~Jenny Saville ~
Saville the Artist
“At Gagosian, the young British painter Jenny Saville has achieved something, er, Sensational. The nostalgic smell of oil paint fills the gallery, but we are not in for a walk down memory lane. Her huge paintings of female nudes are completely historical, even hewing to academic traditions, and still manage to question everything” ~ A Painter's Progress, by Dennis Kardon
Biography
Saville was born into a family of educators in Cambridge, England, in 1970. She began a course of study at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland in 1988. There, she found only one female painting tutor, a disappointing lack of female perspective for the budding feminist. This lack of a female presence was soon filled through the feminist texts that Saville began reading during a visit to the United States midway through her college career. Saville was awarded a scholarship to attend Cincinnati University for six months. The college was located in Ohio, where Saville’s lifelong fascination with the workings of the human body began to affect her artwork. Finding herself immersed in a different culture, Saville “was interested in the malls, where you saw lots of big women. Big white flesh in shorts and T-shirts. It was good to see because they had the physicality that I was interested in.” It was in this environment that Saville began to read the feminist literature that would later play an important role in paintings such as “Propped.” With these texts and other artists such as Cindy Sherman (a contemporary conceptual photographer) as an influence, Saville embarked on creating a series of works that would later make up her degree show in Glasgow. At this college degree show, Saville’s career began to take shape. All of her paintings shown were sold, quite an uncommon and impressive feat for a 22-year-old artist. This was only one of the first signs of the success that Saville would soon achieve. Former advertising mogul-turned-gallery-owner Charles Saatchi spotted Saville’s work in a 1993 show called “Critic’s Choice,” at London’s Cooling Gallery (a show Saville herself didn’t get to see because she lacked the finances to make the trip from Glasgow). Impressed with what he saw, Saatchi decided to track down the paintings that had been purchased in Glasgow to buy them for his own collection. In addition, he challenged Saville to make paintings to fill his gallery. Paying her to work from August 1992 until January of 1994, Saatchi used the commissioned works to produce a 1994 show of Saville’s paintings in his gallery space in northwestern London. This show widened Saville’s audience and subsequently led to the inclusion of her work in exhibits at venues such as the Pace McGill in New York, the Museum of Kalmar in Stockholm, and the Royal College of Art in London. Shortly after this string of shows, Saville crossed the ocean and moved to New York City for a period of time in 1994. There, Saville spent long hours observing the work of Dr. Barry Martin Weintraub, a plastic surgeon based in the city. Taking photographs while standing in on cosmetic surgeries and lyposuctions, Saville gained a better understanding of the human body and the various manipulations that can be made through modern medicine. Not only did she improve her knowledge of the physical workings of the alterations, but, perhaps more importantly, she gained insight into the psychological factors behind the changes as well. The controversial 1997 “Sensation” exhibit, which showed at the Royal Academy of Art in London, furthered Saville’s notoriety. “Sensation” included fellow Young British Artists (as they came to be dubbed by the media) Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Marcus Harvey, Tracey Emin, and Chris Ofili, among others. The show opened to mixed reviews and throughout its run caused quite an uproar, inciting more than one occurrence of vandalism of the artwork. Fortunately, Saville’s work survived unscathed and was also featured in the equally uproarious New York showing of the exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which Mayor Rudy Guiliani openly protested. Saville’s gigantic paintings dominated the show in sheer size, thus making her a household name in London and her work recognizable in popular British culture. Despite the prevalent use of her body in her work, Saville’s personal life is not often discussed. Although she has been involved with fellow painter Paul McPhail since the two met in art school seven years prior, there are currently no thoughts of marriage in Saville’s future.
As she told Vogue, “I don’t have a desire to be a wife or to have a husband.” Right now, the closest Saville is willing to come to having children is a potential painting of a baby.”Most recently, Saville was featured in a solo show at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. The exhibit featured six new paintings that continued Saville’s pattern of large-scale nudes. One painting, “Hybrid” , is a double portrait of Saville and her sister based on a childhood photograph. The image is a close-up of the two heads, which appear to be attached like the heads of Siamese twins. Another painting, entitled “Matrix” , shows Saville’s interest in gender, as it depicts an intersex person. This slight digression from Saville’s usual subject matter is perhaps a sign of her new work to come. Currently, Jenny Saville lives and works in London, England, where she is a tutor of figure painting at the Slade School of Art in London. Her position at the Slade School allows her to share and learn with her students, and gives them the opportunity to work with one of the most talented up-and-coming artists of the twenty-first century.
Saville’s Work
“In an age where technology often prevails, Saville has found a way to reinvent figure painting and regain its prominent position in the context of art history.”
As talked about tin the documentary ; Vile Bodies: Saville is interested in the complexity of the vision of beauty. The body in her eyes should be portrayed and is about truth; the norm and to be accepted and everyone is normal as long as their lives are positively lived and that is what makes it and them beautiful. Publicly we are shown a narrow definition on how we think a female body should behave. Saville suggests that ‘everybody has a sense of what is the perfect face’ but generally it is to have ‘big lips, small nose and big eyes.”
Bodies have become like a commodity as a surgeon has the skill to change them. Saville is intrigued by the mobility of flesh which she observed in many plastic surgery operating rooms. The operations she looked in on ranged from a simple face life to sex changes. Saville shows an interest in the fact that humans can be authors of their lives.
Saville ironically worked with fashion Photographer Glen Luchford. Dealing with fashion imagery Saville attempted to play on the seductiveness in real life women and the sexual nature of these bodies which in today’s Western society would be labelled as “fat“ and unappealing. Saville was photographed on a sheet of Perspex with her body moved about to make her self look less attractive according to the normal view of beauty. She gained a sense of stepping on a territory and subject that your not meant to trap into or disturb; that ultimately being the body of a ‘larger woman.’ There is both beauty and awquardness in the bodies she photographs and paints.
“The effect of Saville’s work is to break up and tear apart our self-image. Along side the meanings in terms of which we habitually understand our lives there is another region of experience, at once terrifying and somehow enticing, where no trace of meaning can be found and it is in this forbidden territory that she works.” Taken from the Landscape of the Body: Ballard, Bacon, and Saville by John Grey.
Said to be scattered all over her studio floor are full colour photographs of horrific burns, bruises and injuries; including both beautiful and grotesque images. The images of trauma and violence so characterised of the visual diet provided by our news media at present. 9/11 and other traumatic incidents which have been publicised have made an impact on Saville’s visual imagination and also on how it is perceived by audiences; this is especially apparent in the series Migrants.
The paintings are large and realistic; this almost shrinks the viewer which creates an uncomfortable feeling and summons a vulnerability to make the viewer confront their view of their own body and flesh. It seems that a result is that the viewer is often seduced by the sensuality and grotesqueness of the figures set before them.
Saville also casted the body of a larger person and stuck them onto her body to take photos and paint from. This exercise was to see what it felt like to be big and beautiful and an experiment to show the change of process and to demonstrate that the body Is a shell and a disguise.
(On the life room) As talked about in the documentary; The Truth about art: Saville finds the life room portraits very classically posed and set up and un-natural like it is intended to be. Saville thinks the mirror is very harsh and only shows the reflection of the body which is a mechanical object but does not show anything beyond the primacy of sight. Saville believes that by painting the portrait it is also possible to capture the smell, feel and taste. Saville believes it to be essential to be the model and the artist. She is interested in showing that there is a difficulty in being with in the normal body. Women are concerned with areas of their body which are traditionally connected with fertility and seem to be using methods such as cosmetic surgery to strip these away. Modern day women seem to want a more androgonistic body were anything beyond the frame work of the body is seen as excess surplus pollution. Saville did not want her paintings to look like a universal presentation of women. The use of large scale paintings was not about the scale of the body but intentionally to shrink the viewer and to create intimacy. The same effect was created with the “sea of bodies.” The intimacy of strangers, She also wanted to change the modern tradition that a portrait is seen as a whole body; in this case many portraits are moulded into one as a play with how this should be perceived and judged.
Saville’s work expresses a parallel project of reclaiming the body from personality. An example of this is “suspension” the painting is based on an animal although it still recalls the flesh of humans. The idea of this it to allow human flesh to be presented and perceived as alien. The essence of emotion of the animal of human so to speak is then captured through colour, tone and texture.
“Saville’s work is post-post-painting reinventing itself in the whirlpool of the present; painterliness pushed so far that it signifies a kind of disease of the pictorial, a symptom of deeper disturbances lurking beneath the visible relation of paint to canvas. For although surface and grid both play an important role in Saville’s pictorial invention, they are paradoxically melted down and at the sane time sharpened up by the virtuoso yet oddly apostrophic brush work that marks her style.” Taken from Migrants by Linda Nochlin.
Who Saville’s work attracts, supports and angers (audience)
“The viewer is not a spectator and is not unwilling. Saville’s paintings do not allow a disinterested glance. Once you look you are hocked.” ~ Taken from The landscape of the Body; Ballard, Bacon and Saville by John Grey.
