Artbin

I find it difficult to reconcile the fact that it’s increasingly OK to take photos in art galleries, where it used to be a big no-no, but less in public places. For example, the Saatchi gallery has no restrictions whatsoever on the public taking photos. Yes, they could well afford to sue you for everything you’ve got if you breached the copyright of the artist, not that your art selling skills are a match to theirs, so you won’t get rich quick that way, will you? I mean, could you really sell that fake painting you just made with your digital photo of the original for millions? So if the average gallery goer can’t, then Saatchi has the right attitude, let them take photos. Bless em, they can’t have the real thing, they can make do with a wee reproduction on their laptop… Most of us taking photos there just want them for our blogs. If your blog gets loads of hits, well that’s free advertising for the artist and gallery. If it doesn’t, then who cares? It can only count as ‘personal use’.

[singlepic id=35 w=320 h=240 float=left]But rules about taking photos are becoming stranger. During the Anish Kapoor exhibition, the Royal Academy staff would only allow photos to be taken with a mobile phone. I had to show the invigilator that I had a whole load of phone numbers in the machine before he let me use it, but after I proved that it was a phone and not a camera, I clicked away happily. So why the fuss? I’m still trying to work it out.

The most bizarre account was when earlier this week I visited Michael Landy’s ‘Artbin’ installation in the South London Gallery. I pulled out my camera from my handbag as I would have pulled out my ringing phone, thinking nothing of it. After all, this was a ‘rubbish bin’ I was about to capture. But as if by magic a polite gentleman materialises in front of me and tells me I can’t take photos because the artists who made the works in the bin (which are, therefore, rubbish to be disposed of – this is a monument to ‘creative failure’) have not given their permission. I don’t get that. An artist has given away a work for it to be destroyed (a ‘creative failure’), but has given it away knowing that in some bizarre way the work will be ‘exhibited’ (if you can say that of a work chucked into a transparent skip), so being exposed to view. Yet the assumption on the gallery’s part is that the artworks must be protected from photographs. I fail to see the logic? The act of binning a failed work into Michael Landy’s bin is an act of exhibitionism, of exposure, of clinging on to the fame of a reputable artist before the big apocalypse wipes the ‘bad’ artist/artwork out of existence. The destruction is preceded by a complete revealing of the work to the public. It’s a confession on a deathbed. The artists who have ‘contributed’ have their name placed on a list, which of course, is also public. Would taking a photo of the work embarrass the artist? The artists have overcome the embarrassment of admitting creative failure by donating in the first place. It’s public, it’s official. But it must not be visually recorded…

My perplexity lies in the fact that I am of an age and culture in which you learnt that artworks were sacred and should not be touched or photographed. As we’ve moved into the I-will-air-my-dirty-linen-in-public generation (thanks to Tracey Emin, blogs, camera-phones and social networks), that has changed. Interactivity rules. But whilst art galleries may be moving with the times and accepting that viewers will take photos, the Big Brother is deciding for us that maybe we should not, and certainly not in public. See this article in last week’s Sunday Times.

In any case, not to offend anyone, I have digitally blurred the artworks in this photo of Michael Landy’s Artbin (taken before the kind gentleman asked me not to):

Although I love the artbin idea -that not all artwork is great and some artworks just don’t end up looking as wonderful as they did in your mind’s eye- I was disappointed that the exhibition did not include the destruction. I asked Michael Landy himself about this, since he was around. He explained that the gallery was going to be in charge of the destruction, as from Monday 15th March 2010. The gallery would shred canvas and dispose of the rest of the junk. Although I understood his rationale, he wants to show the failures, but is not interested in how they are terminated, I felt a little bit cheated. I’ll get over it, though, I know what a bonfire looks like. I just learnt yesterday that Roald Dahl held a weekly bonfire outside of his writing hut where he burnt the drafts (written with a good ole graphite pencil) that preceded success.

#Legal #London #Installations #Photography #Destruction #MichaelLandy