Workshop, project and publication organized by Rakett (Åse Løvgren and Karolin Tampere)
The artist as decorator
Markus Degerman
In discussions about art in relation to architecture and urban development, it is often pointed out that artists should be included at an earlier stage in the building process. Participation already in the planning and building phases would mean greater potential for artists in their work. Especially if we compare this to the traditional role where the artist is expected to begin working when everything is already completed. Traditionally, the purpose of art in this context is to decorate the areas and buildings that have already been constructed. In Swedish, for instance, we have the phrase offentlig utsmyckning, “public embellishment”, to describe the genre. Naturally, it would be preferable if the artist could find new tasks and be involved at an
earlier stage in planning the spaces where they will be engaged. But the question of embellishment, and the debate on how and when the work is to be carried out, is more complex than it may at first seem. I will attempt to explain why, and also to give a few explanations to why a greater degree of pragmatism is necessary in these issues.
In attempting to understand and discuss the potential roles of art in various contexts such as urban development, one possible starting point is an analysis of the primary markets that are available to art. The market aspect is interesting for two crucial reasons. Firstly, since the use of the term market has paradoxically not been compatible with the marketing
of art as something entirely different from other commodities. But it is also interesting since the traditional businesses where concrete art objects are produced and sold has gradually been complemented by an increasingly important service sector. In general, therefore, we can now say that there are two main arenas on which an artist can sell his or her products. One consists of galleries and the other of institutions such as schools, art museums, studio programmes and grant schemes. Since the gallery business of selling objects or images is fairly well-known, it is more interesting, here, to focus on the mechanisms in the institutional category – a category that is mainly service-based and either wholly or partially financed by public funding, even though there is a discernible tendency towards change in this respect.
Although many people would refuse to define the service-based art market as commercial, it is nevertheless essential to acknowledge that it is based on similar conditions. The difference, above all, is in the participants and their demands. Instead of gallery owners, we have studio programmes, institutions and schools, for instance. Since the participants have other preferences, the demand situation is different. These differences in demand have today become so great that there are few artists who can operate without difficulty in both the gallery and service segments. The differentiation between artistic orientations has also led to more distinct disparity between the artists working in the respective contexts. In short, the conflict can be said to exist on two levels. The underlying causes concern status, money and influence, while the reasons that are more frequently debated concern definitions of content,
quality and aesthetics. This, in turn, has contributed towards creating differences in the language used to describe activities and their objectives. Within the more service-oriented art sector, the key concepts are generally more academic compared to those of the gallery scene. It can be interesting to bear this in mind in discussions on the role of art in, say, urban development. In the same way as when dichotomies are set up between aesthetics and discursive content, there is reason to be wary when embellishment is mentioned as being in a contradictory position to content.
In a similar way to how we speak of public embellishment, there is also a form of internal embellishment. Where public embellishment, i.e., the finished work of art, is traditionally intended to be for practically anyone, the internal embellishment is more concerned with a beauty for the initiated. In order to be considered for such commissions, someone has to be convinced of the quality of one’s work. A vital element in convincing people consists of the language in which the artist chooses to explain, or package, the product. Even the earliest conceptual art demonstrated that the emphasis need not be primarily on the concrete object itself, but in the circumstances around its idea. In other words, this communication has come to take place mainly on an aesthetic level where content and form are merged. Instead of asking whether something is an embellishment or not, we should perhaps ask ourselves today what this embellishment means in itself. This is a question that needs to be based much more on a holistic perspective, where all references are taken into account, rather than taking individual statements too literally.
If the packaging has thus become such an obvious part of the product, the question is whether it is even possible to work critically. For what happens if also the design surrounding whatever we want to launch has to have an appealing beauty in order to succeed? Would
works that challenge the prevailing order even stand a chance? Within service-oriented art that operates in relation to urban development, the current situation is that concepts such as concentration, gentrification, diversity or segregation have their specific aesthetic values that can both spoil and beautify, depending on how they are used. Since critical works should, by virtue of their nature, be hard to consolidate with normative attitudes, they are hard to sell to the various players on the field. For a self-employed entrepreneur such as an artist, this constitutes a limitation on the language or references that are possible to use.
Consequently, to return to the introduction, what would be interesting would be a more pragmatic approach to what we wish to achieve. An emphasis on the way, that is, on how something should be performed to achieve a desired result, has led to stagnation, where too much attention is given to how this way should be decorated. This is true not least for the art that is considered to lie beyond the aesthetic field. A pragmatic-aesthetic approach would, in this case, involve looking for alternatives to the normative values. Art that wants to formulate alternatives or a critique of the established market should not, therefore, be packaged in something that is too obviously designed to sell easily in the prevailing system. This, in effect, means that the work should neither be too appealing, nor too repulsive, since these criteria, in all certainty, already have their given value. If art is to comprise more than just confirmed
agreements, that potential will be found beyond, or probably more accurate between, the extremes.
