The artist's questions, and a first date

This week the Saturday discussions in the gallery were informed enormously by having Richard Grayson himself in to talk about the exhibition and answer questions. More on that shortly. Informal chats in the gallery beforehand with people viewing the work. As Bern has said in the previous post, it is very interesting how this work seems to open up discussion in some fairly revealing areas of people's lives and beliefs with very little preamble. My favourite anecdote however was from one couple I went up to speak to about the work. I introduced myself and asked how they were finding the exhibition, what they made of the work, and the young man looked at me and said, "We're actually on a first date, so to be honest I'm not really taking much of it in!" I decided that it probably wasn't the time to try and discuss art and left them to it. (I do hope the date went well - one of the many functions of art at work!) One couple I spoke to for some time raised the issue of compatibility of different belief systems, how an individual's belief system may have accommodate several others simultaneously. They were interested in the representations of astrology and Christianity, and in their own lives professed a belief in both. However they also knew people close to them who didn't feel that was tenable, and that astrology was un-Christian. Our discussion was focused on the ways in which all of us incorporate aspects of different systems, rituals and so on, into something that is coherent for us, and that for all of us there was a limit to how far we would go beyond our own comfort zone in having our beliefs challenged.

There is much I could write about Richard Grayson's Q&A (led by Andrew Brighton). Richard was warm, engaging, entertaining, and disarmingly open about his own lack of certainty around issues of belief. Although inspired in part by his concern that there seems to be a movement of specific religious beliefs back into the political sphere, he was keen to stress that he had no intention with the work to make fun of anyone's beliefs, nor to directly criticise, but rather to examine "belief in operation", "the functions of belief, rather than what the beliefs actually are."
He spoke at length about his problem with the (post-modern) idea of equivalence - the notion that one belief system offers exactly the same weight and validity as another - but he also struggles with any belief system that claims absolute truth and rightness. He described his own position as "fluttery" and that the work essentially is about examining rather than supporting or decrying the content of individuals' belief systems.

There is much else besides that was covered, and it made for an engaging walk and talk afterwards, although such was the level of engagement that the group never moved from beyond the beginning of the exhibition! All those taking part had seen the work previously and been present at Richard's talk, so the focus was on the questions raised by what they had seen and heard, rather than re-engaging with individual pieces. Questions that were raised included: how far is it one's responsibility when viewing work to be informed? This was in response to a reply from Richard to the effect that he presumed an audience for his work who understand the aesthetic - "a slightly art-geek audience". Some people in discussion felt it is the artist's responsibility to create work where the aesthetic engages the audience to get to grips with the ideas - others felt that the responsibility lies with the viewer, who on entering a gallery is engaging in a kind of unspoken contract to interrogate the work. This led on to a wider discussion of the relationship the DLWP has with the local community in Bexhill - which no doubt could have gone on for much longer! All those participating were Bexhill residents which is great.

A very full afternoon of thinking and discussion, which I could write ten times more about. This is a thought-provoking exhibition and the discussions have been fascinating.

Questioning One's Point of View

Exhibition Discussion
Why and how we receive information were recurring themes this Saturday. In front of Ways the World Ends, we marveled at the ability humans have to create such far-fetched explanations and how fantastic the scientific theory sounds. That so many narratives can exist at one time makes me feel a little giddy. Their coexistence in the space overwhelmed me, mirroring the process some of us experience when making sense of our own beliefs: lots of thoughts vying for attention and not always being able to think clearly.

Moving over to Intelligence, our conversation turned to how sometimes people are looking to reinforce a set of beliefs already held, be they about personality, star sign, or in the case of Condoleezza Rice, gender. We talked of how seductive astrology can be, despite most of us knowing it isn't real. Where we find our information is crucial too, for example relying solely on the Media for your facts generally leads to inaccuracy and distorted reality.

One of the things I wanted to discuss with visitors was how different our view of the same thing can be. It's very easy to say I'm right and everyone else is mistaken, but how easy is it to take a step sideways and question our beliefs? A perfect opportunity to explore this arose when we looked at Messiah. Our Christian group member saw only benevolence and joy, ordinary men in humble surroundings celebrating the Word of The Lord, whereas others including myself admitted to finding it rather oppressive. Claire referenced Angel by Mark Wallinger when talking about the paradoxes she saw in the work. The atmosphere became a little charged as we discussed whether or not Christianity was just another way to interpret past, present and future. Most agreed with Judith that Grayson observes each belief system rather than sitting in judgment. Alice diffused the tension when she said how important it was to have such work displayed in order to discuss these difficult and important issues. I agree; walking round the show I have been amazed at how quickly people have been willing to talk candidly about very challenging topics.