Saville’s paintings and observations are very subtlety of a feminist nature. It could be argued that Saville’s work is surprisingly untraditionally inoffensive as all gender forms are exploited and always as objects of beauty. These portraits are not perceived like classical nude paintings were the female’s are looked on and painted directly as sexual objects and they are not ‘owned’ in that respect. Being a female artist who has managed to make her name as talked about as all of The Greats such as Picasso and Pollock; has created some what of an uproar and is viewed by feminists as a great break in an unfair tradition (ironically her medium and technique is nothing but traditional.)
“Saville's blatantly feminist subject matter - obese and sometimes faceless women whose vast bodies resemble mottled pink relief maps or hugely rendered versions of ancient fertility charms - partly originates in a trip to America made midway through her course at the Glasgow School of Art.” quote taken from The female gaze by Alison Roberts.”
I personally believe it to be true that every woman has an insecurity about their body and Saville had made these flaws in our bodies a natural, beautiful and celebrated thing. Although the painting is uncomfortable as she intended it is also secure to look at as it contains the factor of ‘truth.’
“In a society often obsessed with physical appearance, Jenny Saville has created a niche for overweight women in contemporary visual culture.”
By non-feminist observers I think it can be said that they perceive her clear-eyed and unromantic view of the average female form; undistorted by sexual desire or notions of idealised femininity with out offence. The distinction can be made with out it being obvious and taking over the quality of the paintings. Even those who agree with the Western view of beauty rather than the reality as presented by Saville; can still appreciate her technique and painting skills. This makes Saville a rather rounded and inoffensive artist who appeals to all walks of life.
Saville’s work ventures into the most forbidding zone of human experience but for that reason it cannot be seen as finally nihilistic. In exploring this seemingly barren but actually highly fertile region. Saville is exploring what it means to be human today. This is something that universally every human can obviously relate to and sympathise with; and therefore react to. It is possible this exploitation of exploration can prove uncomfortable for some viewers although never the less still intrigues everyone whether it be negatively or positively.
Curriculum Vita
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2005-
'Jenny Saville', Macro, Rome January 21-May 11. Fulcrum 3. Hyphen 5. Matrix 7. Host 9. Reverse 11.Suspension2. Aperture 4. Passage 6. Torso1 8. Torso2 10. Entry 12. Stare
2003 -'Migrants', Gagosian Gallery, Chelsea, NY. April 5-May 31. Suspension 3. Reflective Flesh 5. Aperture2. Still 4. Reverse 6. Pause
2002-'Closed Contact', Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles, California. January 12-February 9
1999-'Territories', Gagosian Gallery, NY. October 2-December 181. Fulcrum 3. Brace 5. Hyphen2. Ruben's Flap 4. Hem 6. Matrix
1996
-Jenny Saville/Glen Luchford: A Collaboration, Pace McGill Gallery, New York
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2005-
-The Figure In and Out of Space, Gagosian Gallery, New York
-Il Male. Esercizi di Pittura Crudele, Pallazina di Caccia di Stupinigi,
Turin, Italy
2004-
-Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London. Drawings,
Gagosian Gallery, London (Heddon) SITE Sante Fe’s Fifth
International Biennial: Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque
(curated by Robert Storr), SITE Santa Fe, NM (through 2005).-Galleon and Other Stories, the Saatchi Gallery, London.
2003
-50th International Biennale di Venezia: Painting (curated by Francesco
Bonami), Museo Correr, Venice, Italy
2002
-The Physical World: An Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Gagosian
Gallery, New York.-The Nude In 20th Century Art, Kunsthalle Emden, Germany. Travelled to: Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen (through
2003).-Women, Eyestorm Gallery, London.
2001
-Les Voluptes (curated by E. Winner), Borusan Centre for Contemporary
Art, Istanbul, Turkey.-Narcissus, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.-Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney,
Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT. Travelled to Huntington Art Collections, San Marino, CA (through
2002).Naked Since 1950, C&M Arts, New York.-Art, Age and Genders, Orleans House Gallery, Riverside, Twickenham,
England. Travelled to: Usher Gallery, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England; New
Greenham Arts, Newbury, Berkshire, England (through 2004).
2000
-Painting the Century: 101 Masterpieces, 1900-2000, National Portrait
Gallery, London (through 2001).-Ant Noises 2, the Saatchi Gallery, London.-Ant Noises, the Saatchi Gallery, London.
1999-'The Nude in Contemporary Art', The Aldridge Museum of Art, Ridgefield Connecticut USA. June 6-September 121. Juncture-'Unconvention', Centre for Visual Arts, Cardiff, Whales November 20-January 16-'The Figure: Another Side of Modernism', The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snugharbor Cultural Center, Statan Island NY, June 4, 1999-January 14, 2000-'Sensation: YBA From the Saatchi Collection', Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY USA October 2,1999-January 9, 2000
1998-'Sensation: YBA From the Saatchi Collection', Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, September 30, 1998-February 21, 1999-'Extensions of the Body-Aspects of the Figure', Joseloff Gallery, University of Hartford, Connecticut.-'Close Echoes: Public Bodies and Artificial Space', The City Gallery Kunsthalle Prague. March-May1.Prop 2.Interfacing-'The Ugly Show', Bracknell Arts Center, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds July 1-July 311. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7
1997-'From the Interior', Kingston University, London May 17-June 14-'Sensation: YBA From the Saatchi Collection', Royal Academy of Art, London, September 18-December 28.1.Propped 2.Trace 3.Plan 4.Hybrid 5.Shift
1996-'Art On', Halmstadt, Swedan.-'Sad', Gasworks, London, December 7-January 12-'Closed Contact: A Collaboration', Pace McGill Gallery, NY1. 2. (closed contact)-'Bad Blood', Glasgow, Print Studio, Glasgow(closed contact)-'Contemporary British Art at Art 96', Museum of Kalmar, Stockholm Swedan.(Closed Contact)
1995-'American Passion', Mclellan Gallery, Glasgow. Traveled to Royal College of Art and then to the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA1. Juncture-'Continuing Tradition: 75 Years of Painting', Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow.
1994-'YBA III', The Saatchi Gallery, London, January 28-July 31.1. Plan 2.Interfacing 3. Trace 4.Propped 5.Strategy 6. Prop 7.Branded
1993-'Critics Choice', Coolong Gallery, London.1. Branded 2. Factor 8-'SSA', The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.1. 2. 3.
1992-'Degree Show', Glasgow Art School, Glasgow
1990 -'Contemporary 90', Royal College of Art1. Untitled (bride)
1989
-Self Portraits, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, Scotland
Publications referring to Saville
PERIODICALS
1992David Cohen, 'Young Art Runs Free', London Times, September 5,
Clare Henry, 'Critic Opts for the Young and Old' The Herald, September 11, 1992
1993
Clare Henry, 'When the Law is No Ass', The Herald, October, 23, 1993
1994-Henneka Savenjie, 'Een Interviev Met Jenny Saville', Avenue no. 3 January 1994
