Collecting the Uncollectable Transcript

7/28/2019 Collecting the Uncollectable Transcript

1/31

Collecting the Uncollectable Panel Discussion

Hosted by Market Project at Aide & Abet, Cambridge

30th June 2011

Chair: David Kefford.

Speakers: Bob Lee from The Collective, Michael Pinsky, visual artist and Henry Little from

the Contemporary Art Society.

David Kefford

Just before we start I just need to send an apology on behalf of Paul Hobson, who

unfortunately is unable to join us this evening. However, we do have Henry Little here

from the Contemporary Arts Society who is gone to be filling his shoes. Tonights

discussion really focuses on the challenges and opportunities for both artist and

collectors, who make and buy work that doesnt necessarily fit the traditional view of art

works as unique and self-contained objects. For those that dont know me my name is

David Kefford, I am a visual artist, I am a member of Market Project and also one of the

co-founders of Aid and Abet, along with C J Mahoney and Sarah Evans. I am delighted to

be joined this evening by a panel of invited guest speakers. Weve got Bob Lee from The

Collective in London a group of people who purchase and share contemporary art work

together. Weve got Michael Pinsky, a visual artist, mainly making work to commission

through residencies in the public realm and Henry Little from the Contemporary Art

Society, a membership organisation which exists to develop public collections of

contemporary art in the UK. I just wanted to kind of contextualize this event by giving abit of a back ground to both Market Project and Aid and Abet and I have down loaded

information off our web site. Ill sort of paraphrase what weve written.

Market Project is a collaborative initiative by eight artists and a curator who are all based

in the east of England. We are researching and shearing new method or opportunities for

artistic professional and economic development. We have a specific focus on

constructive engagement with economic and revenue making aspects of the art world. A

large part of our work will be a series of public forum events such as tonight and we are

exploring the ways in which artist can make a more sustainable living through their

practice. Market Project members are: Annabel Dover, Laura Earley, Julie Freeman,

Alistair Gentry, Helen Judge, myself, Anabelle Shelton, Elaine Tribley and Martha Winter.

We are supported through a grant from the arts from the Arts Council England.

Aid and Abet is an artist run contemporary art space, as I said it has been co-founded by

myself, Sarah and CJ. We are a peer organisation supporting regional, national and

international artists, in the production and presentation of contemporary art across all art

forms. Aid and Abet functions with supportive organisation to provide a creative platform

and out-let for artistic practise, with a particular interest in, cross disciplinary, self-initiated

and DIY approaches and the utilization of, diverse methods of distribution. In acomplimentary edition to our activities Aid and Abet also aims to develop the appreciation

of contemporary art by making a range of works available for sale, on an on-going base.


2/31

And I think most of you have probably seen a collection of those tonight, which is a

precursor to our next project Art is a Full time Hobby, which opens tomorrow at mid-day,

so back to tonights proceedings.

In terms of format each of our guest speakers will now introduce themselves and their roll

within the art world and their personal experience of working with collectors, collections

and artists. And then we are going to open this up to more of a, Q and A, style session,

where we invite you to ask questions to the panel, and any issues you might have in

relation to some of the topics weve been talking about this evening. Does that sound

reasonable? OK, I will hand over now to Michael.

Michael Pinsky

Ok, well we only have fifteen minutes each so I thought I would just focus on one project.

My practice has evolved in such a way, that my practice is more closely aligned to service

industries, than the sales industry and its not because I never wanted sell anything, its

just no ones ever wanted to buy anything. About twenty years ago I had a photography

exhibition, where my old school teacher bought photographs about that size and then

after that I sold a couple of other things, maybe for about four, or five hundred pounds

each and that was about it. That being said, I do completely live off my practice as an

artist, so there is obviously other ways than selling actual objects and its interesting how

you dont necessarily make a choice in these things, its just you gravitate to one sphere

or another. The trouble I have with making things, is making things is great, if you sell

them. If you dont sell them then youve got a big bill paying for a garage, or a lockup to

store them all in. I dont know if your all from around here thats not such a big issue

possibly, but I tell you, in the middle of London that is an enormous issue. When I have

had grants to do exhibitions and I thought, great, this is a fantastic opportunity to make

an enormous sculpture. And it tours for two or three years, and your dreading the day is

going to come home. And youre phoning up galleries, please, please, take this, I dont

care, Ill pay you to take this because I dont want it to come home, and then it comes

home and youre working out what to do with a four point six meter long sculpture. Its a

big problem and I dont know how many of you have the same problem. As long as you

sell your stuff its fine, you make it, you sell it and then some sort of rich collector, or not

rich collector, possibly in your case, poor collector, has it and stores it for you, rather than

you storing your own works. So I think thats quite key. So I have gravitated to work thatis more performative, more ephemeral, more commission based , well not exactly

commission based but where people kind of commission me to think about doing things,

I suppose. This is one example of a project I did in this town called; Torres Vedras, which

is slightly North of Lisbon and if any of you speak Portuguese. Do any of you speak

Portuguese? No, because you will pronounce it better than me, I mean, after two or three

years working in Torres Vedras, I still cant pronounce it but any way. So the town looks

like that, its kind of set in the hill side and the place that commissioned these is called;

Transforma. I bumped into them because I was in a book. And I was giving a talk, a bit

like to night, and a guy came up to me. And he was from here and he said I would reallylike to work with you some time. And then two years later he phoned up and said come

out to Torres Vedras. And thats kind of my perfect scenario, when people say come to


3/31

where we are and do something, that a perfect brief. You know it takes a long time to

write that out, two lines, those kind a briefs, there kind of this thick, you know, I dont like

those kind of briefs. I like a phone call saying just come out, weve got a bit of money,

what do you feel like doing? So thats the arts centre called Transforma and youll see a

little post box out there. And I was kind of interested in this post box and the tiles behind

it. And in fact, my first visit there, I just took a photograph of it and stuck it above thepost box. And I went back nine months later, on my next visit and its still there, above

there. So I thought, thats an amazing piece of work in the public realm, we didnt do any

health and safety audits, or anything, no vandalism reports, just put it there and it was

still there. So from that point I started to think about what else I would do. And like most

towns in Portugal external tiles are very, very prominent and I got quite obsessed by the

tiles on all the buildings on Torres Vedras. So I photographed every single building that

had tiles. (Michael points to a slide show of projected images) So thats your kind of

typical Portuguese tile. These are kind of old tiles, from the sixteenth, seventeenth century

but then these are kind very contemporary tiles, from the seventh. I love this tile, its a

shame we cant switch the sun off at the moment because the colours, but that tile is the

same as, that tile. And I think the best tile designs are the ones, when you reconfigure

them, they completely change in the way they look. This tile was on the outside of a bank

and every faade of the bank, all four sides had the same four tiles but in a different

configuration. I just thought that was really fantastic but you cant see it very well, can

you?(unfortunately there was too much light to fully see the projected images) So I had

this idea to photograph every single tile and then combine them into a single image. And

it wasnt just a question of fade them in, I Iooked at the components that made up the

design and then broke down those components until they merged into the next design.

So you can get an idea there. So each colour component, each design component,

breaks down until it joins the next design, then I split this design up into a hundred

sections. So thats my initial piece of work, were these tile designs in hundred sections,

seven meters by seven meters. I got the gallery then, because I was interested in how it

functioned as a network, this is a gallery that is in quite a rich but small town in Portugal

but its very well connected internationally. Very much a gallery that didnt look locally, it

looked completely globally, so it had a local audience and a global audience but not really

a national audience. And they were holding a big conference, so I asked them to print out

these tiles, which were, you know, well theres seven hundred, thats more like a meter

isnt it? So there are about seven hundred, by seven hundred and they posted them tothese people around the world. So people in Australia, the States and Germany, they

were phoned in advance and they had to agree to bring this tile with them to Torres

Vedras. And its kind of awkward bloody thing. So they were all sent them. And the whole

thing was about their commitment to this piece of work. If they thought they might not be

able to bring it, then they werent sent it. And the piece is called; Horror Vacui, which

means in Greek, fear of empty spaces. But it is also the reason why the Portuguese and

the Spanish, or the Moors have tile design because they absolutely hate the white wall.

