Introduction
Objects for a Studio is an on-going
project by Manchester based artist Jessica Longmore, the traces of
which are documented and displayed in a series of intriguing
pictures. As part of her process, Longmore constructs temporary and
often precarious sculptures, capturing each of them with a single
photograph. As with so many aspects of this project, the sculptures
exhibit a contradiction in that they appear to be almost homogenous
with their environment, formed and built as they are from found
objects and materials mined by Longmore from the active studios
within which she works. Yet whilst these sculptures have been
assembled from the ephemera of one artist's practice, they are the
work of another artist altogether; it is for this unstable
intermingling of artistic identity that they verge on the uncanny.
Appearing out of place only for a brief moment, their precarious
nature signals that these leant and balanced assemblages could at any
point be absorbed into the debris from which they have been wrought.
In the course of Objects for a Studio
Longmore spends an entire single day within an Other Artist's studio,
producing one piece of work as a stranger within the space.
Describing the time she spends in these studios as residencies,
Longmore keeps within a rigid timeframe and structure - one day, one
photograph, purposefully fabricating a specialized situation within
which she can react to her surroundings and create work with a
necessary intensity. The studio itself is defined as a dedicated
space, thereby sidestepping historical and canonically ingrained
stereotypes about what it should look like, and what it contains. For
Longmore, a studio is simply a space that has been purposed for
making art, and as such they can take many forms, existing as
legitimately in large airy warehouses as in the corners of rooms
within homes.
As Longmore states unequivocally, "The
project is not intended to survey the hidden studio practice of
artists, but rather to stimulate the production of [her] own work
within an unfamiliar environment" ,
and it is vital to recognise the intention here, even whilst the
figure of the Other Artist and the mystifying space of the studio
loom large. She is not inviting the audience in to a studio in order
to make artistic practice transparent and accessible, or to glorify
the eccentric practices of artists at work. It is inevitable,
however, that the studios which she works within are in some way
shown and represented, whether simply through her pictures (which
can’t help but reveal a fragment of the site) or in the imagination
of the viewer, who is aware of the existence of an unknowable ‘other’
studio via knowledge of the process.
The work that Longmore has produced
and documented as part of Objects for a Studio is necessarily site
specific, and verges on the collaborative, albeit without
acknowledgement. Residencies, site specific artworks, and any project
where some form of contact, or negotiation is prerequisite, are bound
to be cooperative to some extent, but not necessarily collaborative.
Here, due to the intimate and personal nature of Longmore's
particular form of residency, it can be argued that a strange type of
collaboration is present. These collaborative traces are compelling
and enigmatic; simultaneously subverting and enacting traditional
notions, whilst exemplifying the ponderous ubiquity of collaboration
within contemporary art practice.
Intentional constraints as a catalyst
Whilst Objects for a Studio is a
self-contained project, Longmore utilises techniques that not only
allude to her wider practice, but can also be seen to communicate a
working ideology, referring to particular movements in art history,
as well as commenting on conventions in contemporary art. At base,
the project is a generative technique formulated by Longmore to act
as a catalyst within her practice, by way of devising a set of
constraints and rules to work within and against. This is referred to
by the artist in her statement of intent, describing the project as a
way "to stimulate the production of [her] own work within an
unfamiliar environment".
It may seem counter intuitive, to try and inspire new work by
developing boundaries, instead of aiming for complete freedom,
However, rules and constraints are an inevitable part of art-making.
The idea that admitting, probing and exploring boundaries can
generate ideas and new works is not a new one, and one can trace this
methodology to specific groups and movements in art history, such as
Fluxus (specifically in terms of event scores produced during the
1960's) and Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop
of Potential Literature), a still-in-existence group founded in 1960
by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais, who produce works of
literature using constrained writing techniques.