Pat Kane, 'A Full Body of Work', The Observer, January 23, 1994
William Packer, 'Energy on a Grotesque Scale', Financial Times, January 28, 1994
Catherine Milner 'A Brighter Picture' The London Times, January 29, 1994
David Sylvester, 'Areas of Flesh', Independent on Sunday, January 30, 1994
James Hall, 'Repetitive Art, Come Again?', The Guardian, January 31, 1994
Sarah Kent, 'Young Ones', Time Out, no. 1224, February 2-9, 1994
Clare Henry, 'Stinging Salvos of Flesh', The Herald, February 4, 1994
Andrew Gram-Dixon, 'She Ain't Heavy, She's My Sister', Independent, February, 8, 1994
Richard Dorment, 'Virtuoso Mountains of Quivering Flesh', the Daily Telegraph, February 9, 1994
'In Your Face' The Scotsman: Scotland on Sunday, February 13, 1994
Richard Cork, 'Feminism in the Flesh', The Times, February 22, 1994
John McEwen, 'Stripped Naked in Arcadia', Sunday Telegraph, February 27, 1994
Hunter Davies, 'Interview', Independent, March 1, 1994
Clare Henry, 'Absolutely Flabulous', The Herald, March 28, 1994
Sergio Miller, 'Meaty Issues', Arts Review V. 46 April 1994 pg 18-19
Clare Henry, 'Falkirk's Gain is Glasgow's Loss', The Herald, April 18, 1994
Tony Godfrey, 'Jenny Saville', Arts in America, May 1994
Jeffrey Kastner, 'Young British Artist III: Saatchi Collection' Flash Art no. 176, May/June 1994
Lynda Nead, 'Caught in the Act of Staring', Women's Art Magazine no. 58, May/June 1994
David Cohen, 'Three Young Artist', Modern Painters v. 7 Spring 1994 pg.88-90
Waldemar Janusczak, 'As Large as Life', The Sunday Times, July 31, 1994
Richard Jacques, 'Edinburgh Art Show' The Scotsman, August 30, 1994
Class of '94' British Vogue,, December 1994. Whole Number 2357 Vol. 160 pg 138-9
Sally Kerr, 'Knock Out Show', The Herald, December 9, 1994
Clare Henry, 'A Passion That Puts Glasgow to Shame', The Herald, December 19, 1994
1995
John Millar, 'Tarred With a New Brush', Scottish Daily Record, February28, 1995
'Unrelenting Student of Female Flesh', London Sunday Times, March 19, 1995
David Britain, 'Jenny Saville', Creative Camera, June/July 1995 pg.24-29
1996
Holland Cotter, 'Bing, Luchford and Saville', The New York Times, August 23, 1996
Marsha Meskimmon, 'The Monstrous and Grotesque', Make no. 72, October/November 1996
Clare Henry, 'To Paint the Body Eccentric', The Herald, December 9, 1996
1997
Lisa Jardine, 'Coffe Trader? Come Off It, Sewell, Charles Saatchi is the British Art World's Greatest Living Asset, New Statesman, January 10, 1997 Vol 126 issue 4316 pg 38
Sarah Kent, 'It's a Sensation, But is it Art', Time Out no. 1412, August 10-17, 1997
Catherine Milner, 'Bring on the Blubernaughts', The Sunday Telegraph, September 14, 1997
Richard Cork, 'The Establichment Clubbed' The Times (London) September 16, 1997
Max Bourge, 'Sensation', DS Magazine (Belgium), November 7, 1997
Alan Riding, 'No Sexism please, They're British', New York Times, December 29, 1997
David Lee, 'Interview', Art Review v.49 December 1997/January 1998 pg 58+
Petra Unnutzer, 'Sensation: Young British Art From the Saatchi Collection', Kuntsforum International no.139 December 1997/March 1998 pg.412-14
1998
Sarah Kent, 'Naked Truths', Time Out no. 1439, March 18-25, 1998
Peter Ross, 'Vile Bodies', The List no. 328, March 20- April 2, 1998
Martin Gayford, 'A Body of Work', The Daily Telegraph, March 21, 1998
Ian Gale, 'How Vile Can you Get', The Scotsman: Scotland on Sunday, March 22, 1998
Kate Mikhail, 'Ugliness is in the Eye of the Beholder', Independent, July 7, 1998
Mike Dawson, 'Between the Lens and Paint' Interview with Jenny Saville, Flux Magazine August/September 1998
Rodger Bevan 'Good House Keeping' Art and Auction, November 30-December 13, 1998
D. Lister, 'Brit Art's Big Day Out' The Independent December 9, 1998
1999
Caroline Corbetta, 'Inside the Saatchi Sale: A Conversation with Fernando Mignoni, Christie's ContemporaryAuctions' Flash Art, January-February 1999. pg 45
Clare Henry, 'Atlantic Crossing', Modern Painters v.12 no.4, Winter 1999 pg. 103-4
Cordelia Oliver, 'Through Women's Eyes', Modern Painters v.12no.4, winter 1999 pg. 93-4
Elspeth Moncrieff, 'Marketing, Marketing, and More Marketing', Art Newspaper v.10 no.88 January 1999
Isabelle de Wavrin 'Collection Saatchi: La Publicita a L'oeuvre', Beux Arts Magazine no.177, February 1999 pg. 108-9
Dodie Kazanjian, 'Skin Deep', American Vogue, May 1999 pg.296-9+
Bill Arning, 'Body Politics', Time Out NY no.198 July 8-15, 1999
Jerry Saltz, 'No Sex Please, We're Artistic' Village Voice, August 18-24, 1999
Dominique Nahas, 'Jenny Saville at the Gagosian', The Review, October 1999
Roberta Smith, 'Jenny Saville', NY Times, October 15, 1999
Christian Viveros-Faune, 'Written on a Body' The New York Press vol.12 no.42, October 26, 1999
Dennis Kardon, 'A Painter's Progress' ArtNet.com, October 26, 1999
David Ebony 'Jenny Saville at Gagosian' AtNet.com, October 27, 1999
Bill Arning, 'Jenny Saville' Time Out NY issue no. 214, October 28-November 4, 1999
Arthur C. Danto, 'Sensation in Brooklyn', The Nation, November 1, 1999
Cristopher Chambers 'Jenny Saville', New Yorker, November 1, 1999
Max Henry 'Gothem Dispatch' ArtNet.com November 4, 1999
Christopher Chambers, 'Jenny Saville: Gagosian', Flash Art November/December 1999
Mark Stevens, 'Fresh Meat', New York Magazine, December 1999
Donald Kuspit, 'Jenny Saville: Gagosian Gallery', Art Forum, December 1999
Clare Henry, 'Jenny Saville: Gagosian', Art News, December 1999
2000
Clare Henry, 'Troubled Oils', The Herald, January 15, 2000
Collin Gleadell, 'In and Out of Love', Art Monthly no.233, February 2000 pg.4
Linda Nochlin, 'Floating in a Gender Nirvana', Art in America, March 2000 pg.94-7
Matthew Collings, 'A day in the Life of British Art', The Observer, March 19, 2000 pg 10
Charles Darwent, 'Big Really Does Mean Beautiful', The Independent April 16, 2000
Adrian Searle, 'A Relentless Litany of Self Abuse', The Guardian, April 18, 2000
Laura Cumming, 'What the Sensationalists Did Next', The Observer, April 23, 2000
William Packer, 'Revisiting Saatchi's Past Sensations', Financial Times, April 25, 2000
Charles Darwent, 'Jenny Saville', Modern Painters v.13 no.2 Summer 2000, pg.108-9
Judith Halberstam, 'The Body in Question: Transgender Images in Contemporary Visual Art', Make Magazine no.88, June/August 2000. pg.37-8
Anna Murphy, 'An Obsession With Bodily Extremes' , Sunday Telegraph, September 03, 2000
William Packer, 'Young British Artist Fail to Shock', Financial Times, September 16, 2000
Peter Ross, 'Bring Home the Bacon', The Sunday Herald, September 17, 2000
Martin Gayford, 'One Stains' is Another Anagram of Sensation', Sunday Telegraph, September 17, 2000
W. Feaver 'Ant Noises at Saatchi: London' ArtNews October 2000
D. sims 'Master Class' Harper's Bazaar, December 2000
K. Donald 'Jenny Saville at Gagosian' ArtForum, December 2000
Martin Gayford, 'Jenny Saville on Chaim Soutine's Carcass of Beef', The Daily Telegraph, December 30, 2000
2001
John Calcut, 'To See Ourselves as Others See Us' The Scotsman: Scotland on Sunday January 21, 2001
James Goulder, 'Branded for Life. The Market of Jenny Saville' Gabriuszine.com July 25, 2001
William Zimmer 'British Painting Through the Centuries' NY Times, October 21, 2001
2002
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, 'Jenny Saville and Glen Luchford: Gagosian Gallery, LA' The Art news Paper: Whats on, n.121 January 2003
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, 'Back to Paint--Thanks to Photos' Los Angeles Times, January 13, 2002
Paul Young, 'Art of Glass' WWD, January 28,2002 Vol. 183 No.18 pg16
Daniel Grant, 'Saville's Soaring Prices', ART news, March 2002. pg 74
Mary Sherman, 'Realism Proves All Too Familiar', Boston Herald, March 22, 2002.
