Painting and Installation

Reconciling the conceptual and the formal


The balance of the conceptual and the visual will probably always be one of the main questions in aesthetics and artistic practice. Does the expression New-formalism scare you? What about New critical-historicism? Painting and installation are a good representation of the formal and the conceptual in my practice and the following text is a personal / unconventional way to present my worries regarding these open questions.


Painting

The academic experience I had during my degree will be used in this small text to exemplify the underpinning of a few crucial ideas on the choice of media and its implications. It is almost unanimous that painting and installation have opposite properties: the first has an almost unbearable historical legacy and the second one is probably one of the most recent media, painting gives the observer a surface to be looked at and installation immerses and includes any participants in an artificial experience… just to give two examples. Historically the 70’s are a great example of how installation grows strong and painting is attacked by certain philosophical references such as Derrida or Roland Barthes. However it is obvious today painting is not dead (and neither is the author probably) and will probably never be as long as Art isn’t… But there are reasons for sculptors, installation artists, film and video artists, photographers and conceptual artists to develop the wish to kill it and that is what I intend to explore with the following words.
I started exploring the art world through printed reproductions of paintings and the paintings I saw in museums. Drawing and painting watercolours were the first creative experiences I was aware to have a strong artistic sense. All the 3 D work I developed before I was taught Arts wasn’t a conscious artistic activity but as a playful activity: recreational rather then creative to my eyes. Most of my artistic idols were painters before I joined a private painting school in Lisbon.
In this school I was taught in detail about the technical, formal and commercial side of painting. In a very personal (Master-pupil) system I had an experience of expression of intuitive emotions and the questioning and learning of aesthetic decisions such as texture, composition, colour, scale and shape. The process and the record of the author’s interaction with the canvas surface was the goal of these works which had to be self-sustained but part of a search of a style that would later on lead to a commercial approach to an almost branded product.
After two unfinished courses (Medicine and Engineering) I realised painting gave a sense of fulfilment and achievement I never had before in my life. Overconfident on my artistic experience I exhibited, sold a lot of work but most of all I had the attention of everyone that knew me. People looked at the work and questioned it by standing in from of it for endless minutes, sometimes hours. In the end they left me a typewritten message and gave me strength to apply to a fine art course.
Before I came to Coventry for this degree I became aware of how criticism could target the self-indulgent artist. My explorations extended to Calder’s mobiles and started asking questions to Duchamp. Giacometi was a 3d painter in my perspective. The Guernica in Madrid was the iconic artwork I felt most comfortable with. But the galleries I visited never allowed me to accept that as a permanent situation. Shows in Bilbao’s Guggenheim, Barcelona, Lisbon (Gary Hill), Paris Centre Pompidou, Dutch museums and sculpture gardens and installations started energising a wish to explore other properties of the creative process. And the fact that Paul Klee’s books were much more boring then Kandinky’s gave me the feeling I needed to let myself go into other worlds. Duchamp was a crucial artist in this period. I couldn’t paint for a few months. I wrote, read and tried to understand how much art history I was excluding from my horizons.
When I came to this university where I’m about to graduate I decided to join the sculpture module. This experience was based in found objects (umbrellas) and these were enough to keep me working in installations and sculpture for one year. But I also joined the painting module during 6 weeks. It was a nightmare. I had a photographer, a screen printer and an installation artist tutoring me. I used to have months with a canvas and now I had 4 or 5 weeks to accomplish something that was going to be assessed. My investigations led me to Wittgenstein and displacement. Coincidence and new historicism started erupting in my writing but the academic side of Basquiat wasn’t something these studio practice tutors would be interested to see explored with paint. They asked me to interpret one painting and yet what they really wanted was that I showed them I could paint or that I approached some other media like a painter (installation or photography for example). In the end of the module a tutor said he was quite sure I wasn’t a painter. A statement no one should ever make to anyone. I honestly believe no one can say to another if they are painters or not. If you are one you know you are. If you don’t think you have it in you it’s because you don’t.
While these painting weeks were going on I chose not to talk about the work I was doing is the studio except for the assessment where I stated I didn’t have any finished project. That wasn’t taken in consideration. I had the only B I ever had for a final grade in the area I was most confident. After I questioned a grade (C) in sound engagement when I was one of the few in the studio 24/7 and I realized there was nothing I could do to be understood by these “painters”. Painting was too intimate for me to put it into practice in an art school. Unless you were doing portraits or had a really traditional approach to painting you got yourself in trouble while struggling with any other experimental painting research. I realized then why Francis Bacon (probably the best British painted of the 20th century) never studied in an art school. I came back to Installation and sculpture and I started feeling the painters around me were not as clever as they could/should… there was a certain sense of revenge on that media through the criticism of the intellectual limitations of those that were painting around me. Interactive art, science and the 4th dimension were the steps I took in order to start exploring a strong conceptual based 3D practice. The found objects were attained in skips and randomness was integrated in the creative process. Interaction with other artists happened naturally (something that would have never happened with painting). But there were a few things that made me feel strange about my studio practice: people engaged with the interactive process of the 3D work, they said is was working… but I didn’t see them standing in from of it for long periods of time trying to understand what I was going through or what my intentions were. Another thing that happened and gave the wish to kill the painter in me was the fact that my first year work for the sculpture module was in the skip after I came back from my summer holydays. Why was that work that achieved A grades during the year skipped by my tutors and the unfinished canvas that had a B- kept in the storage room in the fifth floor? This is a preconception and a practical issue. Canvases are worth money even if they are blank and found objects just aren’t. It is easy to store canvas and the 3D work is impossible to keep around in an unstable studio like the basement. Even if this is true a practitioner has to feel the injustice underlying these facts.
Before I went to Portugal I saw a poster for a painting competition in university. I painted a mural during the summer and won it. A commission happened afterwards. I was given a prize by the university for the enthusiasm and work I put into that project. After this was complete I had two publicly exhibited murals in Lisbon Medicine School and the Warwick Science Park. I also had enough money to go around the world if I wasn’t accepted in a master course. Nonetheless I decided not to include these paintings in my application portfolio and determined to pursue installation and sculpture in an academic level. Surprisingly a collector that bought me a painting in my first exhibition offered me his gallery for a show in Portugal with a printed catalogue in July 2006. The 3D practitioner in me felt jealous of the painter: as revenge he decided to be part of that same show by the presence of digital prints, an interactive sculpture and even an installation of agricultural machinery in the gallery. But I’m sure the painter will reply with canvas at least as big as a man. This show became a battle ground for me. It’s a civil war in my artistic country. Another strange fact concerning painting and my installation practice is that I was really prolific while I was painting the mural with my installation work and after I finished it I had a period of disorientation in both painting and Sculpture/Installation. I used this time to read, make a website, got my work done for the several hand-ins I had for the multiple university modules and finally I planned out several 3D projects. I believe a dissertation and a studio fine-art practice module would be enough for a fine art course but this structure was designed to help those lazy students around me to do something. And it works… I just wonder if that is holding my practice back. I guess I’ll find out next year.