They need to occupy every part of space with some sort of design, so thats the bases of

this work. For my kind of horror vacui was that someone might not turn up and thereforethere would be a gap in this. In this case everyone did turn up. So they all turned up, in

the central square of Torres Vedras and we drank some quite nice Portuguese wine that


4/31

they had there. And then Id marked out just the corners and I said put this design

together. And it only could go together in one configuration and I filmed this from a beam

so you had a birds eye view of it. And I thought this might take two or three hours, or

something like that but in fact they got up to it really fast. And there was a hell of a lot of

communication and we configured the whole thing in twenty-two minutes with no

instructions what so ever, a part from this one here. And someone had realized that, thatwas the tile that the Mayor of the town had and he was presently giving a talk in the town

hall. And hence he wasnt there, so someone had to run and get him. And he put the last

one in to a massive cheer of every one there. So it looked very orchestrated, so thats it,

the kind of finishing touches ( Michael is pointing to a projected image of the work)

David Kefford

Michael, how long did it last for, was it a kind of temporary work?

Michael Pinsky

Its temporary, we put it together in the main square and then we moved it to a kind of old

barn, kind of like this but much, much, much darker and more mysterious. And I

presented that, with a video of it being configured and that was there for a month or so.

The idea with this piece of work is that, then it gets sent from one gallery to another,

through the network of galleries Transformas part of. And each time will probably lose

one of these parts of the jigsaw, in which case well put the excuse of why its not there

instead of the jigsaw, so it will be; I was ill, or the flight was cancelled, or something like

that, so eventually the piece of work want exist at all

David Kefford

These people have come globally?

Michael Pinsky

Yeah, you will hear them talking all sorts of different languages but the idea is eventually

this piece, eventually just disappears, just becomes a hundred excuses. And these

hundred tile forms will be somewhere in the world but we wont know, maybe in an airport

departure lounge, or stuck in the back of some ones cupboard and not being valued.

Audience member

So there are empty spaces.

Michael Pinsky

Yeah, yeah, its embracing the fear of empty space, this piece.

Audience member

So this idea of horror vacui could you tell us more about that?

Michael Pinsky


5/31

Horror vacui, its Greek and I think its something that Plato talks about. Its actually

something that, you know if you talk to someone who is Portuguese, I wouldnt actually

say its common parlance but they are very aware of that as a concept. Whereas here we

dont really have that as a concept at all, in fact, I think we have a fear of cluttered space.

Its more the opposite, which goes back to my garage, which is full of crates of big

sculptures and not quite knowing what to do. So if anyone wants to buy them, Ill show alist

David Kefford

So thats more like a storage space, do you have a studio?

Michael Pinskey

Yeah Ive got a studio as well which I luckily had given to me at the moment. So I dont

need to pay for that but before I was paying for a studio and storage space. And now I

am trying to get all my work in the attic but the hatch is only about eight hundred by eighthundred ml, so I dont really know what to do. The only other idea is to build a big shed in

the back garden. I think that kind of finishes my fifteen minutes, Ive probably over run or

ready.

David Kefford

Yep

Michael Pinsky

OK, thankyou.

David Kefford

We now move on to Bob Lee

Bob Lee

My names Bob Lee and I am a member of an art buying collective. I want to focus on the

word collective, collector because having thought about tonights subject of discussion I

wondered, to what extent, did the group I belong to, break the conventional wisdom ofthe typical collector. Now as member of a The Contemporary Arts Society, I have seen

many collections in London and elsewhere. Generally, I think our notion of an art

collection, or the art collector, is a collection of finished products, so you know, when you

go to some of these fabulous homes, you will see all this fabulous art throughout the

home. So I think what my colleagues and I do, is somewhat rather different and I tried to

think why and in telling our story, I hope it will emerge why we are somewhat different

from the conventional notion of the collector, or collecting. First and foremost the marked

difference between what we do and what is traditionally considered to be ordinary

methods of art collecting, is that we share art. I suppose one may have an image of thecollector amassing things, you know, a very proprietorial kind of world that collectors

might live in. First and foremost from the very out set when our group was set up the


6/31

whole concept was to share art but we had other ideas as well. It took a couple years to

get the group formed. Why were we doing it? What were our central aims and objectives?

Over a couple of years meeting in the pub we thought about what were we trying to do.

There were a number of principles never properly written down, I vaguely remember what

they were. One was, we wanted to support emerging artist, two, we wanted to continue

doing what we were doing, at the time, Im going back to the nineties now, which was toengage with artist, with art critics, curators. In a sense engage with the art world. Long

before we bought any pieces we had been to many art performances, exhibitions shows

and so on, just continued that engagement. Another principle was to acquire work, not so

much the idea of possessing work but a specific idea of acquiring work to experience it

with in the domestic space and that meant we had a particular focus on acquiring

challenging work. Like everybody here, we all go to galleries, public museums and so

forth but we were interested in the idea of living with challenging contemporary art that

we shared. And so with some of those principles we were already somewhat different

from the traditional notion of a collector but there were some other things that perhaps

shaped what we were doing as well. When we go back to the nineties and may be bit

before, we were probably at a very productive period in art production and artistic

practice. My memories a bit hazy but I do remember going to absolutely astonishing

degree and post grad shows Places like Gold Smiths. My sense is, Im not an expert in

the arts and certainly not an academic but my sense was, that there was a period of great

flourishing in experimentation and new practice in the art schools in London, which were

the ones I had become familiar with. It was a great period, it was certainly a period when

you didnt see just traditional art products, there was video, performance, ephemeral art

forms. So from the very start, I suppose when we thought about investing in art, we were

doing so at a time when art, or art practice was going through a great deal of

experimentation. When the schools were very well funded, the ethos was very liberal and

fantastic diversity in art production was the result of that. So one was in that context, so

in a sense the group of friends that we set the group up with, we were never going round

looking at classic art products. It was always a process of engagement and going to art

performances that were fabulous, memorable experiences that you had with you for a

long time. So that was the context in which our group was formed and emerged. And as a

result of that some of the pieces that we have acquired and I hate those terms acquiring

things, owning things and so on, but none the less for functionality I use those terms,

some of the pieces we have acquired do raise questions about the collectability of thosepieces. Now we havent really had much controversy in our group about the things that

we collect but certainly some of the pieces that we collect will not stand the test of time,

for one reason or another, as I shall illustrate but our members would be absolutely

delighted with those pieces. So if I can show you the first one(Bob now refers to a

projected image). This is a work we bought last year by an artist called Bobby Dowler,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/-paul-/sets/72157623620982184/

and what is interesting about the piece is that it is quite a large work, on a found canvas,

and he just set to work on this, its this chewing gum, bits and pieces hes found in thestreet and stuck on to it. Again I am not an expert but he what he was very careful to

explain to us when we purchased the piece was that it wont last because he didnt prime
http://www.flickr.com/photos/-paul-/sets/72157623620982184/http://www.flickr.com/photos/-paul-/sets/72157623620982184/http://www.flickr.com/photos/-paul-/sets/72157623620982184/


7/31

the canvas and do whatever you have to do. And already bits are peeling off, in certain

conditions bits of chewing gum harden and fall off and so on but its absolutely fabulous

work. I dare say there might be expensive processes to make it last but thats never been

the issue for us. It was partly engaging with some new gallerist in the Peckham area of