Cate McQuaid, 'Figures, Landscapes and Other Elements of Realism' The Boston Globe, March 31, 2002
Helen Allen, 'NY Contemporary Auctions: Strong Sales, Low Energy' Flash Art July-September 2002
Shecky Kennedy, 'Jenny Saville &Glen Luchford: Closed Contact at Gagosian' Coagula pg 40-1
2003
A. Landi, 'Who are the Great Women Artist?' ArtNews, March 2003
R Aidin, 'The South Bank Show' The Times Magazine, London, March 2003
Walter Robinson, 'Weekend Update' Artnet.com, April 14, 2003
'Thigh of the Beholder' The Mirror, April 18, 2003
Alison Roberts, 'The Female Gaze: Jenny Saville' The Observer, Sunday April 20, 2003
Ken Johnson, 'Jenny Saville Migrants' New York Times Friday April 25,200
Clare Henry, 'I Just Have to Paint, I Can't Not Paint' Financial Times April 30, 2003
J. La Placa 'Paint Made Flesh' Art Review, May 2003
Domenick Ammirati, 'Critics' Picks: Jenny Saville' Artforum.com May 1, 2003
'Summer Contemporary Art Sale at Sotherby's' artdaily.com May 21, 2003
Colin Gleadell, 'Contemporary Market' The Telegraph, June 16, 2003
Roger Bevan, 'Advantage, Whom?' The Art Newspaper.com July, 2003
Soureen Melikian, 'Beyond Contemporary and into the Future' The Herald, July 5, 2003
Scott Reyburn, 'Middle Ground is Key as Supply of Major 20th Century works dries up' Antique trade Gazzette, July 12, 2003M. Amy 'Migrants at the Gagosian, NY' Tema Celeste, July/August 2003
Godfrey Barker, 'Smile! Your prices Have just Gone Up' Art Review, July/August 2003
J.Hyams, 'The Art of Survival' Evening Standard, London, August 26, 2003
R. Diez, 'La Dittatura dei Curatori' Arte, September, 2003
Elton John, 'Jenny Saville Interview' Interview October 2003
Pernilla Holmes, 'The Body Unbeautiful' Artnews, November 2003 Michelle Meagher, 'Jenny Saville and a Feminist Aesthetics of Disguust' Hypatia-A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Vol. 18 Fall/Winter, 2003
Robert Rosenblum, 'Best of 2003, Jenny Saville' Artforum, December 2003
Gower Williams, 'Valuing Contemporary Art for Auction' The Arts Surveyor, December 2003
2004
Carol Kino, 'Jenny Saville at Gagosian' Art in America, January 2004
Barry Schwabsky, 'Jenny Saville: Unapologetic' Art Press, Febuary 2004
J. Batalion, 'Back to the Drawing Board: Feminist Reconsiderations in the work of Jenny Saville and Sarah Sze' Immediations Magazine (Courtauld Institute of Art) London, Spring 2004
A. Olivia, 'Jenny Saville', Belio Magazine, April 14, 2004S. Simonds, 'Radio Interview for "Feminist Magazine"' KPFK California, May 2004H. Pietsch, 'Forschungen an Lieb und Seele' Art Magazine, Germany, August 2004
2005
Suzie Mackenzie, 'Under The Skin' The Guardian Weekend Magazine, October 10, 2005
BOOKS AND JOURNALS
1989
'Self Portraits', The Burrell Collection, 1989(Exhibition Catalogue)
'National Portrait Competition', National Portrait Gallery, 1989(Exhibition Catalogue)
1990
'Contemporary '90', Royal College of Art, 1990(Exhibition Catalogue)
1994
Sarah Kent, 'Young British Artist III', The Saatchi Gallery, 1994(Exhibition Catalogue)
Sarah Kent, 'Shark Infested Waters', Zwemmer, 1994
1995
'American Passion', Mclellan Gallery, 1995(Exhibition Catalogue)
1996
Anna Douglas and Nicholas wegner, 'Jenny Saville', Artist stories, AN Publications, 1996
Jo-Anna Isaak, 'Feminism And contemporary Art', Routledge, 1996
Marsha Meskimmon, 'Women's Self-Portraiture: The Art of Reflection', Scarlet Press, 1996
1997
Griselda Pollock, 'Generations and Geographies', Thames and Hudson, 1997
Melanie Roberts, 'From the Interior', Kingston University Press, 1997(Exhibition Catalogue)
Chris Townsend, 'Vile Bodies', Channel 4 and Prestell, 1997(Exhibition Catalogue)
Sensation: Young British Artist From The Saatchi Collection', Thames and Hudson, 1997(Exhibition Catalogue)
1998
Donald Kuspit, 'Extensions: Aspects of the Body', Symposia, 1998(Exhibition Catalogue)
'Close Echoes', The City Gallery, Prague, 1998(Exhibition Catalogue)
1999
Michael Hardin, 'Mar(k)ing the objected Body: A Reading of Contemporary Female Tattooing', Fashion Theory Vol. 3, Berg, 1999
'Young British Artist-The Saatchi Decade', Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1999
'Jenny Saville: Territories', Gagosian Gallery, 1999(Exhibition Catalogue)
Michael Raeburn, 'Vision 50 Years of British Creativity', Thames and Hudson, 1999 (pg.236 short bio and photo of Shift)
Judy Chicago and Edward Lucie-Smith, 'Women and Art: Contested Territory'. Watson-Guptill, 1999 (pg. 142-143, short bio and photo of Branded)
2000
Gemma de Cruz, 'Ant Noises', Saatchi Gallery, 2000(Exhibition Catalogue)
Gemma de Cruz, 'Ant Noises II', Saatchi Gallery, 2000(Exhibition Catalogue)
ed. Robin Gibson,'Painting the Century:101 Portrait Master Pieces1900-2000, National Portrait Gallery, 2000(Exhibition Catalogue)
Paul Ardenne, 'L'Image Corps', Editions du Regard, 2000
2001
Helen Ricket and Peggy Phelan, 'Art and Feminism', Fabian Press, 2001
Elga Wimmer, 'Les Voluptes', Borusan Culture and Art Center, 2001(Exhibition Catalogue)
'Great British Paintings From American Collections', Yale Center for British Art, 2001(Exhibition Catalogue)
Robert Pincus Witten, 'Naked Since 1950', C&M Arts, 2001(Exhibition Catalogue)
2002-Katherine Dunn, 'Closed Contact: Jenny Saville & Glen Luchford, Gagosian Gallery, 2002(Exhibition Catalogue)
VIDIO’S
'Jenny Saville', Produced & Directed by Nicola Black, BBC2, August 23,1995. 30 min.
'The Truth About Art'
'Vile Bodies', Produced by Adam Barker, Directed by Edmund Coulthard, BBC 4, March 23, 1998. 60 min
Interviews
JENNY SAVILLE BEING INTERVIEWED BY ELTON JOHN
ELTON JOHN: I'm here with Jenny Saville in the most unlikely place Sicily. I've been a big fan of yours for such a long time. I saw your show at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City last spring, and it blew me away because the work was so strong and real. With so much abstract art these days, to walk into the gallery and see work that focuses on reality--like your huge painting of the pig [Suspension]--just completely thrilled me. You're one of the few artists working today who's committed to realism.
JENNY SAVILLE: I want people to know what it is they're looking at. But at the same time, the closer they get to the painting, it's like going back into childhood. And it's like an abstract piece--it becomes the landscape of the brush marks rather than just sort of an intellectual landscape.
EJ: How do you approach the process of painting?
JS: I tend to think about each section of a painting in terms of musical passages. I work on areas like one meter by one meter, so I'll think, I've got to get across the nose or the stomach of the pig or whatever; how am I going to play it? So I mix up all the colours and think of them as if they were tones. And then I think, how am I going to play that brush mark? Am I going to play it hard, next to some fiddly brush marks? I think of it like that.
EJ: Of all the painters around today, when your name comes up people always say the same thing--she can really paint. I've heard people compare your work to Lucian Freud's and to Francis Bacon's.
JS: I probably look at Bacon and [Willem] de Kooning more than Freud. De Kooning is my main man, really, because he just did everything you can do with paint. He reversed it, dripped it, scraped it. But I want to hold on to a certain amount of reality.
EJ: I also found the space of your last show particularly moving because it was just this huge white room.
JS: I panicked initially when I saw the space because I thought, I'm never going to have enough paintings for this room. But I was quite pleased when I got in there. In my studio, I have masses of stuff everywhere.
EJ: One thing that always strikes me about your work is how it addresses all the lies we're fed by the media. You seem hell-bent on telling the truth, even though you distort your personal image. For instance, I own two of your big photographs that you did with Glen [Luchford, a collaboration on a series of works that depict Saville pressed against glass], and in them you deliberately distort your face and body. From some of the full nudes, you'd think you were this huge, overweight woman. In fact, you're not--you're very petite, you have a lovely figure, and you're very pretty.
JS: I use my body as a prop. It's like loaning my body to myself. So the flesh becomes like a material. In the photographs the flesh was like paint. Those pictures all came out of my exposure to plastic surgery. I worked with this plastic surgeon in New York for quite a few months, and I saw all of this manipulation of flesh and liposuction and surgeons' fists moving around inside breasts.
EJ: Did it put you off the idea of ever having any plastic surgery done yourself?
JS: No, it's pretty impressive. What did put me off is that they discuss what kind of topping they want on their pizza while they're doing it!
EJ: Personally, I have such a hard time with my own body image--I can't look in a mirror without picking fault with myself so for me what sometimes comes across in your work is that you're very self-critical.
JS: I don't really see it like that, though--I see it as empowering that I manage to use my body to make something positive, whether I like it or not. EJ: God! I wish I had that ability. The way you present yourself sometimes makes me think, does this woman have a problem with the way she looks? Does she hate herself?
JS: Everybody goes through a whole range of feelings about their bodies--at one point or another we all hate ourselves or love ourselves. EJ: Tell me about the collaboration with Glen. That exhibition in L.A. [at Gagosian in 2002] was just astonishing.
JS: It really only came about because Glen was taking my picture for British Vogue. I was working with glass for a painting at the time--I often use photography for making paintings--and the results were just awful. The glass had these awful reflections on it. Glen helped me sort it out. When I saw the Polaroid’s they were just perfect as photographs, better than I could ever have transformed them with paint [so we stayed with those]. Some things just work better that way.
EJ: So the photography work was like a glorious accident in a way.
JS: Yeah.
EJ: It's great when that happens, isn't it? Now, does most of your work end up in museums? I never see any of it coming up at auction.
JS: I guess I've always sold to Charles Saatchi. I graduated from art school, and he basically gave me his gallery and said, "Do what you want." So I've got a kind of connection with him. I'm working now with [galleries] Larry Gagosian, so he sells my work. I like making work in my studio day in and day out, but I'm not so interested in the business side.
EXTRACTS FROM JENNY SAVILLE BEING INTERVIEWED BY SIMON SCHAMA
JS: With the transvestite I was searching for a body that was between genders. I had explored that idea a little in Matrix. The idea of floating gender that is not fixed. The transvestite I worked with has a natural penis and false silicone breasts. Thirty or forty years ago this body couldn’t have existed and I was looking for a kind of contemporary architecture of the body. I wanted to paint a visual passage through gender – a sort of gender landscape. To scale from the penis, across a stomach to the breasts, and the finally the head. I tried to make lips and eyes be very seductive and use directional mark-making to move your eye around the flesh.
SS: So you really do manipulate what’s in front of you through the mark-making. It’s very striking – I’m looking at a photograph of your transvestite painting Passage and that passage that moves from the penis and balls to the belly is really about the anatomy of paint as it constructs the body.