Thinking Aloud
It felt like the openness in the gallery had paved the way for a very broad and enjoyable discussion over tea on the top floor. Here are just a few of the topics we touched on:

Why Richard Grayson had subtitles in Messiah and The Golden Space City of God - was it a play on the power of The Word?

Facebook and how once you have written words there, you lose power over them.

How important it is to have challenging exhibitions in the provinces, vibrant galleries along the South Coast and touring exhibitions such as Artist's Rooms. Claire told us how she was part of a group who were raising the profile of arts locally in Surrey.

The pressure some visitors feel to have the "right" response to an exhibition. Claire was particularly interested in the importance of language; how at times what is written about the work can seem elitist and confusing rather than communicate clearly.
Arthur Koestler, individual versus group needs, tribalism, cults, the need to belong.

Judith talked about the importance of (not) expressing an opinion and the value in being an observer.

How art is taught in schools and Universities and the unrealistic expectations of art graduates leaving college.


Comments that caught my eye at the back of the gallery:

Don't judge a man 'til you've walked a mile in his shoes. After that who cares? He's a mile away and you have his shoes...

Don't try to be a second version of someone else, be the first version of yourself.

Answer the question but question the answer.


The last word goes to Wendy, one of our Invigilators. She told me that despite all potential for controversy, the overwhelming response to the show from visitors has been "the importance of love, peace, sharing and humanity".



My thanks to everyone who took part and shared their ideas so generously. Apologies for any omissions or inaccuracies. Please feel free to add your own thoughts and comments

From the Comments Box

A few more thoughts from the walls of the Comments Box...

We have consumed it, destroyed it, battled over it and nature has given up. Hope it never happens.

You live life forwards and learn it backwards.

Life's not about the breaths you take, its about the moments that take your breath away.

"Black Holes of Belief"

This week's Thinking Aloud was a small but engaging discussion with young and older people, several of them here for a repeat viewing of the exhibition. The experience they have had with the work is one that would seem to be quite common, in my discussions with other people viewing the work. Several people expressed an initial annoyance, at having to "listen to nutters" and their beliefs, and irritation at the repetition involved in a lot of the work. 

From there the discussion moved to whether the pieces were "deliberately annoying", and if so, what the purpose of that was. Also whether, if work is designed to irritate, that runs the risk of simply alienating viewers who never get beyond their initial annoyance. (This was certainly the case with some viewers I spoke with earlier in the exhibition, who had given the work very little time and had no intention of giving it any more.)

For those who had come back there was a sense that the work actually has a lot to offer if you can examine your own irritation and look at what it points to. For example, the Ways The World End pieces that greet you at the door, which are extremely difficult to read, actually lead to a "black hole of belief" at their centre (beautifully put by Geoff, a painter), when you literally follow the text; and visually, they are closed ciruits, enclosed universes of belief in black space. 

One of the other interesting responses to come from the group was that essentially the exhibition is pointing to the fact that "everything we pick up - every piece of information - is partial". I loved this pithy response to what is on offer, that there is no absolute truth, despite our very human desire to have it be so, as exposed in so much of the text that Richard Grayson employs.

Another interesting point was about the impact in The Messiah of the haybales to sit on, the smell and feel of them, and how the hay, as much as the music and the video, contributes to how the "message" of the lyrics is framed and received, creating a different setting from the "cold, carved environment" in which "church" music is often experienced. 

Thanks to all who took part, for an interesting discussion about "annoying" art!

Questions about Richard Grayson's work

On my way to the Richard Grayson exhibition last Saturday I formulated a few questions about his work that are particularly interesting to me in relation to my own practice as an artist:

What are the effects of an artist choosing to question ideas through the filter of the words of another person? In The Magpie Index Roy Harper's views are thrown into relief and Grayson's own perspective remains ambiguous.

How can we question those assumptions in ourselves that we don't even know we have? There are various methods of doing this e.g. peer counselling and psycho-therapeutic methods which allow us to become aware of patterns of behaviour or long-held beliefs with the hope that one might be able to break free of them. How can we challenge these beliefs in each other? What mechanisms do we have for doing so? In standard educational models an older person is often in charge of educating a younger person. Perhaps it would make more sense if the older person passes on knowledge to the younger one who in turn teaches the older one how to think?

Art often questions our assumptions. How is this achieved in Grayson's work? Through new uses of media and material, new use of a familiar form such as narrative and the chorus?

What is rational intelligence and what might it look like?

Grayson's work comes across as human-friendly at the same time as it is challenging and uncompromising. How does he achieve this?

Where are the places where we have the opportunity to articulate what we believe? Especially if we are not and do not wish to be religious?

