_1215_fine_art_catalogue

Artists Looking Forward
by Thomas Zielinski and Emma Cole
The constant question on everyone’s mind: what’s
next?
We asked a group of contemporary artists on their
thoughts about looking forward in the modern art
world. We got in contact with Rachel Maclean, Neil
Clements, Rupert Thomson, Gerard Byrne, and Maria
Fusco to see what they had to say about the future
of art.
Does art have the power to bring about
potential for change in our society?
R.M. ‘Yes, of course! Art, at its best, gives you an
alternative perspective on world, a new way to see
yourself and others. Art is exploratory; it breaks things
down, turns them over and subjects them to analysis,
without a definite end point or goal. In this sense, artists
uncover alternative or ways of seeing, hearing or doing
that are outside of convention. To be an artist is to
embrace the fact that societies are never static, but are
constantly open for reinterpretation and renewal’.
N.C. ‘The issue in my mind has to do with whether this
societal change could be expected to take place directly
or indirectly. I’m of the opinion that only the latter
would be possible, as for me an artwork needs to
operate successfully on its own terms before hoping to
exert any meaningful or long-standing effect on the
culture that surrounds it’.
If you could, what advice would you give
yourself now as an artist about to leave
education?
G.B. ‘Go to everything, and talk to everybody - seriously.
Recognise that your peers now will still be your peers in
ten / twenty / thirty years time. Work with them’.
If you could collaborate with any artist living
or dead, who would it be and why?
G.B. ‘I can’t imagine working with the figures I most
admire historically. Working with them would destroy
them for me. Although I would very much like to be able
to time travel; Spring in Dessau in the mid-1920’s,
Autumn in New York in 1968, then back to the Caberet
Voltaire in Zurich in 1916… proximity is everything
really’.
What is the first piece of art that really
mattered to you?
On what occasion do you lie?
R.M. ‘I lie quite a lot, usually to be polite. Being British I
think that we have a culture that requires a lot of casual
lying, mainly to make sure you don’t piss people off. We
are not very accustomed to dealing with frankness
either, so telling someone why you don’t like the meal
they’ve cooked for you, for example, would not be seen
as constructive criticism, rather the means by which to
cock up an otherwise pleasant evening’.
M.F. ‘Only when I have to’.
Which talent would you most like to have?
R.T. ‘I would like to be able to sing like Marvin Gaye’.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
N.C. ‘Earnest’.
What is your motto?
R.T. ‘In all sorts of ways, too many to list here. One thing
it can do is give people a sense of wonder at what they
do not know or fully understand - I know that is often
my reaction. That is a good starting point, in terms of
‘potential for change’.
Do you think art has a future?
R.T. ‘I do sometimes worry about this, but art is older
than most of the things that might destroy it so it will
probably stick around for longer too’.
M.F. ‘A parody of Henry Moore’s Oval with Points, which
featured in an episode of ‘Tales of the Unexpected’, Neck,
as a plot device’.
What do you consider your greatest
achievement?
G.B. ‘I think committing to work as an artist in my early
20’s was a wonderfully bold choice. I think anybody
who makes that sort of commitment can take pride
in it’.
M.F. ‘If it’s not out we don’t have it’.
R.M. ‘Of course! As long as there are people on earth
there will be art. I don’t think the desire to create and
express human experience through art is something
that could ever be killed off’.
Who are your favourite writers?
N.C. ‘J.G Ballard, Caroline A. Jones’
Artists Looking Forward
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