JS: I have to really work at the tension between getting the paint to have the sensory quality that I want and be constructive in terms of building the form of a stomach, for example, or creating the inner crevice of a thigh. The more I do it, the more the space between abstraction and figuration becomes interesting. I want a painting realism. I try to consider the pace of a painting, of active and quiet areas. Listening to music helps a lot, especially music where there’s a hard sound and then soft breathable passages. In my earlier work my marks were less varied. I think of each mark or area as having the possibility of carrying a sensation.
Saville’s Medium
Saville is lauded for her celebration of paint and her loyalty to oil painting as a medium. In a society of constant technological advancement, Saville has resisted the temptations of using media such as video in her work and has dabbled only briefly with photography. Although Saville finds great inspiration in such media and often sees multiple films per week, these modern fillers are not for her. Instead, she has embraced the physicality of paint and thus has chosen a medium that dates back hundreds of years. Saville is most often compared to contemporary British painter Lucian Freud. Though she acknowledges the truth in such a comparison, she has an interesting view of the ultimate in painting ability: “The marriage of [Francis] Bacon and [Willem] de Kooning -- Bacon’s figurative skills and de Kooning’s painting skills -- would make the best painter who ever lived.” “Saville has been heralded for creating conceptual art through the use of a classical standard -- the figure painting.”
Much of her work sees distorted flesh, high calliper brush strokes and patches of oil colour, whilst others combine the surgeons mark of a plastic surgery operation. Saville works in her studio with the canvas up against the wall and uses a ladder to reach the higher peeks as she works on such a large scale. Saville then secures mirrors opposite the painting while it is in progress and views her work through the mirror as she believes it is the only way to not get lost in what she is painting in order to create an accurate portrait. The paint is applied stroke by stroke carefully and precisely; rather than at random every mark is well calculated.
Painting as a medium
“The object of using paint, whether for the artistic expression or in its decretive capacity, is to colour coat the surface, and at a basic level a paint is a method of applying a coloured compound, the pigment , to that surface. However, to achieve any measure of durability for the paint, the pigment must be bound to the surface. Over many centuries of experimentation, a number of more or less successful binders have been found.” taken from Paint and Painting published by the Tate publications Department.
The fruition of several centuries of artist experience and a large input from Van Eyck (early fifteenth century painter) meant that oil paints were invented. It has been argued that oil painting has proved more successful over any other type due to its movability in handling over a long period of time and its expressive qualities.
Paint is used as a medium to have the function of acting like a vehicle, a fluid carrier for the pigment to be applied and also a binder; “a matrix around the pigment particles holding them permanently in place. It is a quality that therefore must have both the nature of a solid and a liquid.
Art Gallery’s
An art gallery or art museum is a space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Paintings are the most commonly displayed medium; however, sculpture, photographs, illustrations, installation art and objects from the applied arts may also be shown. Although primarily concerned with providing a space to show works of visual art, art galleries are sometimes used to host other artistic activities, such as music concerts or poetry readings.
Usually a building which contains a room or a series of rooms; devoted to the exhibition and often the sale of works of art. There is usually a raised area, often having a stepped area or sloping floor, in a theatre, church, or other public building to accommodate spectators, exhibits, etc.
There are both public and private galleries. Museums are a form of gallery for the display of a permanent collection of art these are public. Private galleries are commercial enterprises for the sale of art. However, both types of gallery may host temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere. The rooms in museums where art is displayed for the public are often referred to as galleries as well.
CONTEMPORY ART GALLERY’S
The term contemporary art gallery refers usually to a privately-owned for-profit commercial gallery. These galleries are often found clustered together in large urban centres. The Chelsea district of New York City, for example, is widely considered to be the centre of the contemporary art world. Even smaller towns will be home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in small communities, and remote areas where artists congregate, i.e. the Taos art colony and St Ives, Cornwall.
Contemporary art galleries are usually open to the general public without charge; however, some are semi-private. They usually profit by taking a cut of the art's sales; from 25 to 50% is usual. There are also many not-for-profit and art-collective galleries. Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, though this is considered distasteful in some international art markets. Galleries often hang solo shows. Curators often create group shows that say something about a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries sometimes choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly. One idiosyncrasy of contemporary art galleries is their aversion to signing business contracts, although this seems to be changing.
A gallery's definition can also include the artist run centre, which often (in North America and Western Europe) operates as a space with a more democratic selection and mentality. An artist run space also typically has a board of directors and a support staff that select and curate shows by committee, or some kind of similar process to choose art that typically lacks commercial ends.
There are also many types of work that cannot be properly exhibited in galleries such as works on paper, drawings and old master prints are usually not chosen by curators to be permanently displayed for conservation reasons. Instead, any collection is held in a print room in the museum. Murals generally remain where they have been painted, although many have been removed to galleries. Various forms of 20th century art, such as land art and performance art, also usually exist outside a gallery. Photographic records of these kinds of art are often shown in galleries, however. Most museum and large art galleries own more works than they have room to display. The rest are held in reserve collections, on or off-site.
Similar to an art gallery is the sculpture garden (or sculpture park), which presents sculpture in an outdoor space. Sculpture installation has grown in popularity, whereby temporary sculptures are installed in open spaces during events like festivals.
With out a conscious effort as children especially, we all have exhibited in a gallery of some description. It is common in the Western world for schools to display children’s work on the walls to be viewed by visitors, other students and parents. The organisation therefore uses themselves; the school as a gallery and the children or artists create the work to specifications fitting to the requirements or theme given to them by the organisers. Fascinatingly enough this works almost distinctively the same way to a contempory gallery.
VANITY GALLERY’S
A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges fees from artists in order to show their work, much like a vanity press does for authors. The shows are not legitimately curated and will include as many artists as possible. Most art professionals are able to identify them on an artist's resume. This is they type of gallery more likely to be hired by unknown or yet to be established artists; and rather than being commissioned to provide a service for the public to unlooked upon, it is used as more of a means of promotion. These gallery’s work on more of a ‘room rental’ basis.
ON LINE GALLERY’S
There are also now websites set up as on-line gallery’s; which are dedicated to showing works of art. A very easy way of presenting art globally and more conveniently is through the form on the ‘virtual gallery.’ It seems to have proven successful because it can be reached world wide at ‘opening hours’ suitable to the viewer rather than the gallery, it does not reap high amounts of payments from the organiser; they save on staff and premises costs, and it is easy to publicise. As internet shopping is becoming more and more popular , the Art world appears to be no exception; art is circulating fast and bringing in exceptional profits by this means. With this type of on-line gallery an employee or organiser would still be apparent.
As well as this type of on-line gallery, there are also websites which are exclusive for artists where they each individually up load and share their own work. One of the most successful of these sites is www.myartprofile.com; This is designed for artists to get feed back and socialise with other artists.
Although Perhaps unintentionally, search engine websites such as www.google.com, and www.askjeeves.com all have an icon giving the option to make their search provide image answers rather than text. This displays a gallery for the surfer to explore in answer to any question or quest for information.
“The world is a living catwalk” ~ People exhibit themselves everyday either consciously not. Should the world we live in be classed a gallery and all of us with in it; the performing artists and curators?
ARCITECTURAL FORM OF ART GALLERY’S
The architectural form of the art gallery was established by Sir John Soane with his design for the Dulwich Picture Gallery. This established the gallery as a series of interconnected rooms with largely uninterrupted wall spaces for hanging pictures and indirect lighting from skylights or roof lanterns. The gallery itself has now become something on show just as worthy of appreciation as the work with in it. A good example is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain.
The late 19th century saw a boom in the building of public art galleries in Europe and America, becoming an essential cultural feature of larger cities. More art galleries rose up alongside museums and public libraries as part of the municipal drive for literacy and public education.
In the late 20th century the dry old-fashioned view of art galleries was increasingly replaced with architecturally bold modern art galleries, often seen as international destinations for tourists in their own right. The first example of the architectural landmark art gallery would be the Guggenheim Museum in New York City by Frank Lloyd Wright. More recent outstanding examples include Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Mario Botta redesign of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Some critics argue that these galleries are self-defeating, in that their dramatic interior spaces distract the eye from the paintings they are supposed to exhibit. The gallery’s themselves become the work of art!
