Craig and the imaginary camera



Craig’s Back Clash


Craig was enthusiastic about the triptych we were making out of found laser cut wood but something happened and now I was pleased to know that he was actually interested in finishing the work.

One of the good things about cooperative work is that we manage to process information, references, ideas and even intuitive problems such as the one that just happened last Friday.

There were a series of events that triggered this strange thing, I dared calling a back clash, in Craig’s attitude:
-First of all Craig felt the weight of a demanding project that takes more then a couple of days to accomplish. Usually he enjoys the process of thought and not the physical challenge and I believe that is why until now he did effective but quick assemblages… Another helpful clue is the fact that Craig wood love to have a big team of artist/technicians working for him in the future, proving that the making is despised by his intuitive/rational attitude towards his practice. I wouldn’t mind having one myself, obviously, but I have a closer connection with the physicality of work and the persistence large scale requires. (I’m not saying with this that Craig can’t work in large scale in any way because he already proved otherwise.)
-Secondly I have been working on the mural and apart from that we have been working together and, if not in the studio, we were talking in the pub. The relevance of this is that not only he is not having time to work on his individual body of work but also that he might need some distance or re-avaluate this period of intense work.
-Besides these stronger reasons there were other little things: technicians came and enjoyed what we were doing (good or not it was something that never happened before), secondly we were using wood for the first time and finally someone asked what did it do, I replied:
-What does a painting do? – Instead I should have said:
-What does an installation do?
Because this work looks more approachable it doesn’t mean it’s simpler. Because I don’t think it is nor simpler nor inferior in any way.

The subject of this work is a critic to painting. The negative of a painting. Industrial objects trying to pretend they are "furnituresk" or decorative and feeling offender by it. Visually it has some connection to Tapiés paintings. But we don’t want to go that way. Visual resemblance is not worth exploring at this stage.

Should we stick to the plan outlined in Photoshop and floor compositions? Or should we let our other objects invade the “back of the canvas”? Are we saying anything at all about imaginary machinery with this work? Does it have any connection to my scientific past that I’m not aware of… is it easier for me because it’s a kind of a passage way from the painted mural to the installation triptych?

I still think Craig got scared with the possibility of changing to fast artistically and losing his “signature”… whatever is characteristic of his work. He almost never worked with wood and always avoided to comment painting… There were many connections to the metal properties, trendy/fashion in his previous work. Maybe this one is too organized… too tidy. Chaos is needed. But is it? Or does he need it? I don’t know. To avoid this loss of character Craig took the afternoon off to make a mohican in his hair. With this attitude he made sure the punk and “what he believes is unique about him” is visible to everyone. I believe that those paradigmatic rock star/punk teenager/popular artistic star/ excessively bohemian profile he admires is what holds him from assuming the uniqueness he obviously has and that comes through the originality of his ideas, work and creative process.

At one point Craig was making jokes about burning the triptych… why was that? Not just a childish attitude… It was way beyond that: he wanted to test if I was attached to the work in any way. What he meant by that was that because it is cooperative work destruction can’t be as natural as it would be if it was individual work. After all we have to respect the other person’s judgement and constructive wishes… on the other hand we both know that destruction is as important for the creative process as anything else (including construction). When death and destruction are absent… it just “doesn’t work”… Everyone knows this since modernism. I don’t believe that is the current situation or need of “They do in the magazines I read”. We have the presence of decay. We have errors, mistakes, unfinished look, raw feelings… that is all part of destruction.

Craig asked me: But is it good enough? No one knows... until it is finished. And then we’ll judge and evaluate what was achieved.