The artist as decorator
Markus Degerman
In discussions about art in relation to architecture and urban development, it is often pointed out that artists should be included at an earlier stage in the building process. Participation already in the planning and building phases would mean greater potential for artists in their work. Especially if we compare this to the traditional role where the artist is expected to begin working when everything is already completed. Traditionally, the purpose of art in this context is to decorate the areas and buildings that have already been constructed. In Swedish, for instance, we have the phrase offentlig utsmyckning, “public embellishment”, to describe the genre. Naturally, it would be preferable if the artist could find new tasks and be involved at an
earlier stage in planning the spaces where they will be engaged. But the question of embellishment, and the debate on how and when the work is to be carried out, is more complex than it may at first seem. I will attempt to explain why, and also to give a few explanations to why a greater degree of pragmatism is necessary in these issues.
In attempting to understand and discuss the potential roles of art in various contexts such as urban development, one possible starting point is an analysis of the primary markets that are available to art. The market aspect is interesting for two crucial reasons. Firstly, since the use of the term market has paradoxically not been compatible with the marketing
of art as something entirely different from other commodities. But it is also interesting since the traditional businesses where concrete art objects are produced and sold has gradually been complemented by an increasingly important service sector. In general, therefore, we can now say that there are two main arenas on which an artist can sell his or her products. One consists of galleries and the other of institutions such as schools, art museums, studio programmes and grant schemes. Since the gallery business of selling objects or images is fairly well-known, it is more interesting, here, to focus on the mechanisms in the institutional category – a category that is mainly service-based and either wholly or partially financed by public funding, even though there is a discernible tendency towards change in this respect.
Although many people would refuse to define the service-based art market as commercial, it is nevertheless essential to acknowledge that it is based on similar conditions. The difference, above all, is in the participants and their demands. Instead of gallery owners, we have studio programmes, institutions and schools, for instance. Since the participants have other preferences, the demand situation is different. These differences in demand have today become so great that there are few artists who can operate without difficulty in both the gallery and service segments. The differentiation between artistic orientations has also led to more distinct disparity between the artists working in the respective contexts. In short, the conflict can be said to exist on two levels. The underlying causes concern status, money and influence, while the reasons that are more frequently debated concern definitions of content,
quality and aesthetics. This, in turn, has contributed towards creating differences in the language used to describe activities and their objectives. Within the more service-oriented art sector, the key concepts are generally more academic compared to those of the gallery scene. It can be interesting to bear this in mind in discussions on the role of art in, say, urban development. In the same way as when dichotomies are set up between aesthetics and discursive content, there is reason to be wary when embellishment is mentioned as being in a contradictory position to content.
In a similar way to how we speak of public embellishment, there is also a form of internal embellishment. Where public embellishment, i.e., the finished work of art, is traditionally intended to be for practically anyone, the internal embellishment is more concerned with a beauty for the initiated. In order to be considered for such commissions, someone has to be convinced of the quality of one’s work. A vital element in convincing people consists of the language in which the artist chooses to explain, or package, the product. Even the earliest conceptual art demonstrated that the emphasis need not be primarily on the concrete object itself, but in the circumstances around its idea. In other words, this communication has come to take place mainly on an aesthetic level where content and form are merged. Instead of asking whether something is an embellishment or not, we should perhaps ask ourselves today what this embellishment means in itself. This is a question that needs to be based much more on a holistic perspective, where all references are taken into account, rather than taking individual statements too literally.
If the packaging has thus become such an obvious part of the product, the question is whether it is even possible to work critically. For what happens if also the design surrounding whatever we want to launch has to have an appealing beauty in order to succeed? Would
works that challenge the prevailing order even stand a chance? Within service-oriented art that operates in relation to urban development, the current situation is that concepts such as concentration, gentrification, diversity or segregation have their specific aesthetic values that can both spoil and beautify, depending on how they are used. Since critical works should, by virtue of their nature, be hard to consolidate with normative attitudes, they are hard to sell to the various players on the field. For a self-employed entrepreneur such as an artist, this constitutes a limitation on the language or references that are possible to use.
Consequently, to return to the introduction, what would be interesting would be a more pragmatic approach to what we wish to achieve. An emphasis on the way, that is, on how something should be performed to achieve a desired result, has led to stagnation, where too much attention is given to how this way should be decorated. This is true not least for the art that is considered to lie beyond the aesthetic field. A pragmatic-aesthetic approach would, in this case, involve looking for alternatives to the normative values. Art that wants to formulate alternatives or a critique of the established market should not, therefore, be packaged in something that is too obviously designed to sell easily in the prevailing system. This, in effect, means that the work should neither be too appealing, nor too repulsive, since these criteria, in all certainty, already have their given value. If art is to comprise more than just confirmed
agreements, that potential will be found beyond, or probably more accurate between, the extremes.