London. Historically quite a surprise for me in London but like many places its had some

gentrification. But thats an example, where one of our major consideration, wasnt thelongevity of that work. And in a way you can translate that into ultimate sale value, or

resale value because this work will probably deteriorate progressively. Somebody said;

give it twenty to fifteen years and it will be unrecognisable, it will disintegrate and fall to

pieces. Next slide (Bob is referring to slide show projection) is a sculpture by an artist

called Michael Dean http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org its a technique, its little

hard to describe actually but its cement. I think its called black cement, it doesnt really

have title. Its a block of cement with a particular history, theres a lot text that he wrote

which we now have but just in a textual form that is buried into the cement, then the

surface is treated in a very interesting colours. So its not an object that you then put on a

plinth and gaze at it. The whole purpose of this particular sculpture is to handle it, and

carry it around and in so doing as we have discovered it get damaged. Its a quite heavy

thing you know, you take it to the dinner table or take it to the bath with you, or whatever,

its quite a nice thing to carry around actually. And part of the way its displayed is to

encourage people to handle it and see what they make of it but in the process it gets

dropped and gets damaged. And so again we dont have the view that it has to be

pristine, perfect. Its an interesting piece, with a very interesting history and narrative that

goes with it, that I dont have enough time to go into but thats another example of

something uncompleted. This is another group actually and Ive used it because I have

been involved with this group. Another collective, a London collective called the Crawford

collective http://www.the-collective.info/london1/content/view/13/2/and this is by and

artist collaborative called; With, where two artist create a virtual experience. Im not

eloquent enough to describe what they do but basically the idea is, this artist collective

will undertake an experience on your behalf. If you want to do something really wild and

really bad theyll do it for you and you will end up with a product. So this particular

collective group, the Crawford collective, they were called the Crawford collective

because they were formed, or their first meeting was in Crawford St, a flat in Crawford St

in London. However the member who lived in the flat at the time, she was going to sell up

and they had this idea to have a real wild party and trash the flat. However as she wasselling the flat, she wasnt really that keen on actually really trashing the flat, so the With

collective did it for them and they had this virtual experience. So they were in the flat for a

day and when she got back the flat was back to its pristine condition but they had a

virtual wild party and trashed the flat. If you go to their web site, http://

www.withyou.co.uk/traumaformat.html . Actually people do all kinds of things, daring

things, have affairs, virtual affairs by proxy, we will do it for you, or whatever, or do some

sky diving, or whatever and they do it for you. A really very interesting concept and in the

process of commissioning a work like that, the experience of engagement with these

artists and kind of having a virtual reality, its so interesting actually. The first talk I wentto, you sometimes get confused, whats real and whats not real, and none of its real. And

this is the document that produced at the end of the event, so this is primarily the end of
http://www.withyou.co.uk/traumaformat.htmlhttp://www.withyou.co.uk/traumaformat.htmlhttp://www.the-collective.info/london1/content/view/13/2/http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/http://www.withyou.co.uk/traumaformat.htmlhttp://www.withyou.co.uk/traumaformat.htmlhttp://www.withyou.co.uk/traumaformat.htmlhttp://www.withyou.co.uk/traumaformat.htmlhttp://www.the-collective.info/london1/content/view/13/2/http://www.the-collective.info/london1/content/view/13/2/http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/


8/31

event in Crawford St. An example again, I suspect a work like that, the value of the work

is in the experience and in the commission, rather than in the finished product. Its just a

record of the trashed flat and the virtual experience that was to have been in the first

place, obviously. So thats another example. And I think thats why the art collective, my

collective I belong to, will commission some kind of virtual experience from the With

collective, at some point in the future. They are represented by Rokeby Gallery in London.Next one, (Bob is referring to projected image) Now this one is interesting, it isnt a piece

its a product. Its hanging on one of our members wall, um somewhere in London but I

didnt explain, that as well as sharing the art in our group, there are even households who

are members of our group and we take it in turns to buy work. Now this work has a

curious history, its by an artist called Mel Brimfield, whos essentially a performance, a

live artist, a performance artist. And some members have seen some of her performances

and are really kind of fascinated by her work. Quite the complex narrative she performs.

So this is a still from a video from one of her performances that some of our members

saw, part of a series of, so it already had the start of a narrative. And when the buying

panel at the time came across this piece they were delighted to reconnect with, not

exactly a document, it connected with the performance. And another reason they were

really were interested in it, some years ago, our group commissioned a performance

actually and never had a document of it, We didnt actually seek a document, well some

record. I think most of our members say its actually the best they have ever purchased.

And it was a performance by an artist called Katherine Fry. It was looking at the course of

a kind of a married couple, set in the fifties, from the first flush of romance and its from

the womans perspective. Actually from the first flush of romance to when the relationship

drove her bonkers . So it was performed over seven weeks, in different days of the week,

in each of our households. And the narrative then took its course in that way but

absolutely fascinating thing. And I shall show you a clip from some video (Bob plays

video), so this is happening all around the household with seven actor all identically

dressed. Time Out does a review of it actually. I think about in the middle of the

performance, I think on a Wednesday when they start to become a bit cynical about their

roles in life. So its about a housewife really and her experiences. In the first performance

we are waiting for the acting husband to come home and as the performance progressed

over the week, it then became quite delinquent in some ways and then the last

performance furniture starts to fly. What we particularly liked about commissioning a

performance in our homes, we were able to involve a lot of people in the performance.The performance, it took place in every room in the house, where these actors were going

in and out of different rooms, doing different things. They had recorded all the different

sounds of the house hold and this sound wasnt, the sound you hear there, wasnt quite

the sound, the of the house its self was being played back as the performance was being

acted out.

To sum up, and I think my theories are, and I might be completely wrong, I do know that a

lot of wealthy of collectors would very generously support performance art. I mean I

know lots of commissions of the kind Michael described to you really that relies on the

funding of generous and wealthy supports. In the past certainly when we were starting

out lots of performances received public funding. I remember when the national lottery


9/31

came about, that lead to a lot of experimentation because funding was available to

support diversity in artistic practice. My fear I suppose is that with the recession, with

public funding for the arts drying up and perhaps with the more middle range collector, or

even the poorer collectors like us, probably being a little reticent about collecting work

which isnt durable everlasting and re-saleable. Thats a certain worry and concern, that I

would have because then it would be a great tragedy if artist like Mike and some of theones Ive shown today are restricted to producing products that sell or being only tied up

with that. So thats just my fear and I think its absolutely, um its excellent to be able to

support artist in the way we do in a small way, to practice in the way they want to

practice, so I hope some of these examples have illustrated that. Thanks

David Kefford

Thanks Bob I think that really touches along lot of discussion we will probably have later

on, thanks. And now we will have Henry

Henry Little

First another apology on behalf of my director, hes a lot more calming and a lot more

intelligent than I am and you probably all came here to hear him and not me, so I am sorry

about that. I hope however that I can elaborate on our relationship on collectable work

but also on the art market in general and how possibly uncollectable work, may actually

become collectable. First, just to give you our back ground, do people know of us at all?

Yes, some yes and some nos, we are actually quite elusive, although we have an

extremely long history and do incredibly important work. We have been around a hundred

years our centenary was last year and the core of work, the ethos that kind of underlieseverything is bringing contemporary art to the widest possible audience. That translates

to buying challenging works of contemporary art long before they become accepted into

the main stream. Historically, over our past, we have purchased work by artist long

before any one has taken them seriously in the mainstream, long before museum

professionals have taken them seriously. For instance we bought Francis Bacons, back in

1957 and practically had to give them a way to the museum collections that now have

them and these Bacon pieces now form the centre piece of their collections in many

cases and have astronomical market value. We have also bought works of Picasso long

before he was recognised, Hurst whatever your opinion of him back in ninety one about

five years before he won he Turner prize. So in a way we have always tried to be a head

of the curve and buy work, though always physical objects, buy work that at the time it

seemed unfashionable, or unwanted, or not quite uncollectable, or ephemeral but always

tried to be working with difficult and challenging work.

