Ruth Barker’s Big Questions, No Answers
Ruth Barker’s blog post Big Questions, No Answers on the PAR+RS website asks some very important questions which turn the question of skill and expertise. Taking off at a tangent, these questions are fundamentally to do with inter-disciplinarity, skill, competence and, as Ruth says, responsibility.
One of the sharpest critiques I’ve read draws on Psychology and applies Attachment Theory to recent trends within the arts and culture, i.e. if culture or the arts attaches itself to health to gain access to resources then it is forced to adopt the valuation methods used in health. (Gray, C., Local Government and the Arts. Local Government Studies. Jan 2002.)
The danger is of course that the arts have attached themselves to health, environment, education (primary, secondary, further, higher and informal), social work, youth justice, criminal justice, etc… each bringing its own formulation and methodology for valuation. Hence there is an under acknowledged process of specialisation particularly in the field of public art, where successful practitioners have indepth knowledge of very specific policy areas and are able to engage with managers, politicians and policy makers on their own terms.
I would cite for example Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison who can sit down with very senior environmental scientists, policy makers and politicians and engage in detailed discussion of watershed management strategies. If you take a look at their publication Peninsula Europe you will find an analysis of the financial value of reforesting the high ground of Europe in terms of the amount of clean water produced. This is only one example. There are many others: Suzanne Lacy talking about the issues around rape or teen pregnancy. In Scotland Jackie Donnachie has a relationship with medical researchers of this same quality, but I digress.
The question is whether in this process the artist also persuades these sectors that creative methods (of valuation) are relevant to them. Whose terms is success judged by?
Comments on animals, ethics and Robert Burns
Some members of the ecoartnetwork responded to the short piece reflecting on Robert Burns’ To A Mouse and they kindly let me share their thoughts:
Chrissie Orr (and you can find out more about Chrissie at http://elotroladoproject.org/index.html) said,
Chris, I have always loved this poem. I was born in Scotland and grew up hearing the poems of Burns. My father was well known for reciting them at the Burns Suppers. I used to be able to recite this one by heart but over the years it has become more and more difficult to remember it all. Out here in New Mexico there are not many opportunities to use it and I’m out of practice.
Chrissie
Beth Carruthers (and you can find out more about Beth at http://www.bethcarruthers.com/ or http://ecuad.academia.edu/BethCarruthers) said,
Thanks so much for this Chris
I know this poem and what I like about it is not only the commiseration and empathy, but also as you say the recognition of relationship, of being together in a world. There is indeed a very long and deep history of people being not only human. Yet so many stories have been lost through the loss of the oral traditions of record keeping. I am fond of some stories that have survived in the Irish tradition, best known might be the Story of Fintan, and parts of the Song(s) of Amergin, which was written down by monks in 3500. The intertwining of being and the shape-changing is also very common here on the Pacific coast of Canada, in the traditional Haida culture, with its oral tradition. For the Haida, it was Raven who discovered the first men (and also, separately, the first women):
“Very strange creatures they were: two legged like Raven, but otherwise very different. They had no feathers. Nor fur. They had no great beak. Their skin was pale, and they were naked except for the dark hair upon round, flat-featured heads. Instead of strong wings like raven, they had thin stick-like arms that waved and fluttered constantly. They were the first humans.”
Traditional Haida tale of Raven finding the first men, as retold in translation by Barry McWilliams in Raven Finds the First Men
The world is full of persons, not all of whom are human 🙂
Canada is chock full of descendants of Scots settlers and my grandparents had the Gaelic – although they wouldn’t teach it to their children, for fear they would become social and economic outcasts in a British colony should they have a Scots accent. Normal, at that time. I certainly got a deep sense of interspecies relationship and of being part of a living and aware world from the Sinclair side of my family.
