennale is on until 27 November, 2011. Coming soon on Axis are some ‘top tips’ for Venice, gathered from some of the art professionals who were lucky enough to be there last week. So keep an eye out for that.

Axis asked me to write a blog about what I’m doing out here in Wales ( I’m the Axis Associate in Wales and I will be pulled kicking and screaming into 21^st century communication. ) I was intimidated at first. Quite frankly I didn’t really know what a blog was and I thought I might have to upload something onto the web. But I thought about it for a while and realised it was only just writing ( I’m right about that, aren’t I? ).

I’ve been in position here since about November and here’s what I’ve been up to:

Talked to people—I like doing this; there are some passionate, interesting people doing good work in the visual arts in Wales ( and Chris Brown at g39 has to be one of the nicest, doesn’t he? ). I also had a good talk recently with the artist collective Supersaurous in Swansea. They have a collective studio space there and they are hosting artist residencies and inviting artists to show work in their project space. They had good things to say about Swansea—that there was a lot of freedom in being in Swansea, away from the compression of the contemporary art world but not peripheral. The periphery is just a frame of mind anyway. Their only beef is that people in Cardiff need to get out more and come to Swansea.

Went to a talk called On Collecting at the National Museum of Wales organised by the Contemporary Art Society and g39.  Sorcha Dallas ( www.sorchadallas.com ) told everyone that there are no collectors in Glasgow; she survives through her international profile. This doesn’t bode well for collecting in Wales. I think we need to stop trying to cultivate collectors and just work on buyers. A lot more people buy than you think. It’s much less intimidating than ‘collecting’ and you wind up with a lot of great work to look at in your house.

Oriel Mostyn in Llandudno

Visited the beautiful Oriel Mostyn in Llandudno with Axis Chief Executive, Sheila McGregor. Director Martin Barlow generously showed us around and talked us through their recent refurbishment. The galleries are wonderful—light, open, flexible—and they now have quality space to support their excellent exhibition programme. They have been nominated for The Art Fund Prize ( www.artfundprize.org.uk ) for the redevelopment which would bring the gallery £100,000 if they win—big money in these lean times.

Paul Emmanuel Fleece Painting

Saw some strong exhibitions by Welsh artists ( in another blog I’ll analyse how ‘Welsh artist’ might be defined… ) Paul Emmanuel, Fleece Painting at Oriel Myrddin ( 8 January-26 February, 2011 ); his saturated colour paintings on the fleeces of sheep on surrounding farms richly illustrate the potency of place in the subtlest of ways.

James Morris A Landscape of Wales

James Morris, A Landscape of Wales at Ffotogallery ( 13 January – 26 February ), makes quiet, detailed images of the contemporary landscape of Wales marked by tourism, dying industry and its eternally stunning countryside.

Attended one of the Public Art Development consultation sessions that the Arts Council ran—with the demise of Safle, they are taking public art in Wales back ‘in-house’ through an artist residency programme.  They also propose to act as advocates and facilitators of public art projects. I thought the artist residency programme developing artist practice in the public realm was really sound, keeping in mind that the devil is always in the details. Importantly it made space for development at different levels, allowing artists to explore ideas, context and arenas of work in the public realm in the short and long term. The finalised programme should be launched this month.

Alicia Miller

Axis Associate in Wales