More importantly, sorry I forgot to say this at the beginning, I think this is an excellent

initiative. And I think artist, like art history students which is my back ground, can be

thrust out into the world from studying, with absolutely no financial or professional

development. And your different perspective, to find out how we all operate financially in

this very mercenary world at times, so trying to specially support artist who have thecourage to work with ephemeral work such as moving image performance and instillation

I think is a wonderful thing.


10/31

Right back to the Contemporary Art Society, the focus of our work is to have close

relationships with public collections and to support them we have to do a lot of fund

raising. I will go into that very briefly and then talk more specifically how this relates to

collectors more specifically. We have a lot of fund raising, we have a consultancy team,

who work with big corporate bodies and we build huge collections for them. We have also

membership which is my department and one of the real focuses of that is working withcollectors. We take them on a wonderful step by step journey and it is actually, it sounds

a bit trite but one of the best things about the job is taking collectors from buying what

you might see as boudoir perk, through to works that well, Bob Lee and his collective

might be buying work, you know taking on a real trajectory from something that is very

easy to appreciate and theres nothing against that kind of work but taking people on this

journey, to engaging with artist, to engaging with other collectors, engaging with curators,

to take a risk, take a chance basically and to support an artist whose work might not

otherwise have an obvious financial and commercial appeal. Conceptually what grounds

a lot of the work we do and is always in the background, is really is the link between,

private collections and public collections and those kind of endless feedback loop

between the two. Apologies if I am about to teach grandmothers to suck eggs but one of

the core ideas of what we try and look at is subscription, and apologies if you know all

this but subscription is the process whereby works of art accrue a financial value. It starts

by low level recognition, endorsement, such as working in artist run spaces and being

invited in group shows. Hopefully a critic takes notices, somebody gives an opinion of

their work, hopefully favourable, someone else notices, a commercial gallery notices, you

get a solo show, more critics write about your work, a few more solo shows, a few more

commercial gallery shows, an institution begins to take notice, more critics write about

your work, there are some academics writing about your work. Then final the real goal,

the real prestigious end to all this is a work entering a public collection and the real goal

of that is so an artist work can enter the history of art. Thats the important thing for us

because in many ways, it means that work and that narrative, and that concept, and

everything around that is available to audience in perpetuity, so that people can continue

to take from it. The main problem then lies in how do you try and codify, and historicise,

and immortalize pieces of work like performances and like film, moving image work is

also a unique challenge. But performance, how do you try and codify and immortalize

something by its very definition, is experiential, is unique happens in a moment. And

which in many ways, especially in the sixties and seventies was devised, to be anti-market, anti-institution to be anti-everything that museums in a way try and do. The

answers which I will try and get onto in a minute are very varied. And then moving image

as I say has its own unique problem which is, its technology in a nutshell. Not only does

it become out dated very quickly but also it take a huge amount of maintenance, not only

to display but also to look after. Just something to think about, say a piece of film

projection, if thats on display for a year, the actual film will need to be re printed up to a

dozen times, if not more because it gets warn out. A lot of these materials are never

designed to be played constantly on such constant display and also Im sure everyone

knows that manufactures quickly, as soon as they are not making a profit, they put slideprojectors for example, on the back, they stop producing the film and all these kinds of

thing, so the technology is a major problem. To go back to this idea of subscription and


11/31

private collectors, and public collectors, now private collectors tend to follow public

collection because a private collector spending money on a work of art is more

comfortable doing that if the work is endorsed by someone who does not have a

commercial interest, by someone who says this artist, this piece of work is valuable, valid,

relevant and interesting. So therefore how do you encourage a private collector to buy

something that a public institution by definition cant really buy its a very difficult kind offeedback loop, where you dont have pieces of ephemeral work entering the collection

because of problems of display, of storage and then of performance its very difficult.

How do you encourage private collectors to spend money on it? So thats the key

relationship really to think about kind of how you encourage private collectors to buy

pieces of work. A private collector has all these element of how do you live with a piece of

performance. Well I think your solution is an excellent solution. I think its marvellous that

youre doing something like that. And I hope it is an example that I really hope will be

followed and replicated because I think it is a very neat solution, to essentially trying to

support artist who do this work and enjoying this kind of work because you spread the

cost and you enjoy it as a group. And in a way it reinforces the value of it because it is a

community experience. Its not just a piece of work that you have ferretted away on your

wall and no one else gets to see it, so that in my eyes is a really elegant and a very

likeminded solution to living on a domestic scale with performance and also film moving

image I should say on a domestic scale. How do you live with it? This is something our

members tend to ask us the whole time. One of our members actually asked us to run

workshops on living with the moving image and collecting the moving image and I think

actually that is an excellent idea. With moving image in particular, theres a few kind of

solutions on domestic scale. And theres a few kind of encouraging signs which I think are

kind of helping to develop the market for this kind of work.Umm, but first if you think just

about the difficulty, just in purchasing a piece of moving image for a commercial gallery.

Moving image is a very difficult thing to show, you need a dark room, you need a whole

section marked off at an art fair,where you could live and die by the money you make on

this quite literally. More often than not, financially, it is completely unviable and I think its

completely fair for the gallerist to operate that way. But there is a now a very interesting

event that is coming over here, and its going to be on in London at the same time as

freeze. Its called moving image and its an art fair, organised by a Chelsea and when I say

Chelsea I mean, New York Chelsea gallerist called Ed Winkleman http://winkleman.com/

and its now in its second year. This again I think is a very neat solution for a number ofreasons but essentially what hes proposing to do and this closely mimics what he did in

New York, its going to happen in the barge house, which if youre artist you should be

quite familiar with, a lot of the London art schools tend to do there degree shows there.

Its essentially a space not too dissimilar to this. Galleries pay a very low fee, relatively

speaking, two and a half thousand dollars for single screen, or single channel piece, or

five thousand dollars for a larger, more complex instillation. They dont have to invigilate it;

they can come and go as they please. You have a sort of photograph of the event in New

York, its sort of long banks screens, its all in a line, you can sit, you listen, you move on.

Its essentially making the financial component a lot less on the galleries, making itspecifically devoted to this kind of work, I think you really encourage people to think

commercially and financially about moving image and I think events like that are going to
http://winkleman.com/http://winkleman.com/http://winkleman.com/


12/31

be a real test, essentially. I think the sales were modest in the first instance, when it

happened in New York but I really hope that it really picks up and that people really come

around to buying editions of films. From a personal point of view there was a piece I saw

recently, by a young artist called, Super Chan, whod produced a video portrait of

London. Its an a mazing piece of work and its got very, very high production value, it was

produced with money she had worked very hard to get. Umm and that was a real turningpoint for me, although well out of my price range by the time you include all of the display

materials it comes with, it was the first piece of moving image I looked at and I thought

actually, I could really get on board with wanting to collect that. If I was a collector myself,

I could really want to collector that and that in its self is a dangerous psychology

because it shouldnt really be about things with a high production value but I think it really

is starting to come into collectors minds that you can buy moving image on a more

domestic type scale. That you can buy this kind of work and that you can have it in your

collection. For performance artists theres tends to be this ideological split but there are

interesting solutions. Marina Abramovic, who is now represented by Lisson gallery,

obviously a big commercial enterprise, unsurprisingly, now has realized, now has decided

actually she can make quite a lot of money out of her practice. She has done this by

photographs and by documentation. And actually the photographs themselves, I dont

want to say theyre a cop out but for me it seems shes actually become in away

photographer. Shes selling photography, essentially because the photographs arent

really, I wouldnt call them documentation, they are actually very neatly composed, very

highly finished photographs. Also in a way, she is also using, Marina Abramovic the

brand, the person, to sell photographs. And I think that is one solution. I think, I dont

know, I wouldnt say, it kind of undermines her practice. I dont know, I think thats a

personal decision but there is a shift there. I mean That she is no longer a performance

artist. But then performance then becomes a part of her practice and the photographs are

the commercial thrust of it and I think, if thats the solution to financing everything, then

so be it. I think thats a very good idea. The other one is, um and this is an idea raised by,

stop me if I ramble, just tell me to shut up, is Logsdail, Nicholas Logsdael, Lisson director

said something interesting. He thinks that performance works should start to be thought

of as musical scores. And this got me thinking, if you are going to have a script for a

piece of work, like a musical score, then how does that enter the commercial realm?