Within the aforementioned historical
groups, such procedures were usually specified in directives and
manifestos, with written rules being a requirement of generative
techniques. Similarly, in Objects for a Studio, the rules are
outlined as part of Longmore's publicly available statement, paying
particular attention to the emotional impact of the studio as a site
of production. The rules and constraints that Longmore has chosen are
not arbitrary, and Objects for a Studio is not an exercise in
automatic creation, or mechanical production. These rules have been
carefully chosen and developed, in order to amplify the intimacy and
intensity of the Artists’ chosen site, and to necessitate the
production of work, expounding a belief that by following
pre-determined maxims, we can unlock new and experimental forms of
creativity.
As well as the constraints of time,
space and material, which Longmore has chosen, Objects for a Studio
is also subject to obligatory practical constraints, which can be
seen to refer to the generality of making. There is a slippage here
between artistic intention and the influence of physical and temporal
context, in that, to some extent, all artists are working within
constraints that will have an effect on how their work develops.
However, Longmore takes this inevitability and deliberately utilises
it, rendering recognisable contemporary logistical pressures, such as
the necessity for forward planning and careful organisation of time,
fruitful rather than frustrating, whilst simultaneously operating
within the same systems that make this way of working unavoidable.
Objects for a Studio is not the first
of Longmore's projects to incorporate intentional generative
constraints. Her interest is initially apparent in the 2009 group
show IV, whereby Longmore and three other artists; Tom Baskeyfield,
Julie Del’Hopital, and Sarah Sanders wrote and adhered to four
maxims, in order to produce four works - one each - which would be
shown at Manchester's Rogue Project Space, in an exhibition with the
tagline “4 maxims, 4 artists, 4 works” . Each maxim, referred to
one of four "basic elements in the production of work",
defined by the artists as time, material, scale and thought or
systems of belief. Longmore describes how such constraints provided
the work with a context, and aided her ability to focus during the
making process, indicating that, for Longmore, the use of generative
techniques and the methods described above is definitively practical,
as well as ideological.
Returning to the discussion of Objects
for a Studio specifically, Longmore carefully manages her working
environment, which in turn becomes an intrinsic part of the temporary
sculptures which she produces and photographs. Within these
parameters, the artist also leaves room to manoeuvre creatively, and
it is clear that her intention is not to invite other artists to
follow her rules, and to produce their own Objects for a Studio.
Longmore describes herself as having been inspired by Sol Lewitt's
'sentences on conceptual art'
in her use of rules and structures, however she does not go so far as
to fabricate systems whereby the actual work can be created by
anybody other than the herself. In his 'Paragraphs on Conceptual
Art', which was published simultaneously with 'Sentences...' Lewitt
declares that in the case of conceptual art "the execution is a
perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art".
To some extent Objects for a Studio conforms to Lewitt's definition
of conceptual art, the process and technique of seeking out willing
artists, travelling to studios and spending exactly one day working
within them can be seen as the machine which makes the art. Yet,
there is a remaining contingency and subjectivity inherent in this
project, ensuring that each expression of the process cannot be
repeated, and this is a symptom of Longmore's chosen site.
Access to Other Artists' Studios
Referring once again Longmore's own
statement of intent, the artist describes the studio as a site of
intensity and feeling, declaring she "[hopes] to provoke the
extremes of emotion that the studio creates" .
By remarking upon the abstract and subjectively experienced
properties of the site, Longmore insinuates that by conducting these
residencies within studios, she will be able to produce spontaneity
and unknown outcomes, regardless of the predictability of repeated
actions generated by constraints. Thus, although Longmore uses a wide
definition of the studio, she still indicates that there is something
peculiar to these spaces, a quality which enables and inspires the
production of artwork. As well as defining the studio as a dedicated
space, Longmore also refers to studios as containers, playing a part
in forming the work which is produced within them, further
emphasizing the way that these sites have been selected, according to
a belief in their power to influence the formation of objects.