Susan Diab

Thinking Aloud participants comments Saturday 6 February 2010

Not being sure if all those who were present would find their way to this blog I asked them all if they would like me to put a comment up here for them and these are the words of those who took up this offer.

Alison: "This was a really cool tea."

Lizzie: "I liked the conversation."

Danielle: "I like the gallery because it discussed about God and that. I liked the Country and Western music."

Faye: "I liked having interesting conversations."

Olive: "The Country and Western music is good and the fact that it's scripture and it's not too dominant and it's relating to the needs of individual children and adults speaking to all nationalities and walks of life. Speaking to people as people. It's applicable. In Ecclesiastes it says because the philosopher was wise he chose words that are applicable to the hearers."

Elizabeth: "I was thrilled with the exhibition because it clearly proclaimed words of scripture which I feel are being sadly phased out of Britain. And I loved the barn atmosphere and the bales of straw. I give the whole thing 10 out of 10."

Alex: "Great use of digital media, great songs and lovely pencil drawings."

Beyond Belief

Saturday was remarkable for the different approaches to engaging with the work that I found with others. Drawn into the dark space of the Messiah piece I saw three girls in their early teens sitting high up on the hay bales enjoying watching the video. They told me they liked the singing and music and just being in the space especially since there weren’t many places in Bexhill they could go to just ‘hang out’. They didn’t believe in God and had long ago stopped believing in Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy. I asked them how they had felt about finding out that they had been told untruths but they just shrugged their shoulders and seemed rather non-plussed at my suggestion that they might have minded this.

Next, a guy called Dave Minton sought me out to talk to about the exhibition. Dave is currently engaged in painting dead birds perhaps as a way of keeping death at bay and we laughed about how we are all hurtling towards that inevitable end. A kind of circularity was taking shape within our conversation as we tried to deconstruct the way in which the ‘Tombs of Christ’ drawings had been made. This dizzying movement around and through sources of origin, none of which could be found to be ‘true’ reminded us of the spiral form in which the texts are laid out in the ‘Ways the World Ends’ pieces. Dave and I discussed many aspects of art-making, including the fears which it arouses. I suggested to Dave that the attempt to think bigger than one’s capacity to understand might be an ordinary part of human life and that it was sad how this gets pathologised in our society as a disorder as one of the characters in the Hadron Collider works explains has happened to him. Dave spoke at this point about the class system and how sometimes having particular thoughts or questions or ideas can clash with the set of behaviours that are acceptable within a particular social class and that one can appear, or fear appearing, ‘silly’ if one voices them. I was glad that we had got onto talking about class as a very important factor in how our ideas are shaped.

Those who showed up for tea upstairs were Dave, a guy called Alex from Croydon (with friend), two women Olive and Elizabeth and the three girls I had spoken to on the hay bales. Olive and Elizabeth loved the Messiah piece saying how good it was to hear and see the words of scripture because they are declared so rarely in everyday British life. Now, one of the first rules of gallery education work is that no opinion about the work is ‘wrong’. So, if Olive and Elizabeth read Grayson’s work as an all-singing all-dancing, welcome affirmation of the Word of God then who was I to put them ‘right’? They will never see how I think the piece works because the biblical words which appear in the work, in all their terrifying power, are how they wish to read them anyway, complete with the terror and the power. Does the fact that Grayson’s work can be so wholly enjoyed at face value mean that it ‘fails’ as a critique of belief systems? Surely not, rather that Grayson leaves things open enough for multiple interpretations to be possible and valid. With one hand on young Virginia’s shoulder (Virginia was the youngest of the group and was still at Junior school) Olive spoke movingly to her of the preciousness of children and in the next breath, to substantiate her point, was quoting a verse from the Bible about hanging whilst figuring a noose about her neck. I was stunned but held back. Let this group of people be, I thought. Let us all see how we get on, let us observe how each of us is with the others and still be determined somehow to keep deciding to live together. Virginia looked rather baffled by Olive but demonstrated the usual resilience of youth in the face of adult behaviour and carried on drinking her tea and happily telling us about life in Bexhill.

It was a warm, enjoyable, interesting, friendly occasion shot through with a vein of pure violence courtesy of the scripture. Words. “Sticks and Stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me”. How good that we learn that small rhyme in childhood! How it opens up for each of us a space between language and experience that allows us to assess a situation or a person and judge whether the words alone can really cause any harm or not. We can decide for ourselves, mostly. And this is the right that we must all protect. Elizabeth had a little riddle for us: an agreeable person agrees so what is a person like who disagrees? Why, disagreeable of course.

I, for one, retain the right to be as disagreeable as I please.

More tea, anyone?

If you would like to find out more about Dave Minton’s work you are very welcome to take a look at his website: http://www.davidmintonart.com