Could we possibly end up going down the line where by you can buy performance books

like you can buy a piano music book? Or could you for example, film and moving imageworks, could you start to instead, of selling pieces in editions of five or ten and having the

price in the thousands why could you not have open editions and sell it for five pounds?

If in the future those kinds of more mass media methods of dispersion and dissemination

might ever catch on? I wonder whether we will get performance books and theyre the

kind of thing that you buy rather than the current situation where you can actually buy one

of her performances. Umm and there is a New York lawyer called Erin Levine who is very

wealthy and so has been able to buy a lot of very expensive performance works by

artists. Umm and he owns a work of hers, called.. the one of her and another

participant, dont know,they slap each other a lot and Im not sure exactly how it works.Another approach is someone like; Tino Sehgal, who is at the fore front of a lot of

discussions around performance at the moment. He is quite well known for being one of


13/31

the first performance works that the Tate purchased. Umm, and interestingly his whole

concept and practise is that you, is a real assertion of de-materiality. So he doesnt want

there to be any physical remnants, no physical remains. The contract he has with the

curators is an oral contract. So he told the curators how to rehearse the dances, how to

audition the dances, or the interpreters I should say.Umm and he tells the curators how to

instruct the interpreters, how to make the performance. And this oral contract waswritten, not written sorry, was witnessed by a lawyer and thats it. So it is an entirely de

materialized piece of work which is never the less in the collection but is in the collection,

in so much as it is in the curators mind, which I think is fascinating. Also he calls the

method of communication of this, body to body transmission which I quite like. But also

made me think its a very old, it goes back to oral methods of knowledge transmission, in

a very kind of pre civilization way of communicating things, of civilisation in pre-physical

methods of communicating everything. Civilization was just all contained in this kind of

manner, umm buts that my own personal digression its probably not relevant. There is

also a biannual called Performa which was set up by someone called Roselee Goldberg

and thats all about commissioning new pieces of performance. I think the more biannuals

there are and the more art fairs there are, that try to establish healthy commissioning

procedures and that also really try to get into, encourage collectors to buy work and see

this kind of work inside of a financial forum it means it will go private collectors will buy it

public institutions will buy and it will go into the history of art and be canonized. But then

again some artist may think thats completely against the whole point of it. Finally I

probably should stop but I just wanted to compare different ends of the market. I think at

the top end its very easy for someone with a lot of wealth to be extremely philanthropic

and be very generous. It becomes a form of support and its wonderful that they do that

but there needs to be a level below that, where there Its um, where its not about that,

where we try and help collectors with limited means or means that dont compare to

these kind of people to acquire these kind of works. Finally one of the other things I

wanted to just put out there is that umm generations being born now, so young children

in there two, threes, fours, are raised almost from birth with screens. You know you have

phones almost from the moment you can hold anything, you have a long relationship with

a computer from the moment you can remember, with TV with all these kind of things. So

for generations of ours and upwards we are still, these things still feel a bit alien to us in a

way but to generations born now I think the screen and the moving image, is the most is

there most important method of engaging with the world and therefore I dont see whymoving image could maybe replace paintings in the home. We will see that may be not

true. Finally I think performance as we do enter an age of hyper reproduction of

everything from films and books, where anything can be reproduced instantly,

performance will increase in value, maybe not financial but in spiritual or intellectual or

however you want to phrase it I really think it will really enhance the value of experiences.

David Kefford:

Thanks very much Henry. Thanks to all three of you as well for giving us really an in site

into your own experience and quite lot things to hopefully have a lively discussion now.So please feel free if you have got any questions or anything you would like to address


14/31

the panel with, now is your opportunity. Does anyone have any questions for any of our

guest speakers it must have raised quite a few areas of interest?

Henry Little

An art fair its where you could live or die by the money you make on this, quite literally,financially its completely inviable and I think thats completely fair for gallerists to operate

that way but there is now a very interesting event which is coming over here and its going

to be on in london during the same time as Freeze and its called moving image its an art

fair organised by a chelsea / New York gallerist called Ed Winkleman and its now in its

second year and this i think a very neat solution in many ways. essentially what he is

proposing to do and this mimics what he did in new york, i its going to happen in the

Bargehouse, a space not too dissimilar from this, galleries paying a low fee 2,500 dollars

for single screen for a single channel piece or 5,000 for larger more complex installations.

They dont have to invigilate it, they can come and go as they please. You have a bank of

screen all in a line you can sit, you listen, you move on. its essentially making the financial

burden a lot less on the gallery. you encourage people to think commercially and

financially and moving image. i think events like that are going to be a real test. I hope

sales are modest at first, I hope sales will pick up and people will begin to buy editions of

films. piece i saw recently by a young artist called super chan(?), it was essentially a

video portrait of london an amazing piece of work, high production values, money she

worked hard to get. a real turning point for me although out of my price range, but was

first piece of moving art Id looked at and i thought i could get into collecting that. i think it

is really starting to come into a collectors mind that you can buy a moving image on a

more domestic scale. for performance artists there tends to be this idealogical split but

there are some interesting solutions. Marina Abromovitz now represented by Lisson, has

decided she can make a lot of money out of her practice through photographs

documentation essentially, the photographs themselves, not as a cope out, but for me it

seems that shes become a photographer, shes selling photographs essentially. i

wouldnt call them documentation they are highly finished photographs. she is using

Marina Abromovitz as a brand, the person to sell photographs. i think that is one solution

and i think i dont know whether it undermines her practice, thats a personal decision, but

there is a shift she is no longer a performance artist the photographs are the commercial

thrust of it, if its a solution to financing it then its a good idea.

another idea is Longsdale, Nick Longsdale, Lissons director, says he thinks performance

works should be thought of as musical scores. this made me think if we are going to have

script for a piece of work like a musical score then how does that enter the commercial

realm. do we start to have performance books like for example you buy piano music or

can you films moving image works, could you start to instead of selling in editions of 5


15/31

and 10 for 1000 why not open editions and sell for 5 and it wonder if in the future those

kinds of mass media might catch on. i wonder whether we will get performance books

rather than buying one of her performances. there is a new york lawyer called Eric Levine

who is wealthy and has been able to buy a lot of expensive performances by performance

artists, he owns one of her and another artist, Im not sure how it works.

Another approach is someone like tino segal. he is one of the first performance works the

Tate purchased. his whole concept of practice is that there is a real assertion of

demateriality he doesnt want any physical remains. the contract with the curator is oral,

he told the curators how to rehearse the dancers, how to audition, he tells them how to

instruct them to make the performance. this oral contract is witnessed by lawyers and

thats it, so its entirely dematerialised a piece of work which is in a collection, but its only

in the collection in as much that its in the curators mind, which is fascinating. he calls the

method of communication body to body. it goes back to oral methods of knowledge

transmission a very free civilisation in a way of communicated things pre-physical

methods of communication.