For the non-artist viewer, there is
also a level of mystery associated with the studio, a place of
privacy and genesis, which is only to be viewed by invite or at well
organised open studio events, and only then when the artist chooses
to take part. Paraphrased by Brian O'Doherty, in his preface to the
Salon of 1846, Baudelaire explains how the bourgeoisie might
"[consign] it's alienated imagination not only to the artist,
but to the magical space where art is pondered and brought into
being", expressing the concept of an arcane, and necessarily
confounded voyeurism around the public desire to see inside artists'
studios. The treatment of the studio in the process, and
documentation of Objects for a Studio, admits this mystical
voyeurism, whilst also managing to approach the site with sensitivity
and understanding, somewhat maintaining its' concealment from public
view. Thus, whilst expounding that studios are not public spaces,
Objects for a Studio offers a tantalising glimpse of the many studios
within which Longmore has worked, but makes no pretence to be showing
them in completeness. Instead, these other studios are presented
through a lens of artistic production, as a piece of Longmore's own
work in the form of a photograph.
The photograph as a mode of
representation presents only a snapshot, one angle of a wider, and
more nuanced situation. Therefore, the photograph is an appropriate
form for Objects for a Studio, as the audience is aware of unknowns
lurking beyond the frame. In this way, within Longmore's photographs,
studios are pictured as honestly as they can be, and are represented
as changing spaces of fluidity and temporality, by virtue of the
medium through which they are shown, and the nature of the sculptures
which have been photographed. This shifting form of representation,
which attempts to confound voyeurism through gestures appropriate to
the space, belies a deep and firsthand understanding of the nature of
studios, and is in clear contrast to other contemporary methods of
studio display. For instance, at The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin,
artist Francis Bacon's studio has been catalogued and relocated from
London, to be displayed in what appears to be its' original state,
but is in fact "a carefully constructed artifice".
Bacon's Studio in Dublin is not the
only example of the studio being recreated in the gallery, whether by
curator or artist. In 1964 Lucas Samaris installed Room, a recreation
of his studio/bedroom at The Green Gallery in New York, presented for
public consumption as an artwork in itself. His reconstruction of a
studio, his treating every splatter and mote of dust as a vital part
of an artists' oeuvre, wilfully overlooks the fundamental privacy and
mutability of the studio that Longmore consciously attempts to
preserve in her representations: Brian O'Doherty refers to the nature
of artworks, whilst they remain within the studio, as aesthetically
unstable, a description which is applicable to Longmore's temporary
sculptures in a literal sense. Her works illustrate the instability
of time within the studio, with their very obvious physical frailty
and precarity.
Longmore's determined preservation of
the Other Artists' privacy emphasises the importance of studios as
confidential spaces, where artists' can experiment away from the
critical gaze. Given that Longmore is clearly interested in
respecting this requirement, it is interesting to consider her
process in gaining access to so many of these non-public spaces. In
practical terms, Longmore has found that gaining access to multiple
studios is much easier with the help and backing of an institution.
For instance, at present she is working as resident artist at Salford
University, which has allowed her to utilise the institution's
influence and networks in order to make contact with groups of
studios, and therefore to gain access to individual studios. This
detail once again raises the issue of how a high level of
administration and vigilant planning are often necessary for
contemporary artists: in this way, the structures which Longmore must
work within in order to accomplish her objectives affect in macro the
structures which she has consciously designed.
As discussed above, when Longmore
arranges to work for a day in an Other Artists' studio, she is not
proposing to present that studio to the public, or to invite the
audience inside. Instead she could be said to be proposing a
collaboration of sorts, whereby she treats the studio as she would
her own, using the space only as it has already been dedicated; as a
space in which to make work. Then, working within the knowledge that
this dedicated space, this studio, actually belongs to somebody else,
Longmore utilises paraphernalia of the Other Artists' practice both
as a point of inspiration, and as her medium. By her treatment of
studios within Objects for a Studio, Longmore is enacting a complex
form of cooperation and portrayal with the Other Artist and their
workspace which, as previously outlined, utilises a form of
representation which is appropriate to subject, thereby avoiding a
problematic fictionalisation of the site.
Collaboration
When Longmore goes to work for a day in
the Other Artist's studio, they are only sometimes there during the
process, and as such, it is not necessary for Objects for a Studio
that the two artists must work together in a literal, tangible way.