(BTW, here, on Robbie Burns Day, there are dinners, haggis, dancing and piping galore. Simon Fraser University – where I used to both study and teach – has 3 campuses around the city of Vancouver. Each year on this day a haggis is carried behind a kilted piper and protected with a ceremonial sword as it is carried to visit all campuses as a part of the celebration ritual – all by way of public transit (tube/skytrain). It is something to be on the train when they board 🙂
Beth
and Mary Arnold commented,
Chris & Beth,
Then there are the Selkie legends — tales of love and possession, hidden and dual identities, alienation and loss, as in this old recording. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zZy2Q3QY0Q
Mary
Education Special
Critical Network has highlighted some key creative approaches to resistance and education… Art e-bulletin #101 – Education Special.
Animals, ethics and Robert Burns
The question of the interspecies relations, and in particular those between humans and other inhabitants of the planet, is a key thread on the ecoartscotland site. This is a brief attempt to articulate a couple of thoughts, and needs further development, but it seems appropriate to ‘get it out’ tonight and then come back to it later.
[Robert Burns is of course remembered as the ploughman poet and is Scotland’s national bard. His birthday is remembered through Burns’ Night celebrations the world over on 25th January, and his songs are still sung, not least at New Year.]
Robert Burns’ poem, TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785, is a particular example of the way that Burns uses animals in his work, not just as metaphors and similes, but also empathetically, exploring their experience of the world in his imagination.
In “To A Mouse,” the first stanza establishes the circumstances: Burns is ploughing and ‘turns up’ the nest of a mouse.
The second stanza is an apology, not just for breaking open the nest, but for the way that man has exerted his control over the world and in particular has upset nature’s structure of relations between animals. Burns goes on to place himself on an equal footing with the mouse, as “fellow-mortal” and “earth-born companion”. Burns understands animals to have an “ill opinion” of man and, based on that, he empathises with the way that the mouse startles, not just at sudden exposure, but at man.
The poem goes on to describe the home of the mouse as a shelter from the harsh winter, and to justify the mouse’s theiving ways as necessary for survival. Throughout the poem, Burns is building affinities between the animal and man.
The second stanza is a radical repositioning of man in relation to other animals, positioning the animal at the centre of a disruption caused by man and exploring the consequences through an understanding of the animal’s needs. Framing these in terms of food, shelter and peace, Burns creates an alignment with perceived basic human needs.
The last stanza concludes with the idea that the mouse is relatively blessed, being concerned only with the present (albeit an extended present that includes preparations for winter), where Burns looks back on dreary events and forward to things unknown, but feared.
In the context of ongoing discussions about human-animal relations articulated in the works of artists as various as Erica Fielder and Kate Foster, this poem offers us a reminder that the radical creative imagination has addressed these issues over a very long period.
Burns’ works articulate a wider ethical and political concern. This is exemplified, for instance, by the statement Burns makes in a letter in 1789, “Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others, this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.”
(Whilst Burns’ Scots language can be challenging if you are not used to it, the best approach is to speak it out loud.)
Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
. Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
. Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
. Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
. An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
. ‘S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin’ wi’ the lave,
. And never miss’t!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin;
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin’!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
. O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin’,
. Baith snell and keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin’ fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
. Thou thought to dwell,
‘Till, crash! the cruel coulter past
. Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
. But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
. An’ cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men,
. Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief and pain,
. For promis’d joy.
Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e,
. On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
. I guess an’ fear.
“We are not very good at love.”
Fascinating programme on BBC Radio 4 yesterday (Mon 24th Jan) on the various factors making Glasgow one of the unhealthiest places to live. The programme discusses de-industrialisation (comparing with other parts of UK and Europe including Poland and Moravia), ghettoisation, genetics (not generally considered to be important), drink, drugs, violence (as the apparently default Glaswegian response) and Thatcherism as factors impacting on health. Conversely the programme considers the problems associated with infrastructure focused regeneration, culture and the question of hope. Drawing on expertise from the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being (“We are not very good at love.”), this excellent programme discusses the impact of childhood experiences and dysfunctional upbringings amongst the key factors.
“The sleeping giant of philanthropy” | The Art Newspaper
Very interesting article (albeit with a very US focus) on the ways that artists deal with their estates through trusts and foundations. The article highlights the very specific challenges where works of art form part of the assets of the trust or foundation.
