Reading 10: What does it mean to read theoretical material as a creative practitioner?

Thomas Hirschhorn interview with Hans Ulrich Orbist, Thomas Boutoux ed., Hnas Ulrich Orbist: Interviews volume 1, Milan: Charta, 2003, pp.393-400.

Art works of value are informed by under-girding concerns relating to philosophical, metaphysical or theoretical issues. Works often set up a dialogue, create an argument, or comment on social or cultural phenomenon worthy of interrogation. Hirschhorn confronts issues relating to archeology in a project for the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. He observes the indiscrepancy pertaining to historical attributions of value, whereby pre-historical ‘rubble and trash’ is verified over modern day graffiti slogans.

Hirschhorn claims, ‘art is able to break down walls; it has a potential for exchange and dialogue. It can liberate activity.’ In order for art to break down walls it must be informed, not only of its own contextual placement within the art historical canon, but within society at large. Art theory often reflects, or prophesies to the deeper ideological issues challenging human ontology. As such art theory is not always confined to the self-reflection of art per se, but investigates deeper surrounding sociological issues and histories.

A creative practitioner conversant with a diverse range of theoretical material is empowered to set up authoritative and convincing arguments capable of shaping, challenging, or informing past and existing social ideologies. Art works founded on diverse theoretical investigations are emancipated from purely self-referential parameters within the art world to comment on inexhaustible social phenomenon such as politics, religion, the environment, and cultural exchange. Informed art has the ability to serve as an altruistic instrument of change, or at least act as an ambassador of thought provocation.

Reading 9: How can creative practice be relevant politically?

Art has become increasingly relational. Artists use social exchanges as material for artistic investigation. The relational analysis of human interaction has significance in evaluating the value of community and the integrity of human relationships. In a world saturated with technological independence and cyber communication the physical interactions of people within an actual space is undervalued and increasingly rarified. This brings into questions of authenticity and authorship in regards to the Fine Art.

I have dealt with issues of authenticity and community in my own work by enlisting community sponsorship to realize my exhibition, ‘To Authenticate’. Members of my authentic community, i.e. friends, colleagues, family, lecturers, were all invited to Sponsor-A-Plinth. Sponsors financial support was then used to produce eleven plinths on which to present final original drawings of black and white photographs. Each sponsor received an authenticity certificate; their name engraved on a plaque and placed on a plinth; and the invitation to an exclusive one-night preview of ‘To Authenticate’ at NKB Gallery, Mt Eden. The purpose of involving my ‘authentic community’ was in direct retaliation to an article by Elizabeth Currid, entitled “The Economics of a Good Party: Social Mechanisms and the Legitimization of Art/Culture”. The function of the overall work was didactic, utilizing authentic imagery to create time and space for the viewer to enlist their own subjective perception in order to assess truth, quality, and the ‘value’ of an original artifact.

Reading 8: Images and Ownership

Issues of authenticity in art have been prevalent throughout history. Fundamental concepts introduced by Benjamin in his essay Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, have been analyzed and reinterpreted by scholars ever since. Benjamin claims that the authenticity of a work is informed by its unique existence in history. The Oxford Dictionary defines authentic as ‘reliable; genuine’, its root word coming from the Greek authentes meaning ‘one who does a thing himself’ (1). Benjamin terms the elusive quality inherent in an authentic work of art as its “aura”. The Oxford Dictionary definition of the word ‘aura’ is simply, ‘a subtle quality associated with person or thing' (2). Benjamin distinguishes between historical aura and natural aura. Historical aura is based on the description above whereby a unique object is located in a unique time and place and carries with it a particular history. He associates natural aura with distance and likens it to experiencing the view of a mountain range on a warm summer day (3). The key concept here is the experience of the actual mountain range. He explains the antithesis of this concept as ‘the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly' (4). In other words, the increasingly insatiable desire of the masses to ‘own’ by reducing and containing images of an original phenomenon. An early attempt to possess an experience of natural phenomenon can be seen in the advent of the Claude Glass, referring to the effect of the Claude Glass to re-contextualize a natural vista Geoff Park recounts, ‘condensed and framed, in the moment of capture, its miniaturized picture was a private possession’ (5).