NOTABLE ART MUSEUMS AROUND THE WORLD;
Africa
Cairo: Egyptian Museum, Museum of Islamic Art
Cape Town: South African National Gallery
Johannesburg: MuseuMAfricA, Johannesburg Art Gallery
Harare: National Gallery of Zimbabwe
Asia
Baghdad: National Museum of Iraq
Bali: Museum Rudana
Beijing: Palace Museum
Dhaka: Zainul Gallery
Hong Kong: Hong Kong Museum of Art
Jakarta: Indonesian National Gallery
New Delhi: National Gallery of Modern Art, National Museum
Shanghai: Shanghai Museum
Taganrog: Taganrog Museum of Art
Taipei: National Palace Museum
Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum
Europe
Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, van Gogh Museum
Athens: National Archaeological Museum of Athens, New Acropolis Museum
Barcelona: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Museu Picasso
Barnard Castle: Bowes Museum
Bath: Holburne Museum of Art
Berlin: Museum Island, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie
Bilbao: Guggenheim Museum
Bristol (UK): Royal West of England Academy, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery
Brussels: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Budapest: Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Applied Arts
Cambridge (UK): Fitzwilliam Museum, Kettle's Yard
Cardiff: National Museum
Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Statens Museum for Kunst, Thorvaldsens Museum
Dresden: Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Dublin: Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Irish Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Ireland,
Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Dean Gallery, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Florence: Galleria degli Uffizi, Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze, Palazzo Pitti, Bargello
Glasgow: Gallery of Modern Art, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Burrell Collection, Hunterian Art Gallery
Istanbul: Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Pera Museum, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Great Palace Mosaic Museum, Topkapı Palace, Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum
Leeds: The Royal Armouries Museum, Temple Newsam, Leeds Art Gallery
Lisbon: Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Liverpool: Walker Art Gallery, Tate Liverpool, Sudley House
London: National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Courtauld Gallery, Queen's Gallery, Gilbert Collection, Sir John Soane's Museum, Kenwood House, Wallace Collection, Apsley House, Foundling Museum, Guildhall Art Gallery, Leighton House Museum, Dalí Universe, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Ranger's House (Wernher Collection), Hermitage Rooms, The Hayward
Madrid: Museo del Prado, Museo Reina Sofia, Museo Thyssen Bornemisza
Manchester: Manchester Art Gallery
Milan: Castello Sforzesco, Pinacoteca di Brera
Moscow: State Tretyakov Gallery, Pushkin Museum, Kremlin Armoury
Munich: Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek, Pinakothek der Moderne
Naples: Museo di Capodimonte, Naples National Archaeological Museum
Oslo: National Gallery of Norway
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, Christ Church Picture Gallery
Paris: Musée du Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Musée Rodin, Centre Pompidou, Musée Picasso, Guimet Museum, Musée Marmottan-Monet, Musée de Cluny, Musée de l'Orangerie, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Musée Jacquemart-André
Possagno: The Canova Museum
Prague: National Gallery, Náprstek Museum
Prague: Rudolfinum Gallery
Rome: Vatican Museum, Galleria Borghese, National Museum of Rome, Palazzo Barberini, Capitoline Museums, National Etruscan Museum
Roubaix: La Piscine
St Ives: Tate St Ives
St. Petersburg: Hermitage, Russian Museum
Stockholm: Nationalmuseum
Stuttgart: Staatsgalerie
Turin: Museo Egizio, Museum of Ancient Art
Venice: Accademia, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Ca' Rezzonico, Ca' d'Oro, Ca' Pesaro
Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Leopold Museum, Albertina, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, MUMOK, Liechtenstein Museum
Vaduz: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
Warsaw: Centre for Contemporary Art
Zürich: Foundation E.G. Bührle
Thun: Kunstmuseum Thun
North America
Atlanta, Georgia: Michael C. Carlos Museum, High Museum of Art
Baltimore, Maryland: Baltimore Museum of Art, Walters Art Museum
Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Shaw Centre for the Arts
Birmingham, Alabama: Birmingham Museum of Art
Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Brunswick, Maine: Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Buffalo, New York: Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Art Museums
Charleston, South Carolina: Gibbes Museum of Art
Cincinnati, Ohio: Cincinnati Art Museum
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania: Brandywine River Museum
Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oriental Institute, Terra Museum
Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Columbia, South Carolina: Columbia Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art, Meadows Museum
Denver, Colorado: Denver Art Museum
Des Moines, Iowa: Des Moines Art Centre
Detroit, Michigan: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Art Museum, University of Michigan-Museum of Art
Fort Worth, Texas: Amon Carter Museum, Kimbell Art Museum
Glens Falls, New York: Hyde Collection
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Grand Rapids Art Museum
Greenville, Delaware: Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum
Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art
Hartford, Connecticut: Wadsworth Atheneum
Houston, Texas: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Menil Collection
Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts
Indianapolis, Indiana: Indianapolis Museum of Art
Jackson Hole, Wyoming: National Museum of Wildlife Art
Jacksonville, Florida: Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville
Kansas City, Missouri: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Little Rock, Arkansas: Arkansas Arts Centre
Los Angeles, California: Getty Centre, Getty Villa, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Louisville, Kentucky: Speed Art Museum
Manchester, New Hampshire: Currier Museum of Art
Memphis, Tennessee: Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Mexico City: Palacio de Bellas Artes
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Milwaukee Art Museum
Minneapolis, Minnesota: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Centre
Montgomery, Alabama: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
New Britain, Connecticut: New Britain Museum of American Art
New Haven, Connecticut: Yale Centre for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery
New Orleans, Louisiana: Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans Museum of Art
New York City: Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, Frick Museum, The Morgan Library & Museum, The Cloisters, Dahesh Museum, Asia Society, Neue Galerie, Hispanic Society of America, Museum of the City of New York, Cooper-Hewitt Museum
Norfolk, Virginia: Chrysler Museum of Art
North Adams, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Oberlin, Ohio: Allen Memorial Art Museum
Omaha, Nebraska: Joslyn Art Museum
Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada
Philadelphia: Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum
Phoenix, Arizona: Phoenix Art Museum
Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Art, Andy Warhol Museum
Ponce, Puerto Rico: Ponce Museum of Art
Portland, Oregon: Portland Art Museum
Raleigh, North Carolina: North Carolina Museum of Art
Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Rockland, Maine: Farnsworth Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri: Saint Louis Art Museum
Salem, Massachusetts: Peabody Essex Museum
San Antonio, Texas: McNay Art Museum
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California Palace of the Legion of Honor
Sarasota, Florida: Ringling Museum of Art
Savannah, Georgia: Telfair Museum of Art
Seattle, Washington: Seattle Art Museum
Shelburne, Vermont: Shelburne Museum
Toronto, Canada: Art Gallery of Ontario
Toledo, Ohio: Toledo Museum of Art
Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Phillips Collection, Dumbarton Oaks, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Portrait Gallery
West Palm Beach, Florida: Norton Museum of Art
Williamstown, Massachusetts: Clark Art Institute, Williams College Museum of Art
Wilmington, Delaware: Delaware Art Museum
Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery
Worcester, Massachusetts: Worcester Art Museum
Oceania
Canberra: National Gallery of Australia
Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria
Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales
Wellington: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Nelson: world of wearable art Museum
Mangaweka : Permanent display of New Zealands most famed forger C.F. Goldie (aka Karl Sim).
Latin America
Buenos Aires: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Havana: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Mexico City: Palacio de Bellas Artes
Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
Santiago de Chile: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
São Paulo: São Paulo Museum of Art
LIST OF NOTABLE CONTEMPORY GALLERY’S;
Bombay: The Arts Trust - Institute of Contemporary Indian Art
London: Saatchi Gallery Victoria Miro Gallery Alwin Gallery
Los Angeles: Paragon Fine Art
Madrid: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Mexico City: Galería OMR
New York: Bodley Gallery Gagosian Gallery Park Place Gallery Zach Feuer Gallery
Paris: Daniel Templon Emmanuel Perrotin Yvon Lambert
São Paulo: Museum of Contemporary Art
Tampa: Contemporary Art Museum
Tehran: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
Valencia : Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM)
Tel Aviv: Raw Art Gallery
Tokyo: Itsutsuji Gallery
Waterloo, Canada: The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery
Institution
Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior. The term, institution, is commonly applied to customs and behavior patterns important to a society, as well as to particular formal organizations of government and public service. As structures and mechanisms of social order among humans, institutions are one of the principal objects of study in the social sciences, including sociology, political science and economics. Institutions are a central concern for law, the formal regime for political rule-making and enforcement. The creation and evolution of institutions is a primary topic for history.
DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF INSTITUTIONS
Although unindividual, formal organizations, commonly identified as "institutions," may be deliberately and intentionally created by people, the development and functioning of institutions in society in general may be regarded as an instance of emergence; that is, institutions arise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization, which goes beyond the conscious intentions of the individual humans involved.
As mechanisms of social cooperation, institutions are manifest in both objectively real, formal organizations, such as the U.S. Congress, or the Roman Catholic Church, and, also, in informal social order and organization, reflecting human psychology, culture, habits and customs. Most important institutions, considered abstractly, have both objective and subjective aspects: examples include money and marriage. The institution of money encompasses many formal organizations, including banks and government treasury departments and stock exchanges, which may be termed, "institutions," as well as subjective experiences, which guide people in their pursuit of personal well-being. Powerful institutions are able to imbue a paper currency with certain value, and to induce millions into cooperative production and trade in pursuit of economic ends abstractly denominated in that currency's units. The subjective experience of money is so pervasive and persuasive that economists talk of the "money illusion" and try to disabuse their students of it, in preparation for learning economic analysis.
Marriage and family, as a set of institutions, also encompass formal and informal, objective and subjective aspects. Both governments and religious institutions make and enforce rules and laws regarding marriage and family, create and regulate various concepts of how people relate to one another, and what their rights, obligations and duties may be as a consequence. Culture and custom permeate marriage and family. In the United States and western Europe, a transition from a conception of marriage, as license for sexual intercourse granted by Church and State, to a conception of marriage as a form of contract, freely entered into, has occasioned momentous social and political controversies regarding laws and customs governing the freedom of women, divorce, cohabitation outside marriage, contraception, and homosexuality.