The studio


In Portugal I had two studios while I was painting. One at home, with a view over the ocean and half of it made of glass and all the canvas protected from the sun o the other half. The other one was a shared large scale studio where I usually spent the night painting in a romantic dream I was designing for my self. I had friends doing installation and attacking me. I had friends doing research based painting which used to come for dinner and paint with me at least until one o’clock in the morning. After they left, I usually kept going until the sun was high in the sky… then I would dive home struggling with my sleepiness and trying to focus on the beauty of the seaside view. During this time I used to dream about the typical American “loft” studio. I thought about Basquiat and Pollock not as critical historical problems but as friends.
When I came to Coventry I only had a studio in university but I painted in my room whenever I had a chance. It wasn’t the same. Painting needs room. The political, social and institutional side of the studio is crucial for painting. It’s the place where your friends come to talk and drink tea or beer. It’s where you share journals and books. It’s where the artist keeps images filed and in a way it becomes an imaginary space where the work is conceived and pre-digested for the gallery test.
If I’m accepted in my MA course I’ll have a small studio but it will be in London. If I’m rejected I have my home studio facing the sea and a barn in a country side to explore in every possible way (including 3D work). I can easily find a gallery to exhibit that wok in Portugal but it will be in the self contained “bubble” of the Portuguese society. If I worked 3D I couldn’t probably sustain my costs without help but I would have a wonderful portfolio for next year’s application for the MA in UCLA, Royal College and all the other places I will (re)apply.
The greatest thing about going back to Portugal will be the fact that I’ll be influencing the construction and adaptation of a barn to a large scale studio. This is an exceptional opportunity and will help me outline the possibility of the exploration of architecture in the future. This is starting to make sense because of the properties of installation I’ve been thinking about. In a way I’m starting to feel Architecture as a commercial / functional approach to installation. I don’t know how many skills I’ll have to develop to be able o apply to a course in this area but those will probably be part of the computer courses I’ll do next year if I go back to my home country.


Installation

The definition of this media evolved incredibly during the past 3 years. My first two works in this area were shown in my first painting exhibition and had two labels: one said it was priceless and the other one said it was worthless. I tried during this degree to find out what was the common thread of my 3D work. At first I thought I would be “Umbrella man” for ever. Everyone in the building knew me for my honest but “screaming” obsession. In my second year I was in peace with Duchamp, conceptual art, interactive art, the forth dimension and science was the subject I thought would always persist in my installations. I was wrong once more. This year my reflective practice led me to this question again: what is the constant common ground of my work? Is it possible that it is language? Maybe it appears to be theoretically but I never included text as part of my work. Perhaps I should! There were several signs I got from Claire Bishop, Keith Sonier, Dan Flavin and even Banks Violette that related installation to Language and the exploration of perception but there is one very disturbing fact: when I was asked in the MA interview what was the common thread in my work I answered without hesitating: “The formal approach to my practice is what holds all my conceptual explorations together and make this body of work consistent” instead of a collection of research topics. This is related to a critical-historical questioning of an erupting formalism in my practice.
Another fact that makes me believe that I’ll stick to installation in my academic life is the fact that I believe it’s stronger work because of its balance between the obvious formal qualities and the conceptual investigations I embrace. Maybe that is just an illusion caused by the fact that it is much easier for me to write and speak about 3D work. When I talk about painting specifically I realize I’m rather being too vague or to specific, pretentious or analytical, silent or overconfident. I realized that I could still do my 3D work if I could speak while I was tied down to a chair if I had technicians to help. That would never happen with any canvas. It’s not the hand of the artist that is at steak in that example… it’s the fact that the eye and the hand are showing a different kind of thought while they are painting. In installation and sculpture work sometimes my creative process is finished even before I started: there is a plan, a sketch and a certain number of steps I have to go through in order to finish it but while I’m doing so I’m almost just a slave of the creative mind that ordered those steps and called it fine-art practice. Obviously there are exceptions, intuitions and surprises in this process if you are a student just starting to explore your potential.
The feeling I have once I finish a painting and an installation are quite disturbing. A painting is a like a son that finds its own place in the world and starts its own life. An installation is a corpse. A dead body very similar to a Frankenstein only alive if plugged into the mains… but always a body waiting to be slaughtered by the scared population that just can’t understand the nature of the revitalization of rejects.
There is a certain spirituality painting has which is quite hard to describe. However there is an excitement in the hard core of installation that can overcome any obstacles outlined with words.