1 - D. Mackenzie (compiled by), The Oxford School Dictionary (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1958), 23.
2 - Mackenzie, 22.
3 - W. Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Source: Arendt, H (ed), (translated by Harry Zohn). Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), 219.
4 - Benjamin, 219.
5 - Geoff Park, “Theatre Country”, in Theatre Country: Essays on landscape and whenua, (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006, pp. 113-127), 116.

Reading 7: How does creative practice sit within globalization?

In a world embracing immense technological acceleration, national boundaries are being eliminated via instantaneous communication channels such as the Internet. Only half a century ago a six-week journey on ship from New Zealand to England would have been considered to be made in ‘good time’. Now the same journey can be made by plane in less than 24 hours. Everything from travel to productivity has accelerated exponentially. In the past where cultures and societies were historically separated by large bodies of land or water, these natural barriers are now overcome by extraordinary means of transportation and communication at unimaginable speed. A highly sophisticated language of technology is usurping cultural communicative differences. We have built a new tower. Our Babel is technology itself.

Creative practices have inevitably succumbed to the challenges and triumphs of rampant globalization. Notions of national identity within the arts are becoming increasingly archaic as the world is opening itself to global art discourse. Unlike any time in previous history, art practitioners no longer have to travel to art capitals in America and Europe to be influenced by the latest art trends. An antipodean artist can simply flip open a laptop and google ‘what’s hot’ in contemporary art?! Biennales, Triennials, Art Fairs (1), etc, etc, serve to centralize the latest developments in Fine Arts as a means of gathering and showcasing a milieu of ‘whose who?’ in global representatives of the art world. The challenge for creative practice is not to become more global, but more particular, more original, and more unique.

1 - Cathrin Schaer, “Foreign Affairs”, Canvas, Weekend Herald, July 25, 2009, pp. 6-10. P 6.

2- Arun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp. 27-47.

Reading 6: How does creative practice sit within globalization?

Currid argues that success in the art world is essentially founded on social networking. The value of an artwork is determined by the endorsement of the most well connected voice, or ‘gatekeeper’(1). Professor Warren Brookbanks has termed the phenomenon of success through social status a ‘who-you-knowcracy’(2) meaning merit is given to an individual based primarily on who-they-know rather than attribution of skill.

An explicit illustration of the intricately established social hierarchies underpinning the art world is seen in “The Art Universe,” published in Vanity Fair magazine, 2006. “The Art Universe” is a complex map of the contemporary art world as observed ‘from the V.F. Observatory High Atop Times Square’(3). It is the whose-who of the who-you-knowcracy. Replete with solar systems and constellations, Larry Gagosian is affixed firmly in the ‘center of the universe.’ In ‘the heavens’ is a list of deified dignitaries, names that have attained god-like status in the art world including Basquait, Duchamp, Pollock,Warhol etc.

The inclusion of a highly commercial synopsis of the art world within one of the worlds ‘sexiest’ magazines, suggests that art, as we know it, has all but lost its physicality in the making of artifact. The witty observation of Vanity Fair to categorize art giants in such a playful yet cynical way bespeaks of an even more ironic hierarchy. Vanity Fair is so in-the-know it is able to observe and organize the elite of the art world ‘who-you-knowers’. Vanity Fair has effectively become the eye of God, viewing the universe from an objective distance whilst ingratiating its star players. An art world commercially driven becomes increasingly aligned with the world of advertising and branding. Art as pure commodity crosses a fundamental boundary questioning the integrity of its own ontology once again begging the question…what is art?


1 - Elizabeth Currid, “The Economics of a Good Party: Social Mechanisms and the Legitimization of Art/Culture”, Journal of Economics and Finance, vol. 31, no.2, Fall 2007, pp.386-394.
2 - Prof Warren John Brookbanks, Auckland University Law School. 5/06/09.
3 - “The Art Universe,” in Vanity Fair. December 2006, pp. 340-341.

Reading 5: What does it mean to have a creative practice here in Aotearoa NZ?