Theres also a biannual called performa which is set up by someone called Roselee

Goldburg ? all about commissioning new pieces of performance work. the more art fairs

there are that try to establish a healthy commissioning procedure and that encourages

collectors to buy work and see this kind of work inside of a financial forum.

Finally i wanted to compare different ends of the market. I think at the top end its very

easy with someone with a lot of wealth to be extremely philanthropic to be very generous

and its wonderful that they do that but i think there needs to be a level below that where

its not about that were we try to help collectors with limited means to collect these things.

Finally generations being born now, so young children in 2s 3s 4s are raised with

screens, phones, computers, TVs so i think for generations from ours these things are

alien. but for new generations being born now the screen and moving image is the mostimportant method of engaging with the world, so i dont see why the moving image wont

compare maybe replace the paintings in the home? but well see that maybe not true.

Finally I think performance might where we enter an age when hyper reproduction

anything can be reproduced instantly that the performance will really increase in value,

maybe not financial but spiritual, intellectual or however you want to phrase it, will really

begin to enhance the value.

David Kefford:


16/31

Thank you Henry, please feel free if you have any questions, anything you want to

address the panel with, anyone any questions for our guest speakers this evening.

Audience Member:

Question to Mike Pinsky, Im keen to meet someone who makes money from their

practice. Im intrigued not in asking you to talk about money as such, but Im just finishing

college, am a student tentatively looking for sources funding, a lot of time the artist fee is

negligible and often an afterthought, is there another layer of funding when youre a

proper artist or important and famous and attract another level of funding? when i look

around its all very peace-mail. Another question if you go out and do something in the

world does that mean your practice is primarily responding to different situations or do

you have a theme that runs through and that you take from one engagement to another?

Mike Pinsky:

Two very different questions, first question, i graduated from my BA in 1991 and started

working as an artist doing lots of exhibitions, I was green and thought the way to get

known was to do lots and lots of exhibitions, I was doing 10 shows a year, and I was

getting paid 200-250 exhibition fees, which was ridiculous and now its the same which

is still ridiculous.

David Kefford:

Where were you exhibiting? what sort of space, artist run or commercial?

Mike Pinsky:

Public galleries, public funded galleries that pay you. So then i went to do my ma after

doing god knows how many shows when my CV was nearly falling over, and one of mytutors was helen Chadwick who was doing a show at the serpentine. I thought shes a big

artist so how much are they paying you, she said 250.... i just thought what can you do

with that, and she said they had big ad campaign etc., i said how do you make your

money, she said mostly through insurance claims... and teaching. Well that didnt suit me

as an idea, it wasnt the most thrilling prospect so when i finished my MA I did quite a few

fellowships which was a way of making money.

David Kefford:

Can you elaborate


17/31

Mike Pinsky:

One was in kingston straight from my MA show, another from an ad in the guardian etc.

There was a certain point maybe 1997 where a combination of my work had reached a

certain level and that was when i was getting big grants from arts council 20/30,000 and

bigger commissions in five figures and above. Then you enter a different strata where

people dont approach you unless theyve got some real money to pay you, and i

suppose if you look at a small business model and forget about art they key is you have a

five year strand, the first three years you lose money, year four you break even, and year

five you hopefully make a profit, and i suppose thats similar, that you take a 5-10 year

view then you do possibly start to make money to live off rather than these ridiculous

exhibition payment right things.

David Kefford:

Could you see the notion of subscription tangibly happen with you as you moved with

your careers, did they fall into place did they matter?

Mike Pinsky:

Not in that neat way no, its all a big family people get to know you and that you can do

things, because they are investing a lot of money in you. one thing important to me is

drawing, because i hardly ever produce a piece of work without the money being there

whether its a gallery piece or a piece in the public realm, so that thing of convincing

someone to give you some money for something you havnt done is really important. and

even when i left my BA i had some drawings of a photographic show i wanted to do, no

photos just drawings, i got the gallery and princes trust to give me money to go to

thailand, and i thought its all a big confidence trick really cause you might not do it, but

then of course if you do then they go this guy does do what he said and it gets easier, but

the whole thing of a proposition is good and then they see your work.

Annabelle Shelton:

Did anything go wrong ever? did you get the money and it just goes wrong?

Yes i have signed some contracts that dont allow me to speak about the project because

theyve gone so wrong. the worst one which isnt mine, but put fear through the whole

system, is the thomas Heatherwick piece in manchester, a 2.2 million pound commissionwhere the spikes kept falling of and they sued him for 2.2 million pounds. It sent tremours

through the system. one thing i used to get phoned up about was where do you get


18/31

public liability insurance from and then thank god sue jones at an magazine sorted out

public liability. now Im getting asked for professional indemnity all the time a whole other

story - absolutely ridiculous. The real issue is a huge fear with big projects in the system

in britain now due to the Heatherwick disaster.

Annabelle Shelton:

Being a public artist has so much responsibility in what you make with a wide audience,

being a painter myself i dont have to worry about that.....

Mike Pinsky

I dont feel it that way, it doesnt overwhelm me, more fear in the system cause they dont

understand whats going on, but this is a complete aside to collecting the uncollectible.

Julie Freeman:

Can i ask you to comment on the possibility of collecting a piece of internet artwork or

collecting a piece of work so a) a piece of work done on the internet or b) buying

something multiple produced on the internet like a print, or object a 3D printed object

designed as an internet artwork, what you think about its endless way?

David Kefford:

So it can be freely distributed, downloaded?

Julie Freeman:

At least its out there in the public realm how would someone try and get that collected, an

artist thats made something thats already out there for everyone to see.

Henri Little:

Im trying to get my head around something thats been fabricated on the internet itself

but the concept of something thats widely available to download, one example i thought

was good i saw a pice a couple of months ago a film by doug fishbone and he was

experimenting with identity basically the film was a kind of thriller set in Ghana with major

actors and actresses all of whom black except the artist, Doug who is American, and heplaced himself in the middle of the film, he was funded to do it by a couple of wealthy

collectors, and my understanding was that he made three very special limited edition


19/31

dvds, the box may have been special and signed etc, and these were for the funders and

the rest were downloaded and anyone could have it. and the very idea that it could go

right across Ghana. But the funding of it was around these special edition DVDs which I

thought was quite neat if thats what the collectors wanted, but we could have one for

free.

David Kefford:

For collecting is it important to have this numbered limited edition with the artist signature

does this make it special?

Henri Little:

It isnt for me, but i think it was important that he found a way of getting the work funded

it as a really interesting work, a nice idea and available to all... that was the way it was

done, maybe it was just a document or record for those, but the fact that he got it funded

was the important thing.

Bob

I think with something like that it always becomes funny as soon as money is involved

obviously but I think if the artist can live by funding, if theres another source of funding, if

the money doesnt have to become in with some sort of transaction with the object then

you get that massive dissemination of something thats free and it goes to an enormous

audience and something thats kind of relevant is the music industry now and I think

bands have realised that trying to sell CDs is a lost cause and that this free dissemination

is a way of kind of enhancing your reputation but the problem is always going to be how

you make money, how you live, you know if might have an enormous artistic impact by

being disseminated but the poor individual who is trying to make a living is kind of

struggling but hopefully the more people who are out there seeing it the more people aregoing to give you money to make these things so it seems like a...

David Kefford

Double edged isnt it, cause you want to kind of reach a wide audience and disseminate

work but also you want to get money back in return so its kind of a promotional device

but in doing that you might get this monetary thing in return

Mike Pinsky


20/31

I mean I think there is a dichotomy there basically, if you look at the internet in the same

way as printing worked as a mass dissemination tool its all about bringing the price

down ,so the internet is at its strength as a sort of open source system the way that the

book is at its strength in the paperback, and if you want to play against that then do so

but youre misunderstanding the whole system of the media itself and what you do is you

have high volume, low price to make that work or you know you have a way of tracking

hits and you have adverts on it or you use it as a branding message or whatever but

youre always fighting against a system and misunderstanding the system if youre trying

to rarify something that is inherently about mass production so that dichotomy will always

exist and its a lost cause its just a completely miss thought system I think.