Some of these are very well known (Andy Warhol, Pollock-Krasner, Henry Moore, etc) but there are also lots of new ones emerging. Some are structured to give grants whilst others focus on research and collections.
“The sleeping giant of philanthropy” | The Art Newspaper.
and the report (in two volumes) is on the Aspen Institute site.
State of Play Manifesto performance – Central Station Video
Video of contributions to the AHM ‘State of Play’ Symposium last year including Philip Schlesinger’s ‘Very Short Introduction to current Scottish Cultural Policy’, as well as Ruth Barker’s and Jimmie Durham’s amongst others … including mine, manifesto performance.
Reading
Anne Carson’s Nox published by New Directions is a remarkable book and reproduction of a scrapbook. It says on the back “When my brother died I made an epitaph for him in the form of a book. this is a replica of it, as close as we could get.”
and
Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty islands I have not visited and never will, the result of exploring the world through an atlas.
Robert Burns Public Art
Some of the many futures: I can report that on the 25th of January 2015 the STV Greatest Scot New Art Commission for Alloway, first announced in January 2011, is finally unveiled.
David Mach’s proposal, was for a 50ft high figure constructed out of small irregular pieces of metal leaning on the Auld Kirk ruin. Mach had trawled the internet for a year collecting images of people from Scotland and these faces had been printed onto the metal. It met with outrage when it was discovered that the figure was a nude female form entitled “Tam O’Shanter’s favourite Witch.”
Sandy Stoddart’s proposal was for a four-times life-size figure of Robert Burns in masonic robes. To be carved in granite, this work was to have cost more than the National Trust for Scotland’s entire deficit.
Claus Oldenburg collaged a modern hi-tech plough, rendered as a structure larger than the Brig O’Doon Hotel and called “John Barleycorn”, onto the landscape on the far side of the bridge.
Tracy Emin’s proposal, entitled “The Lass That Made The Bed To Me” was for a bed, sited in the gardens of the visitor centre, surrounded by whisky bottles and dirty clothes.
Fritz Haeg, although generally unknown in Scotland, drew on an experience as a young man visiting Burns Cottage. He had seen the representation of the market garden with plastic cows, chickens and cats. His ecoart proposal, “Tatties”, was to grub up all the gardens of the Burns Monument Park and establish allotments.
Jeremy Deller collected a large archive of Burns’ “tat”, primarily from the Burns Visitor Centre shop, and presented this as a cabinet of curiosities, the highlight of which was a taxonomy of decreasingly well executed representations of Robert Burns based on the portrait by Nasmyth.
Mark Dion’s proposal for a cabinet of curiosities entitled “To A Mouse,” used a taxidermists approach and incorporated every stuffed animal referred to in the collected works.
Charles Jencks proposed raising the existing Burns Monument on a large spiral landform taking up the whole area of the Monument Park and making the structure visible from Ayr Town centre.
Banksy proposed putting a traffic cone on top of the Monument.
George Wyllie’s 100,000 tonne container ship, named “Burns Line,” permanently moored at the mouth of the river Doon was to be inscribed with the words “Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others, this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.”
Suzanne Lacy’s approach was to involve as many young women in the South West of Scotland in a performance entitled “The Lads o’ Tarbolton, Cessnock Banks, the Highlands, Ballochmyle, Albany, Inverness, Ecclefechan and of the Country.”
Rachel Whiteread cast the inside of Burns Cottage and then demolished the building.
Yinka Shonibare proposed to dress all the statues of Burns around the world in brightly colour West African batik clothes for a day. As with his other works, all the heads were to be removed.
Anthony Gormley’s cast iron life sized nude figure entitled “A man’s a man for all that” was rejected as being self-serving.
With thanks to Murdo for the inspiring conversation.
Working Well: People and Spaces
The New South Glasgow Project received the go-ahead from the Scottish Government in December.
Oral Histories A-Z – Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Oral Histories A-Z – Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Amazing resource of interviews with artists. I found Josef Albers and Hans Haacke, and have just pdf’d Suzanne Lacy for later reading.
CHRIS FREMANTLE 
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