According to James Clifford’s definition of culture as that which is ‘elevated, sensitive, and precious –most uncommon – in society’(1), New Zealand can boast a truly rich and diverse cultural heritage. Levi Strauss’ observations of New York as an anthropological chronotope(2), pale in light of Aotearoa as a cultural Petri dish.

New Zealand art and artifacts literally embody the discourse illustrated in Clifford’s diagram, The Art-Culture System, Machine for Making Authenticity(3). The cross-fertilization of ethnographic objects into the ‘elevated’ status of Fine Arts objects is frequently seen in the exhibition of cultural artifacts in Art Gallery Environments.

The quintessential example of indigenous artifacts displayed as artworks was seen in the highly controversial exhibition Te Maori, which traveled from New Zealand to New York in 1984(4). The organizers of Te Maori ensured extremely thorough and rigorous observations of Maori protocol surrounding the objects was maintained throughout the duration of the exhibition. Maori representatives were consulted regarding the presentation of objects. A significant Maori presence accompanied the exhibition to New York ensuring traditional Maori blessings and ceremonies were observed for the opening of the exhibition. The exhibition recognized the richness of a cultural legacy, which, in this instance, was willingly shared by Maori tangata whenua.

New Zealand society represents an increasing amalgamation of cultures. Cultural diversity has become generic. Subsequently, having a creative practice in Aotearoa is essentially unfettered by cultural constraint. Essentially a creative practitioner in New Zealand can present art from any cultural lineage provided a nominal percentage of applicable blood, or a significant ‘other’ of some description (be it partner, spouse or friend) is traceable to verify investigations and commentary with some authority.

At the risk of sounding overly utopian, art practices within New Zealand are becoming increasingly culturally diverse. There is a sense of permission among practitioners to express cultural particularities freely and largely without contestation, take for example works by renowned artists such as Michael Parakowhai, Reuben Paterson, Yuk kin Tan and Shane Cotton. Each artist works within a cultural affiliation albeit implicit or explicit. Perhaps inevitably New Zealand art is to be the catalyst for the cultural acceptance and recognition sought and desired by the likes of Tze Ming Mok (5).

1 - James Clifford, “On Collecting Art and Culture”, in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 215-251. P 234.
2 - Ibid P 241.
3 - Ibid P 224.
4 - http://www.aucklandartgallery.govt.nz/exhibitions/0706temaorianniversary.asp. 26/05/09
5 - Tze Ming Mok, "Race You There", Landfall 208, Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2004, pp. 18-26.

Reading 4: What does it mean to have a creative practice here in Aotearoa New Zealand?

Site specificity is the essential alliance between an art object and the specific site in which it is placed or performed. To borrow Meyer’s term, literal site encompasses an artwork that by its nature is dependent upon the site in which it is situated. An archetypal example of a literal site-specific work is Richard Serra Tilted Arc, located in Federation Square, New York. Serra explains, “the specificity of site-oriented works mean they are conceived for, dependent upon, and inseparable from their location”[1]. In comparison functional site-specific works are not dependent on a physical place to inform their meaning. A functional site is an ephemeral, transitional space it is not fixed but transient.

In his essay Theatre Country, Geoff Park recalls the progressive objectification of landscape culminating in its recognition as an autonomous painting genre. Through the invention of the Claude Glass and later the camera, the surveyor of landscape was empowered to minimize and contain a personalized image of nature. Pre-eminent literary scholars such as the poet Thomas Gray championed the re-contextualization of nature into image. Gray once wrote of the view witnessed through his Claude Glass, “I saw in my glass, a picture that if I could transmit it to you, and fix it in all the softness of its living colours, would fairly sell for one thousand pounds,”[2] thus the commodification of landscape as genre began.

The Claude Glass simultaneously reduced the uncontainable image of immense landscape into a quantifiable, consummerable whole. Government, politics and tourism all contributed to the commercialization of land as a vista to be owned. Images of a place encountered proved the presence of the spectator, which in turn attested to the actual experience of a particular scene. In its broadest sense the genre of landscape painting relates most directly to the precepts of site-specificity. Landscape painting could theoretically be linked to literal site-specificity given its specific relationship to the site depicted. Conversely landscape painting is not contingent on its placement within a particular environment to be understood. In this sense it is more closely aligned with the categorization of functional site-specificity.