Julie Freeman

There was an interesting, um, I think it was Simon Faithful talking and hed made an app

as a work and he wanted to sell it you know for 59p, low cost get it out there, but

because he was funded, public funded to make the project in the first place he wasnt

allowed to sell it.

Mike Pinsky

He could have just done it commercially. But I mean, I have a book from Simon Faithful

that cost a 1, you know its a really nice book as an object and it cost a 1

Audience member

The panel is talking about the collector and I just created an interactive sculpture but the

starting point was collaboration, the point is people are coming back to me and wanting

something to remember it by and I want it to continue, is it up to the artist to decide or do

you listen to the collectors, whats your experience. You know do you give it away?, Im

listening to the people who have collaborated and I want to thank them. Whats yourexperience?

David Kefford

So are you talking about selling documentation? or ...?

Audience member

Well Im talking about the value of documentation or does it go on the internet free, I

know theres no rules but ...


21/31

Henry Little

I think it comes down to personal ideology and a personal inclination and I think on one

end youre going to have Tino Seagal who doesnt want anything ever physically concrete

then along the spectrum at the other end I think documentary is incredibly valuable and

from my personal perspective when Ive worked with artists and curated and Id be

absolutely forlorn if I didnt have photographs of the performance. In fact the artist I

commissioned to do a performance had four people filming it and a lot of artists

responding to it so it did end up having lots of different effects and manifestations.

Another solution is additions and that kind of thing and I think its a personal choice, from

my own personal point of view I can see creating something physical out of something

thats designed to be you know ephemeral of the moment I can see the clash but then

from a personal point of view i love having a document or a record or .....

Audience member

But surely a really good question is why ..... (loud cough cannot decipher) is not

collectable and I think the beauty of the artwork is that its for a very short time and I think

this desire to acquire is complicated and one that should be scrutinized particularly by

artists and by institutions and where is that coming from, if its like an entirely commercial

enterprise then I think its quite cynical and I think from museums theres this obsession of

trying to preserve something you know in its beauty lay in the fact that it lasts 20 minutes

and I think thats a question that needs to be bought into this discussion and like why try

to collect a performance like I know I know for histories sake that its important like for

performances in the seventies that we dont have access to and thats a shame, but I kind

of think thats why I like Tino Seagal, its playing with the idea that the artwork only exists

in your imagination, because of how you saw it or how it was recorded, or its like chinese

whispers and thats whats so nice in that the curator will probably describe it in a

different way.... Lets think about why we want to buy or acquire something thats made tobe temporary.

David Kefford

Bob, you talked about commissioning that performance, um, but not being too bothered

about there being an outcome or an end product, what were you commissioning, how did

that work?

Bob Lee


22/31

The experience of Catherine Fry can shed light on some of the issues in this in that most

members of our collective were very happy to have had to experience and be done with

it. A number of members said they enjoyed it so much theyd like a photograph, I

remember one member saying that one of the startling events in her house was when one

of the actors kind of had her head in the washing machine and it was an interesting image

and someone took some photographs I think Catherines photographers. So some of us

had the view that we could look at the photographs and choose which one but Catherine

was quite adamant that that was not what she wanted from the performance and that

would affect the integrity of what she was trying to do. I was bothered and some other

members wernt bothered so we could have paid cash for them to record the

performance probably in written form i the way she wanted to which would protect the

integrity of what she had done, what she wasnt prepared to do was say here are some

photographs and thats it, that was never part of how she wanted the thing recorded and

so we were quite content we had no more money at the time and no document in any

elaborate form, and we accepted thats not what she wanted to work to end up as, as

another photograph, and I think the artist should have control of it. If an artists needs to

make money and they decide that some product at the end of it is a way of generating

some income, but I think that you need to keep control of it, if its taken away you can

start to lose contact of what was meant in the first place.

Annabel Dover

(voice obstructed by pouring glasses of water) ...... as the artist frames it. What I mean is

that the integrity is up to the artist and they can choose if they want to eat then maybe...

(laughter)

Bob Lee

and just to say that some artists, ..... Mel Broomfield for example, he bought a work that

started life as a performance but she continues her performance through differentproducts but theyre not 5p or 5 even, you know new artworks emerge from it but these

are carefully constructed artworks a continuation of work that shes doing really. So its

not a document as such but something she is continuing as part of her art practice.

Julie Freeman

I think the point that you made about the desire to acquire - the best catchphrase, ........

(coughing obstructs voice) consumable art, edible like a dinner party where you eat thestuff and bio artists where they grow art its consumable and you dont expect to keep it.


23/31

Alistair Gentry

A consumable object is still ephemeral but by calling it consumable rather than ephemeral

it changes the expectation.

Audience Member

I think theres something amazing though about being a patron, a long time patron who

supports the arts, if you think of someone like the .......... family, not buying the product,

youre supporting the artist, you support the space so its sort of supporting R&D, your

work is destined for a certain destination but thats just a frame theyre giving you a

thinking space, theyre giving you a wage. And the difference is now that artists are

working in a space where we dont have that security, Im thinking of that future, um

anyway, thats um, loads of people waiting and you just um realise that that work can only

be made because the person is able to make the end product and now we can um

generate that space for ourselves so we can make work in our own way so that um we

can be free to what we are going to put that object in or we kind of start um the other way

round um and look at whats there and how it fits and how can I intervene in this already

complicated interweaving of, you know is it an action or is it an object.

David Kefford

Yes, so is it still possible to value process, like the product the making of the artwork, I

dont know.....

Audience Member

Yes I guess as Im listening to you Im musing on the difference, the different kinds of

emotional space which work is made in now from the space it was made in 1,000 years

ago , 200 years ago and what kind of interests me about that is the picture of what thatemotional space in 20 years time might be like.

David Kefford

So do you think this notion of having a private studio, some sort of garret like space, you

do have a studio but a lot of your work is site related or out in the public realm so is it still

possible to experiment with processes and techniques but do it outside of a studio

environment.

Mike Pinsky


24/31

The way Im commissioned is almost like someone is buying a bit of my thinking time, in

fact Im working on a commission in France and its quite interesting they call it a Le Tude

and its a study period and the study period is very well financed before you even start on

the piece and well deliberately thought through. Its something thats not valued in Britain

where they kind of think you come up with an idea, 2 days and you come up with an idea,

but you know in a way that space between thinking of something to possibly making

something, that moment of change could be 50% or 70% way down the line and it is like

buying a big block of your time really. That kind of reflects what western europe has

become which is a service economy, the people who make things are in the east now and

its the same with the artist that people are making art, making objects in the east, and I

think the artistic practice has followed, theres this huge value around the process, and

thinking, I mean thats what the whole market works on way beyond the art market, you

know not around the product so that also might be the reason why its more difficult to

sell a product that isnt the way the western economy works anymore.

Annabelle Shelton

My next question, is your saying that for instance, I was to sell a piece of work or a

collector came to me and said thats too expensive, your artwork. And in reality you know

its not.Its less than two thousand pounds and its a big aluminum piece. And they told me

they were a serious collectors, you know, that told the truth. And i realized they werent

serious collectors, but found the way I value my work, is its about you know, an artist

only sells so much within a year. And you know, part of that money is about your

continued practice. I dont like to see my work I sell as an object, its the time that I put

into it, its about what I do, and I think its really important you said that.