However, regardless of whether they are physically present or not,
the work which Longmore has produced and documented during Objects
for a Studio, could not have existed without the Other Artist's
practice. In this way, Longmore's practice in Objects for a Studio is
dependent on the Other Artists', and therefore a somewhat skewed form
of collaboration is implicit in the project. This peculiar
collaborative aspect is not directly addressed by Longmore, which
could be taken to indicate that it is not - at least not
intentionally - an integral part of the project. Yet, the spectral
figure of the Other Artist haunts Objects for a Studio, their
semi-anonymity in the process, confounding traditional conceptions of
collaboration.
In his discussion of contemporary
collaboration, The Third Hand, Charles Green posits the groupings of
the late 1960's as the beginnings of the sorts of self-consciously,
ideologically complex collaborations that we are familiar with today.
He also traces a trajectory for these practices, whereby
collaborations, and the collaborative theories which were abandoned
in favour of postmodernism in the 1980's, enjoyed a resurgence in the
late 1990's, indicating a belief that the current ubiquity of
collaborative practices, is part of a sweeping historical trend.
Green frames collaboration as an attempt to rethink artistic
identity, to either erase, or to somehow fundamentally alter the
signature of the artist. The process and results of Objects for a
Studio certainly approach the concept artistic identity in usual
ways, but there does not seem to be any ideologically inspired
erasure of the artists's signature. Instead of substituting the
identity of two or more artists for a separate, purely collaborative
'third hand' identity, Objects for a Studio is presented as a part of
Longmore's practice alone. Yet, the Other Artist is sometimes named,
or remains anonymous only by choice, and their existence is always
presented as being of central importance to the project. In this way,
the identities of two artists, Longmore and the Other Artist, are
simultaneously, but distinctly represented, and combined only
partially, and momentarily. This temporary synthesis being what
Longmore documents in her photographs.
Whilst both Longmore and the Other
Artists' actuality and identity are unquestionably represented here,
by working exclusively with the ephemera of the Other Artist's
practice, Longmore is generating an unequal relationship which can
seem to confound a traditional understanding of collaboration. It
seems that only one member of the team, Longmore, is conscious in the
production of work, and the other artist is acting as a
found-archive, opening up their practice to be used as the raw
material for somebody else's. Longmore's Objects for a Studio
effectively raises questions of artistic authorship, in how far the
Other Artist, the archive, is acknowledged, bringing to mind the
artistic use of found objects, where the original maker, or designer
will often go uncredited. Although, despite the apparently unequal
relationship between artist and archive, within Objects for a Studio,
consent is sought from participants, who can be assumed to understand
what it is that they're involving themselves with. This issue of
consent is crucial in seeking to understand the relationships which
are formed in the course of Objects for a Studio, indicating that
rather than exploitative and one-sided, they are multi-faceted and
consensual, which de-problematises the issue of attribution.
Objects for a Studio can be seen to
exist in two experientially distinct parts. For the Other Artist, and
anybody else involved with administration of the project, it would
happen as a kind of participatory performance, whereas, for the
viewer, Objects for a Studio exists as a series of documentary
photographs, and some copy explaining the process. This dual ontology
is typical of temporary and performative artworks, especially those
that cannot be repeated. Considering this experiential rupture, it
becomes clear that when we take the experience of the Other Artists
and other actors into account, Objects for a Studio can be perceived
as a form of temporal, interventionist, performance art. By
presenting the project via a website, a standing document of copy and
pictures, Longmore is communicating the importance of the process, of
what happens outside of and around the pictures, that capture just a
moment of the entire performance which goes to make up the work. The
extent to which Longmore explains Objects for a Studio to the
audience can be taken as intentional, and as an example of how much
we are supposed to know about the project. Longmore gives us a
general sense, and a broad description of the process, but few
details. Details and interest are saved to be expressed in the
photographs, the only opportunity for the viewer's curiosity to be
visually sated, which infuses the pictures with possibilities and
projected meanings, appropriately expressing the aforementioned
intensity of the site.