Notions of site-specificity in relation to landscape are particularly prevalent in New Zealand art. The population to land ratio in New Zealand, combined with the particularly exotic landscape, presupposes a strong affiliation between New Zealanders and their surrounding environment. The relationship between people and place is expressed by artists in various guises, often references made to land and culture are shamelessly explicit and thus deemed National.

Issues surrounding National identity within New Zealand art are often highly contentious. Creative New Zealand, the governmental funding agency for the Arts in Aotearoa New Zealand, has strict guidelines underpinning it Strategic Priorities to aid in ascertaining National identity within various artistic genres [3]. However, in an increasingly globalized world, the nature of a ‘National identity’ is becoming more ambiguous. Subsequently the categorization of (often ephemeral) art practices as ‘National’ becomes exceedingly problematic. A highly controversial example of the inherent dilemma of National identity in art provoked national outrage when The Fundamental Practice, an installation by Et Al was presented at the Venice Biennale in 2005 [4].

Arguably Et Al’s installation was not accessible, nor understood by the majority public of New Zealand. Ironically the project was largely funded by taxpayer money enabling New Zealand presence at a highly esteemed international art event. Much of the furor generated by Et Al provoked issues pertaining to the definition of National identity. How was a multi-media installation indicative of native New Zealand?

Does an artwork have to incorporate a recognizable component of place or culture to be considered National? Take Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst for example, both have attained superstar status within the art world, yet even the supposedly art illiterate public could place Warhol as American and Hirst as British. Likewise excellence in sporting achievements often positions a sporting hero within a national context. The identity of a nation is contingent on the quality of its representation. A poorly rendered image of a Tui in a Pohutakawa tree is no more national than the exquisite surface treatment of a Stephen Bambury icon. Surely national identity should be assessed according to the superiority of the work produced rather than the country it reflects.

1 - James Meyer, “The Functional Site; or, The Transformation of Site-Specificity,” in Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, ed. Erika Suderberg, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, 23-37. P 24.
2 - Geoff Park “Theatre Country”, in Theatre Country: Essays on Landscape and Whenua, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006, pp. 113-127. P 116.
3 - Refer to Creative New Zealand Strategic Plan: http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/WhatWeDo/StrategicPlan/tabid/4771/language/en-NZ/Default.aspx. 6/05/09
4 - Refer to Et Al Venice Biennale: http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/1673. 6/05/09

Reading 3: Jean-Francois Lyotard “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?”

According to Lyotard, postmodernism essentially operates retrospectively. It is the unquantifiable presentation of the unpresentable governed by rules it is in the process of discovering. Ironically postmodern principles in art can often be discerned reflectively in modernist works, Lyotard explains, “postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end, but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.”1

Postmodernism is arguably a conceptual impossibility. Pure postmodernist experimentations in art attempt to present what is truly unpresentable (that referred to by Kant as the sublime). Lyotard believes modernism fails to truly present the sublime as it does so nostalgically by using representational methods already familiar to the viewer. Postmodernism however is an attempt to present what is unpresentable by means yet to be determined. It does not subscribe to any pre-established rules but rather, as Lyotard explains, “those rules and categories are what the work of art itself is looking for.”2

Postmodernism is the ‘none-thing’, ‘the nothing’, the space between the lines, and yet it is not ‘void’. By virtue of its ontology art has to present something that is presentable in order to exist. This presentation can be largely conceptual; however, even in its ultimate state of ‘non-being’ something has been conveyed making the concept conceivable and thereby ‘presentable’.