PERSPECTIVES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
While institutions tend to appear to people in society as part of the natural, unchanging landscape of their lives, study of institutions by the social sciences tends to reveal the nature of institutions as social constructions, artifacts of a particular time, culture and society, produced by collective human choice, though not directly by individual intention.
The relationship of institutions to human nature is a foundational question for the social sciences. Institutions can be seen as "naturally" arising from, and conforming to, human nature -- a fundamentally conservative view -- or institutions can be seen as artificial, almost accidental, and in need of architectural redesign, informed by expert social analysis, to better serve human needs -- a fundamentally progressive view. Adam Smith anchored his economics in the supposed human "propensity to truck, barter and exchange". Modern feminists have criticized traditional marriage and other institutions as elements of an oppressive and obsolete patriarchy.
Economics, in recent years, has used game theory to study institutions from two perspectives. Firstly, how do institutions survive and evolve? In this perspective, institutions arise from Nash equilibria of games. For example, whenever people pass each other in a corridor or thoroughfare, there is a need for customs, which avoid collisions. Such a custom might call for each party to keep to their own right (or left -- such a choice is arbitrary, it is only necessary that the choice be uniform and consistent). Such customs may be supposed to be the origin of rules, such as the rule, adopted in many countries, which requires driving automobiles on the right side of the road.
Secondly, how do institutions affect behaviour? In this perspective, the focus is on behaviour arising from a given set of institutional rules. In these models, institutions determine the rules (i.e. strategy sets and utility functions) of games, rather than arise as equilibria out of games. For example, the Cournot duopoly model is based on an institution involving an auctioneer who sells all goods at the market-clearing price. While it is always possible to analyse behaviour with the institutions-as-equilibria approach instead, it is much more complicated.
In political science, the effect of institutions on behavior has also been considered from a meme perspective, like game theory borrowed from biology. A "memetic institutionalism" has been proposed, suggesting that institutions provide selection environments for political action, whereby differentiated retention arises and thereby a Darwinian evolution of institutions over time.
Public choice theory, another branch of economics with a close relationship to political science, considers how government policy choices are made, and seeks to determine what the policy outcomes are likely to be, given a particular political decision-making process and context.
Sociology traditionally analyzed social institutions in terms of interlocking social roles and expectations. Social institutions created and were composed of groups of roles, or expected behaviors. The social function of the institution was executed by the fulfillment of roles. Basic biological requirements, for reproduction and care of the young, are served by the institutions of marriage and family, for example, by creating, elaborating and prescribing the behaviors expected for husband/father, wife/mother, child, etc.
In history, a distinction between eras or periods, implies a major and fundamental change in the system of institutions governing a society. Political and military events are judged to be of historical significance to the extent that they are associated with changes in institutions. In European history, particular significance is attached to the long transition from the feudal institutions of the Middle Ages to the modern institutions, which govern contemporary life.
Art gallery’s as institutions;
Gallery’s such as The Tate Modern, The National portrait gallery and The Opera Gallery have all worked hard individually to create and build up their own institution. They act as growing businesses be it for private profitability or simply to provide a public service. Each artist exhibited in these gallery’s (dead or alive) have either self reprehensively worked on building their own institution or have build an institution aided by the buyers of the gallery where their work is exhibited.
The “world” of Art Gallery’s have generally be institutionalised due to the high demand for them
PAUL BROWN’S COMMENTS ON THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF ART;
This mail from Paul Brown to the Empyre mailing list neatly describes the role of institutions in both killing and preserving art. It's a long mail so here's the best bit first …"...The process of institutionalisation IS. It's neither good or bad - it's just part of the process of converting contemporary practice into historical artefact. This is what museum and the critical/cultural theorists are FOR. To convert something rarefied - that only an elite few can comprehend - into a more general framework that is available to the world of ideas at large... The curators i spoke to were convinced that their efforts were helping the contemporary arts to survive! I was telling them that their efforts were in fact killing them off (the poor lion on the savannah). It's my personal opinion that their misunderstanding of their role is one contributing factor to the terrible state that the mainstream art world finds itself in right now - perpetuating long-outdated ideas of novelty inherent in 1960's "shock of the new" - and reiterating the artwork as a branch of the fashion industry (aka Tracy Emin, Jeff Koons and Damian Hurst et al) and not, as I think it should be, a part of the world of philosophy and ideas - of the human understanding of the universe and our relationship with it via visual cognition."
“I am not against institutionalisation. Here's my take (and my apologies it's turned out to be so long):
Firstly most people in the developed world are taught language skills from their early kindergarten through to tertiary education. Most educated people in the developed world are fairly skilled in linguistic cognition and analysis. However is the area we might call visual literacy there is very little education and a misplaced assumption that these skills are intuitive/inherent - I e. they don't need to be taught/learned. So most educated people in the developed world are unskilled at visual cognition and analysis.
This is very apparent in the currently fashionable area of "practice-based research" where visual arts practitioners have to present written theses about their work in order to make it creditable to a peer community who are unable to think visually and so unable to accept the work at "face value". This process of linguistic deconstruction and analysis we might call "critical theory".
Although some artist may work at a purely intuitive level and other in an exclusively conceptual framework it's my guess that most work somewhere in-between. Even the most ardent conceptualists of the late 20th century had whopping holes in their theoretical frameworks (I e. Sol Le Witt - who BTW I really admire).
So this is what I think is happening in an historical sense: artist make stuff. The only way to comprehend this stuff (and I'm deliberately using the work "comprehend" and not "understand") is to interact with it. This is contemporary production. Then once it's out there everyone begins to think about it - the creators, the critical theorists etc... A critical debate emerges, develops and is eventually consolidated that completely deconstructs and analyses (frames) the work and other of it's genre. This may happen fairly quickly - 20-40 years - or may take a lot longer - say 100 years. Somewhere along this process the work itself ceases to be "contemporary practice" and becomes "art history". Now it's no longer necessary to interact with the work itself (however delightful it may be to do so) because we can just read a book about it and "comprehend".
At the point it becomes art history there is no longer any need to do it. There's no challenge, there's little more to be learned. We move on instead to new challenges - the contemporary arts evolve and change (or they should - my concerns from my previous post about the stasis inherent in the "shock of the new" conservatism that has come to dominate the art world since the 1960s - see below). Charles Biedermann refers to this ongoing process as "Art as the Evolution of Visual Knowledge" - the title of his 1948 publication. See:
http://www.charlesbiederman.net/publications.html
Two examples:
1. back in the early decades of the 20th C the only way to comprehend a work of Dada was to go to Cafe Voltaire (or wherever) and listen to Schwitters reading Ursonate (or whatever). Now we can read a book on Dada with no illustrations and almost, if not completely, understand the importance of Dada, it's achievement and place in the historical record and its influence on the world of ideas.
2. I am lucky to live in a very beautiful place with lots of tourists. Many local artists and galleries make a good living from painting and selling landscapes and seascapes mostly in the impressionist style. These are often very skilled and beautiful works. However hang one beside a Monet and ask "which is the more important". There is no doubt in my mind that the Monet was epoch-changing whilst the local version is merely decorative and derivative. This latter does not belong on the historical record - except perhaps as a footnote.
So a rather longwinded response to your question. The process of institutionalisation IS. It's neither good or bad - it's just part of the process of converting contemporary practice into historical artefact. This is what museum and the critical/cultural theorists are FOR. To convert something rarefied - that only an elite few can comprehend - into a more general framework that is available to the world of ideas at large.
So now to answer your first question - about why my talk wasn't well received. The curators i spoke to were convinced that their efforts were helping the contemporary arts to survive! I was telling them that their efforts were in fact killing them off (the poor lion on the savannah). It's my personal opinion that their misunderstanding of their role is one contributing factor to the terrible state that the mainstream art world finds itself in right now - perpetuating long-outdated ideas of novelty inherent in 1960's "shock of the new" - and reiterating the artwork as a branch of the fashion industry (aka Tracy Emin, Jeff Koons and Damian Hurst et al) and not, as I think it should be, a part of the world of philosophy and ideas - of the human understanding of the universe and our relationship with it via visual cognition. Phew...
And just in case you haven't guessed already :) -- I'm a ageing modernist.
So anyhow, off the soapbox and back to trying make some money!
Paul”
ARTICLE FROM “ART MONTHLY” BY LISA LE FEUVRE ABOUT INSTITUTIONALISATION IN ART;
The Institution Within
It is impossible to exist outside the institution of art argues Lisa Le Feuvre.This spring London saw two solo exhibitions of Martin Kippenberger's work - one at Tate Modern and the other at MOT. Each presented a different approach to exhibiting the practice of an artist whose work operates as a set of attitudes rather than objects. Tate Modern showed the work in a loosely chronological fashion, clustering paintings, sculptures and printed matter largely by medium, with a selection of posters hung in the circulation area outside the exhibition. Central to the display was The Happy Ending of Franz Kafka's 'Amerika', 1994. This was the one room of eight galleries that avoided reducing Kippenberger's practice to a set of discrete artworks. The installation consists of a playing field of tables and chairs that Kippenberger collected and gathered from flea markets, rubbish piles on the street, remnants from his own exhibitions, from other artists and from designers that include Arne Jacobsen and Charles & Ray Eames. Around 40 tables, each with a pair of chairs, are set out on an Astroturf pitch peppered with umpire seats. Stadium bleachers on each side of the gallery invite exhibition visitors to sit and watch the game-in-waiting. This potential sporting amusement gives a strong nod to the systems and endless negotiations that pervade all aspects of society - art included.