It has already been established that
the collaborative aspects of Objects for a Studio are not calculated,
they appear intrusive, or to have been unavoidable, and this
apparently inadvertent form of collaboration raises the issue of
whether collaboration has become somehow embedded within contemporary
art practice. The structures and habits which are now noticeably
pervasive within contemporary art making - residencies, networking,
collectives, and a striving for diversity of voices - are clearly
appropriate to the practice of collaboration. Perhaps collaboration
is now synonymous with so many of the common practices within
contemporary art that its manifestation within Objects for a Studio
is inevitable. A striking commonality between Objects for a Studio
and other contemporary collaborative practices is the fact of
pre-planning and administration, acts entirely consistent with the
nature of the project. This administration necessitates communication
and cooperation with others as an integral part of the artwork, which
can perhaps be considered as a form of collaboration, within which
these other helpers and performers have become part of a transient
collective with Longmore.
As Andrea Thal explains, when two or
more artists work together there is a level of discussion and
planning which takes place prior to the actual production of any art
work, which can be seen as a work in itself, and is in fact typical
of collectives, which are then typical within contemporary art
practice; "this communication, the exchange leading to the
production of something, is a collective's very first, and probably
most typical work".
In the case of Objects for a Studio the communication, discussion,
planning and admin that takes place prior to the actual studio day is
of a particular pre-determined type, wrought out through trial and
error over the four years that the project has run. Longmore has
taken Objects for a Studio to a number of different geographical
locations, working in over sixty studios, inferring a significant
amount of discussion, planning, and indeed work, before anything
recognisable as art-work can take place. However, in terms of Thal's
analysis of collaborative practice, this arrangement, which has
become typical of the project, could be taken as a form of art work.
Conclusion
The temporality that
is inherent in Objects for a Studio resists straightforward analysis,
and the ways in which Longmore attempts to play with the conventions
of contemporary art from within art-world structures, creates a fluid
and shifting aesthetic, which hints, but does not pronounce. The
photographs form a coherent body of work, communicating the
particular qualities of the studio as a site in which time and space
behave unusually, by virtue of the kind of work that is conducted
within. These photographs form a document of the project, and refer
to it in the same way as a sign, signifying the amorphous and
fluctuating whole, which exemplifies and enacts common practices, and
necessities associated with working as an artist.
Longmore does not seem to be offering
an argument or manifesto, or even a judgement on the structures which
this work traverses, and yet the project raises a plethora of
questions including but not limited to; what constitutes artistic
collaboration in a situation where working together is often
essential, although not necessarily an intentional device? In the
context of Objects for a Studio this gentle, non-judgemental exposure
is sufficient. Were aspects of the project, such as behind-the-scenes
administration, to be documented along with Longmore's assemblages,
their ontology would be altered, losing their status as real and
turning the whole process into pure performance.
Longmore avoids this, explaining only
what she considers to be necessary for the audience to appreciate the
work, and refusing to offer an analysis of the situation. There is a
sense of rightful privacy expounded by Longmore - whilst her
photographs depict beautiful but unsettling moments in which objects
bristle with the energy of things being other than they should, of
rearrangement, of experimentation. The studio is, perhaps, the only
dedicated space where such incidental experimentation is allowed, but
any site could be a studio, and it only takes a dedication. Thereby
the assignation of function to spaces becomes like a mystical spell,
just as ground can be consecrated, so a space can be dedicated. It is
with these hints pertaining to abstract concepts and magic that
Longmore counteracts what could be an otherwise unequivocal
experience for the viewer, of repeated actions resulting in pictures.
Bibliography
Crawford, Holly.
Artistic Bedfellows: Histories, Theories and Conversations in
Collaborative Art Practices. University Press of America (2008)
Grabner, Michelle &
Jacob, Mary Jane Eds. The Studio Reader: On the space of artist.
University of chicago Press (2010)
Green, Charles. The
Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to
Postmodernism. UNSW Press (2001)
LeWitt, Sol,
"Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," in: Artforum (1967),
79–83; A. Legg (ed.)
Longmore, Jessica.
Jessica Longmore: artist. URL:
http://seabrookhost.com/jessica/?page_id=83 [2012 - 2013]
O'Doherty, Brian. Studio
and Cube. A FORuM Project Publication (2007)
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