Many Conceptual artists have wrestled with attempts to present art in its most ‘sublime’ state. They have gone so far, and succeeded, in removing the ‘object-ness’ inherent in art works.3 In so doing art has effectively been sublimated to the cognitive processes of concept. An excellent example of the precedent of concept superceding the object-ness of an artwork is a performance piece by Robert Barry entitled Telepathic Piece. Performed in 1969 the piece was presented with the following statement, “during the exhibition I will try to communicate telepathically a work of art, the nature of which is a series of thoughts that are not applicable to language or image”.4

Has art reached a state of complete nonsense?
Sorokin would blame the postmodern condition on the progressive detachment of society from an ideational focus. He argues that postmodern society has forfeited ideological ideals to become an entirely sensate culture.5 If modernism presented the conceivable sublime and Postmodernism the actually unpresentable, what then is left for art to present? To return to the representation of art for its own sake would be regressive, art as a tool used to illicit veneration and worship has also been fully exploited. Has art overreached its own capabilities? Is it in danger of implosion?

1 - Jean-Francois Lyotard. “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?” translated by Regis Durand, in The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984, p 79.
2 - Ibid, p 81.
3 - Meyer, U. Conceptual Art. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1972. P XV.
4 - Nikos Stangos, (ed), Concepts of Modern Art: From Fauvism to Postmodernism, London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2003. P 264.
5 - Sorokin, P. The Crisis of Our Age. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1992. P 26.

Reading 2: “Sculpture in the Expanded Field”

Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field”, October, Vol. 8 (Spring, 1979), pp. 30-44.

In the advent of the allusively permissive, un-categorizable phenomenon known as postmodernism, sculpture unwittingly emancipated itself from any preconceived definition. Starting with the basic precepts of modernism, where form was employed in the service of function, sculpture was most closely aligned with the place of monument. In her article Sculpture in the Expanded Field, Rosalind Krauss traces the re-contextualization of sculpture from the quantifiable precepts of modernism to the radical, manifestations of postmodernism.

Krauss aligns the degeneration of post-war American sculpture with the manipulation of art categories via art criticism. Any new art experimentations were imbued with a familiarity that could be traced to a former, knowable time in history. Krauss recounts the lineage of Minimalism as inherited from the paternity of its constructivist fathers. Issues of explicit ideological incompatibility were overlooked in favour of aesthetic and historic familiarity. The eradication of the pedestal by Brancusi meant that sculpture became officially devoid of any extraneous function and maintained its own autonomous ontology.

In its most pure postmodernist form, Krauss argues sculpture became that which was not-landscape and not-architecture. An excellent example of sculpture occupying this ‘non-place’ would be Claes Oldenburg’s Placid Civic Monument, 1967. Oldenburg himself occupied an un-categorizable place in art history. His works effectively trail blazed postmodernist ideologies particularly Minimalist and Conceptual art practice. He was an art prophet. Placid Civic Monument effectively inverted the notion of sculpture. At approximately 10:00 a.m., Sunday 1st October, a grave was dug behind the Metropolitan Museum in New York.1 The covert hole dug secretly behind the museum was filled in again after lunch. This ‘hole’ was arguably the quintessential manifestation of the not-landscape, not-architecture place. Oldenburg took the classic notion of monument and subverted its commemorative function, culminating in a fugitive, temporary deconstruction and reconstruction of place.

Krauss asserts that under the guise of postmodernism, sculpture now defies all categorization. She states ‘the logic of the space of postmodernist practice is no longer organized around the definition of a given medium on the grounds of material, or for that matter, the perception of material. It is organized instead through the universe of terms that are felt to be in opposition within a cultural situation.’2 In other words, within a postmodern context sculpture is no longer confined to materials or function, rather it can be anything in dialogue with either the degeneration or regeneration of its former categorization. Postmodernism has given sculpture the permission to be whatever it claims itself to be, occupying a place that is at once not-landscape, and not-architecture but everything, or anything, in between. Sculpture is a secret hole dug behind a museum then filled in after lunch, it is the un-categorizable thing which defies place.

1 - Boettger, S. A Found Weekend, 1967: Public Sculpture and Anti-Monuments. Art in America. http://findarticles.com/p/articles 26/08/2008
2 - Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field”, October, Vol. 8 (Spring, 1979), pp. 30-44. P 43.