MOT's exhibition, titled 'Not Quite Ten Years Without Martin Kippenberger', featured a set of posters by and for Kippenberger. The artist regarded associated exhibition print material as being as important as the defined works themselves, sometimes wholly constructing an exhibition around a title. This interest was foregrounded here in the exhibition publicity that boldly used a quote by Kippenberger stating: 'The exhibition as such is a running gag for the artist. No more.' Including posters by Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Lawrence Weiner and Christopher Wool, the small space of MOT became for one month a private club that anyone could join - again drawing on Kippenberger's own interests, this time in the fictional club the Lord Jim Loge. On joining one was presented with a poster designed for the exhibition by Louise Lawler and invited to sit at 'Bar MOT For Kippenberger' to drink and listen to Kippenberger's music, whilst a drum kit sat in waiting amid the posters. A selection of furniture chosensimply for its look, as with The Happy Ending of Franz Kafka's 'Amerika', provided plinths for the audience where one could engage in conversation and ideas.
Although not the symbolic museum venue of Tate Modern, MOT's exhibition captured a sense of Kippenberger's practice far more effectively. It is important to note that this was not by dint of MOT's status as an 'alternative' space, rather the success lay in the attention to the artist's practice. Kippenberger's work operates within the field of art where the exhibition exists as artwork, meaning that a concentration on objects somehow misses the point. Considering this wider realm is the concern of artists engaged with the critique of institutions - and of course 'institutional critique' is a phrase well established within art parlance and history.
Certain artists have become somewhat reductively defined as doing this work - in particular Andrea Fraser, Hans Haacke, Marcel Broodthaers, Michael Asher and Daniel Buren who are regularly cited in the same breath as what has become the genre of 'institutional critique'. There are,
though, many methods that artists have used to address the structures of art - from Kippenberger's use of appropriation and self-publicity to Allan Sekula's interrogation of capital, Felix Gonzales-Torres' candy ingestions, Tino Sehgal's onslaught of the audience and Joanne Tatham & Tom O'Sullivan's 'dumb' sculptures. The list can continue much further. These critiques lie in artistic practices that actively engage with the conditions of art-making, rather than seeking a naïve, romanticised position outside of the institution.
Andrea Fraser's parallel artistic and writing practices interrogate these structures of art using a self-reflexive methodology. Writing in Artforum in September 2005, she describes how the myth that 'any radical artistic practices can or ever did exist outside of the institution of art before being "institutionalized" by museums is contradicted at every turn' by the writings of many artists now saddled with the institutional critique rubric. In this text she considers the 'institutionalisation of institutional critique', urging a questioning of what this now familiar phrase actually means and represents. Dave Beech also addressed the ubiquity of notions of institutionalisation in an Art Monthly article earlier this year, opening with the statement 'institutionalisation in art is taboo' (AM294). He identifies the responsiveness of symbolic institutions and artists' investigations into the structures of art as creating a situation where avoidance of the 'institution' is near impossible, noting how the industry of art is more than capable of recuperating radical and conservative artists alike. For him, 'institutionalisation occurs when a social system gets a grip on art, threatening art's autonomy, independence and dissent.' Unlike Fraser, Beech states that previously 'institutionalisation lurked ominously in the distance for the avant-garde radical' suggesting that there was once a time when art could be autonomous from the institution. Was this ever really the case, though? Surely at the moment of conscious visibility or recognition any artistic production will become a part of the institution of art.
Responding to Beech, Peter Suchin discusses - with some scepticism - the tautological desire for organisations to 'plan for subversion and creative transgression' - defining the institution as an entity that, by definition, is 'exclusive and excluding' (AM295). Beech's observations on 'institutionalisation for all' reveal that the very notion of working outside of the constraints of the institution has become a misnomer. A clear example of this is the relatively recent trend of sitting 'project spaces' within established organisations both in museums and commercial galleries. Both the project space and the museum or gallery are institutions. It is difficult to understand the purpose of the 'project space' in this context. Is it intended as a trying-out-space to see if an artist can 'upgrade'? Is it a claim on the counter-institution of the 'artist-run space' in an attempt to regain youthfulness? Or, even, is it a space where the dissenting voice is given a 'safe space', enabling a degree of control over any discussions questioning the museum or gallery. On the other hand, the so-called 'independent' project space often adopts the grammatical structures of the museum. This makes sense as these are assumed forms of good practice, but often it results in bureaucratic curatorial and programming strategies that are unnecessary and reminiscent of the future that Kippenberger evokes in The Happy Ending of Franz Kafka's 'Amerika'. To pit 'establishment' and 'alternative' against one another, though, is a task that will fail before it begins. Things are just not so clear-cut. A project space can be seen to be as 'establishment' as a museum, indeed the very term 'project space' trips off the tongue a little too easily now for it to be seen as anything other than standard practice.
Taking Suchin's definition of the institution as 'exclusive and excluding' points to the importance of some kind of dissenting counter-institution to gauge the difference. In this situation rather than disrupt the establishment, the dissenting voice reinforces establishment power; effectively becoming a part of it. Beech defines institutionalisation as an established, recognisable object that is constructed of systems capable of limited critical agency. Against this established organisational ideology the artist-as-free-agent is presented as the adoption of a rather heroic stance. In 2001, Fraser's performance Art Must Hang made direct reference to this oppositional myth. She re-presented a drunken opening speech Kippenberger made at Club an der Grenze with herself in the starring role, having memorised the talk phonetically from a recording. In creating this reconstruction Fraser questions the assumptions of the construction of the artist. Kippenberger is often regarded as having worked outside of the institution, but his work fully functions within its structures. The duality is false, predicated on a modernist stereotype of the artist. Of course the artist is a part of the institution, as he or she exists as an identifiable agent within what is recognised as the realm of art, beginning with the art school as a training ground for would-be artists.
In 1973 Dennis Oppenheim made a work titled Recall addressing the art school experience, and it still holds a resonance some three decades later. A video, tightly focused on Oppenheim's lips, shows the artist talking about his art school years. His narrative shifts in and out of focus - slurring as the artist inhales turpentine in an attempt to evoke the past. He describes his art school years in a rambling stream-of-consciousness monologue, using the 'paint medium to draw me into the past ... as a sensory catalyst ... activating my reflections as a painter ... an art student ... during the 50s'. He talks about the difficulties of getting a painting right, of overbearing art teachers, of smoking on fire escapes, of John McCracken's ability to 'make things' and of the impossibility of art-making itself. Veering between humour and melancholy, these stories are not dissimilar from the ones all ex-art students have recalled at some point - tales of being misunderstood, misdirected and then, ultimately, of refuting the entire art school system in some way. This work offers a questioning of an assumed facet of art-making practice within the conditions of art-making itself: complaining about art school is not radical - it is the standard. The institution of art is not simply in the apparatus of reception and distribution; it is also in the production and surrounding discourses.
As the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu points out, the realm of art is a field of operations that, like any other, acts on and is acted upon by other fields, such as power, politics and economics. Bourdieu identifies the social and historical structures within which choices and cultural products are made. Through habit and repetition certain beliefs become assumptions and perceived fact, creating what Bourdieu terms as the 'habitus' - a socialised subjectivity whereby the institution operates as a set of attitudes. Modes of behaviour, or dispositions, are passed on through generations and socially reinforced through education and culture. The habitus, like any attitude, is flexible over time as moods shift, yet it exists as a constructed set of widely held beliefs that are often left unchallenged. If the field of art is a set of attitudes then it is impossible to exist outside the institution of art. Fraser describes how 'the institution is inside of us', whereby the 'us' will always include the individual perceiving or producing the work of art, no matter what their set of knowledge is or who they are. So by definition, the critique of the institution has always been institutionalised. The museum and gallery become visible symbols for this institution, and as such become a shorthand for institutionalisation. The assumption that the art institution is taboo cannot be a tenable position as the institution does not exist simply in the symbolic presentation of art to audiences in museums and galleries. Rather than challenge the establishment, knee-jerk alternative positions can serve merely to reinforce its authority status. In a wider context one can argue, as Michel Foucault has done in his studies on governmentality, that visible counter-arguments are essential to the success of the state. A counter position underlines the power and success of the state by providing a harmless outlet for radical ideas.
The shift from an abstract notion of institutionalisation to a more specific idea of the terms under which a reduction of critical content takes place enables discussions to be charged with more engagement. The institution is secondary to artistic practice itself, and within this unavoidable structure artists are constantly moving beyond assumptions that seem natural, or simply the-way-things-are - and this included working with the taboo of the institution. If the institution is considered an attitude, or set of attitudes, then it demands that ideas are constantly challenged. Criticality can take unexpected forms - indeed it must do to ensure a shift away from existing assumptions.
Lisa Le Feuvre teaches at Goldsmiths College, is curator of contemporary art at the National Maritime Museum, London, and curated 'Dennis Oppenheim: Recall' at MOT, London February 18 to March 25 2006.