The inseparability Thesis


In an article called Separable Insight: Reconciling Cognitivism and Formalism is aesthetics one can find the following:

The inseparability theory of form and content is traditionally associated with formalism and it

states that (1) it is impossible to have the same content in two different forms; and (2) it is impossible to have the same form is two different contents.

This theory says the author of the article can not be ignored because of its traditional association. And in the article he tries to argue that this thesis is compatible with cognitivism. And what is cognitivism? You are a cognitivist if you answer positively to the following questions:

(1) Can art provide knowledge? And, if it can, (2) how is this aesthetically relevant?

To simplify things I can tell you right away I define myself as a Cognitivist who also believes in the inseparability thesis. And because we have this article published arguing why these are compatible I’ll leave that discussion for other texts. What is relevant for me is that some people qualify the mural I did in the science park as almost pedagogical. And I don’t mind that. The second fact is that recently there was a show in Hamburg called: New Formalism – modern art today (Kunstverein Hamburg). This title scares me especially because of the “modern art today”. We are not Post Modernists or even Post Post Modernists… I think that makes sense. We are Post everything else: Post Minimalists, Post Surrealists, Post Conceptualist… But how does that help in any way? New Formalism is a disturbing new box where we can fall easily if we don’t question the importance of New Historicism and New Criticism. The question I feel like asking is: Does it help to use the word new instead of Post? Neo Liberals are still liberals… New Historicists are still historians. I don’t see how we will ever be able to come back to any ism and feel comfortable if we don’t have a well defined cutting edge not even in Contemporary Art courses. If I say I’m a Neo-Neo Dada What I’m saying is that in fact I would like to part of Dadaism. There is no way around this labelling challenge. People keep struggling and it will be in the back of almost every creative mind. Until we have a strong statement and an brand new umbrella with a document written down and supported by a large group of meaningful artist… we’ll be just be arguing about the words and Wittgenstein will be right more then he ever was when he pointed out that every philosophical problem is a semantic problem. I don’t know is New formalism will ever be the movement I was writing about but I can’t see many other candidates. It sounds like the worst possible one. I Agree. But it is quite similar to contemporary politics: we don’t vote in what we believe in, we just vote in the candidate we can bare as a Prime Minister.


Metaphors

There are two ideas that work like metaphors for the qualification of Painting and Installation. The first one is the almost surrealist story of a society where all culture is based on Painting. Almost everyone paints. All documents are in Canvas. Painting is a synonym of culture. It this society paint is everywhere and is used non-stop by its members. The problem is that this society has outsiders… people that can’t communicate through painting. These are rather people born outside this culture who live far away and it that cases their existence is ignored by all the painters. The other group of outsiders was born inside this society. But because they didn’t pick up the habit of licking the paintbrush after they washed it they don’t ingest the hallucinogenic chemicals present in the traces of paint of the paintbrush. This biochemical difference is enough to build a barrier between these people and everyone else that for apparently no reason licks the paintbrush after washing it in the water.
Another metaphor that helps me and Cooper express a few ideas about installation: the contemporary art military academy. This is a reality show exclusive for contemporary artists and students. In this training centre people have to wake up and behave like militaries. No emotions and a lot of discipline. The course would consist on an intensive reading program which would include literature, philosophy and art history. Everyone would have to be fit mentally, physically and emotionally because there wouldn’t be any room for disappointment or partial brake downs… At five o’clock in the morning everyone would be in the studios working as hard as if their exhibition was the next day. The two hour lunch break would be used for round tables and discussions about the articles read the day before. In the beginning of the afternoon artistic training exercises such as collection of found objects, intuitive compositional challenges and other tests would prepare the students for the intense late afternoon session in the studio. During the night more reading took place and this would include any writing practice. The challenge would be to check how many days each artist could take at this pace. Everyone’s head would be shaved. Personal lives put a side. Everyone in this academy would be a “jar head” that would collect artistic concepts and forms. No artists would come out of it…