Reading 1: Meg Cranston with Nico Israel

Meg Cranston with Nico Israel, “Running On Light Feet”, from “Hot Pants in a Cold Cold World: Works 1987 – 2007”, Auckland: Artspace and Clouds, 2008, pp.6-21.

What does it mean to read theoretical material as a creative practitioner?

Meg Cranston’s informal dialogue with Nico Israel provides a candid insight into the working methods and ideologies underpinning her diverse artistic practice. The interview Running on Light accompanies Cranston’s exhibition Hot Pants in a Cold Cold World: Works 1987 – 2007, held at Artspace, Auckland 2008. Israel and Cranston weave together a casual discourse that bellies the fluid yet informed modus operandi of the artist.

The ease of conversation and the maneuverability between disparate subjects fools the reader into perceiving Cranston as somewhat cavalier and haphazard in her artistic approach. Anecdotes about Paris Hilton and Rem Koolhaas suggest aspects of a playful, lighthearted application of theories under girding Cranston’s concepts. Cranston seamlessly dovetails pop-culture with art theoretical giants. A quick glance through the text reveals a myriad of personalities contributing to the contemporary art canon. Skimming the pages names such as; Kippenberger, Foucault, Freud, Haring, Duchamp, Nietzche, Led Zeppelin, Mike Kelley, Greenberg…oscillate revealing the diverse sources of theories, concepts and influences informing Cranston’s work.

Cranston reveals the immense breadth of content informing her pieces. In her words, ‘I won’t discredit artists who go deep, but I go broad.’1 Her working methods can be considered an example of the archetypal post-modern practitioner. Fidelity to one primary art theoretical position is sublimated to a type of theoretical polygamy. Multiple heavyweight principles weave in collaboration with one another. Both Israel and Cranston assume a level of theoretical literacy. Witty references could be lost on less informed readers, for example Israel’s clever re-contextualizing of the Hilton vs. Koolhaas anecdote. Phrasing the parable “Rem Descending a Staircase”2 is a direct referral to the hugely controversial work produced by Marcel Duchamp in 1912, Nude Descending A Staircase 3. A theoretically proficient reader would be aware of the revolutionary history inherent in the painting.

The clever application of theoretical precepts places Cranston’s work within a broad art historical context and at once imbues the work with a sense of authority by virtue of its informed references. In addition to acknowledging works by revolutionary artists such as Duchamp, Cranston also sets up vital discourses with her contemporaries including artists and thinkers who have, and will, continue to provoke her conceptual responses. The Wonder and Horror of the Human Head is a quintessential example of the amalgamation of past and present art history. Cranston references a show of the same name curated by Roland Penrose and Herbert Read in 1953 and charges Richard Hamilton to curate a contemporary version.

Without Cranston’s incredibly well versed theoretical knowledge many of her works would lack depth. Aspects of content referring to broader social commentary are only as powerful as they are well informed. Cranston is an advocate of what she refers to as the “unsavory aspects of Modernism,” that is “any kind of education about how to think and talk about abstract concepts becoming form.”4 She embodies the ideal that an artist must be simultaneously fluent in both art history and theory in order for their art to convey concepts with authority.

In summary Cranston exemplifies the fact that in order to confront sociological constructs in a meaningful way the artist must operate from a position of diversely informed knowledge. It is from this informed position that an artist can then authoritatively deconstruct such knowledge to make counter or complementary claims. Cranston and Israel playfully unpack heavy weight art theory that is accessible to art savvy readers and burgeoning practitioners. In a lighthearted, non-prescriptive way, Cranston illustrates the great breadth, authority and freedom indicative of works by a creative practitioner widely informed by theoretical material.

1 - Meg Cranston with Nico Israel, “Running On Light Feet”, from “Hot Pants in a Cold Cold World: Works 1987 – 2007”, Auckland: Artspace and Clouds, 2008, pp.6-21. P 8
2 - Ibid. P 15.
3 - Nude Descending A Staircase. http://www.idiom.com/~wcs/duchamp.html. 14.03.2008
4 - Meg Cranston with Nico Israel. P 19.