Audience Member

What a lot of what were looking at today is that there is many different kinds of artists inpractice at the moment. I dont think they are so responsive to the market but maybe we

could form an argument that says they are. I think all the artist we work with dont have

strategic practice you know they respond to specific contacts and situations and thats

how they want to work. And they want to be commissioned not purchased and maybe

commissioning isnt a form of purchasing.

David Kefford

For those who dont know you Dawn can you just tell us ........


25/31

Audience Member

..... (?) Arts, I mean were not unusual alongside other organisations like ourselves in the

way that we work and the kinds of artists we work with and so. It is a kind of purchase

but its one that happens through dialogue, you know, and acts as an exchange that

happens and then yes a sort of contract in a way is formed. Eventually something

happens that might be more than, you know, it might mean your taking part, use of your

time, or whatever, but Im not interested as much in your journey, Im interested in

thinking of different ways we might enter a relationship with people that purchase us, and

they invest it in us as an organization, and it is that journey that you look at the collective

results of obviously being on a long journey before youve even purchased work and I

think that its sort of taking people on a journey and kind of getting them involved and

interested in contemporary art practice. Something that contemporary artists have done

for a hundred years and its quite difficult, but small arts organizations to go on that

journey with individuals. And I suppose a sort of thing, that I can make a funding

application that could take a few weeks or I could spend two years developing a

relationship with someone who may never purchase anything from me, so you know its

sort of, you know Im interested in that journey and how it happened for you and the

collective.

Bob Lee

I think that journey happens in many different ways you know I think there are good

galleries out there who take their clients through a journey, in fact I am amazed at how

they over time, you know shape or expand their clients taste and expand the range and

type of work their clients would collect. And I think they do take them through a journey,

so they play a good role, I think some of the big collectors as well, going back to the point

you made over there, that I think its very honorable that some of the wealthy collectors do

buy time, and creative time, without restrictions almost, an artist will come with an idea,

and may not end in something the collector particularly likes, but to have the confidence,and I am prepared to support artists like that. In our case it was just trundling along to

shows really, but importantly I suppose go to artist run spaces that were in London at the

time, thoroughly enjoying parties, artist parties, new work, I can remember performance

many years ago which consisted of a meal, which is great, but the work was the decay of

the meal over several weeks, the remains that were left, which is all quite interesting and

quite a new concept and quite a new idea and quite an interesting aesthetic, you know

the romance of it and the aesthetic, quite a new thing to be involved with, I made the

point that we happened to be visiting shows, Tate modern came along, and somefantastic performances there, new experiences. So from the outset it was, we were semi

immersed, by no means experts but taking a step to then try to find ways of engaging


26/31

and ultimately collecting. I mean the first artwork I bought individually was video work

actually, it wasnt a painting or anything like that, it was a video work, kind of linked to

some work an artist was doing around investigating space and how we understand and

use space and he produced a video of it. So the first piece I bought, I think, a lot of our

members did that, but it was accident in a way that we found ourselves in the right places

at the right times, but i think there is still a challenge in people at our level, and new

groups come along all the time actually, we have a challenge in saying, well, we dont just

have to buy these products, go a bit further and investigate. Take time to engage with

difficult work, and we have to take people through journeys as well now, so some of the

works that some connecting groups buy in the early stages, you know its not very, its not

challenging, not that its not nice, but it takes time to go through that journey. Now i see

theres many journeys going on, but what I said in my opening remarks, Im worried that

there probably isnt as much funding around and some of the public art i have seen

recently, and Im not an expert so I am not going name the places, last Friday, I went to a

site where literally millions had been spent on public art, and it didnt impress me at all. I

wondered what the briefs were actually, whether, instead of giving the artist freedom to do

what they do, kind of, this is your brief. So a lot of public art...

David Kefford

So can you sort of describe what kind of public art, was it like...(laughter) was it large

sculptural objects like public art.

Bob Lee

One object was such. No I just wondered that, were the artists constrained, and if they

were, is that a good thing, necessarily, I think briefs should we as wide as possible.

Audience member

Your version of collecting seems to be, that the equivalent to an artist, I think and you

disclaim that same questioning that artists have, of materials and ideas and I dont ....

(unclear speech) from Henrys perspective that ..... (unclear speech) a lot in the collective

cause I think thats probably quite unusual.

David Kefford

And you also talk a lot about engaging the artist and its not necessarily about, you know,having a painting on your wall or something, its much more about the experience or

something about buying into the process of being an...


27/31

Bob Lee

As well as producing interesting objects, personally what one was interested in was

artists were saying new things. They got sort of a political activist background, and you

know thats been, saw kinds of metamorphosis, political ideology, the end of ideology in a

way. And it struck me that a lot of fresh new ideas and new thinking comes from artists

actually, and you have to engage and explore what theyre doing to see the range of ideas

that artist are generating in all different forms.

Audience Member

Im interested in the question, do you ever sell art to purchase new art?

Bob Lee

In principle yes, but never done so. In our group we dont, we certainly dont believe in

storage, and it always irritates me when even the contemporary art society say and their

big collectors come to panels like this and talk in so much of storage, I mean I dont see

the point in it really. I mean I can understand museums having limited space, but in

principle i dont see the point in personally en-massing a collection which is stored away

somewhere, so we, our group learn to work to new groups, for one thing, to get it moving,

and if in our rules, which were never written down or such, and if we did sell it would be

to reinvest in new work, so it wouldnt be that we made a big profit, you know, but to

reinvest. But we do get the work out there, loan it to new groups as they emerge.

Annabelle Shelton

So could anyone borrow artwork?

Bob Lee

Not anyone no, no..(laughter) although weve got to a public loan system. So we started

as one collective. Ill give you an example, there is a collective, lots of them actually in

other countries but one in Scotland that we were in touch with and the way they work is

this; they collect work as a group, they have experts who buy the work for them and the

explicit purpose is to buy work that will increase in value. And you know weve got some

sister groups, we dont have very much contact with, some lawyers who buy workinternationall, similar model to ours, but the purpose is always investment, they operate in

the secondary market, and thats not what were about. The kind of sister groups that we


28/31

loan work to rather than just to anybody, when a group of people come together and

theyre going to set up, initially they need to accumulate funds, thats the most frustrating

thing is you start up a group and you dont have many works to circulate so well lend out

some of our work to those groups to kind of share our ethos....

David Kefford

A shameless plug here, Aid & Abet are about to set up a collective here so if you have a

desire to join a collective such as they London collective then heres your point of contact

over there. Is there any trends in other countries of collecting the uncollectible or is it

different, you know, do people in other countries take more risks in collecting things, is

the UK quite conservative lets say in the way it collects?

Bob Lee

I dont know is the answer but I expect that in New York for example theres quite a lot of

support for new and challenging work, quite a big art market, wide and varied and when

Ive been to art fairs abroad, dealers have said that on the continent theres quite a solid

medium range collector on the demographic that will buy challenging work so these risks

dealers make in taking challenging work in video work for example it finds a market, so I

expect there are markets out there.

Henry Little

Again, I dont think that I can give any definitive answer but I expect that you need a very

developed kind of visual arts ecology to develop this kind of thing and it does take a

building up of all the different layers to first generate an art world but to then encourage

people to expand their tastes and to buy challenging work and so Id at a guess say that

anywhere that has a developed visual arts ecology where theres a lot of education and a

lot of support around people buying and engaging in that sort of work on a sort of vibrantand personal level, thats going to be where theres a lot of work essentially I mean I think

that wealth breeds philanthropy and generosity and the kind of patronage that art needs,

thats probably not a particularly insightful answer but..

Annabel Dover

And also status, I mean, thats whats really interesting about what we were talking ..... I

suppose recently talking to some gallery in New York recently there is a certain amount of

Documents

Collecting the Uncollectable Transcript