Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...

notes to pages 173– 5
48 See Brisley, in Artist Project Peterlee Report, undated pamphlet (after
1976), Newcastle upon Tyne: The Copy Shop, n.p. Scanned pdf downloadable
at www.stuartbrisley.com.
49 Another point of reference is the History from Below movement of the
1960s. (Brisley, interview with the author, London, 7 August 2009.)
50 Questions such as ‘Why can’t we paint our front doors the colour we
want? Why can’t we have allotments? Why are the new Jaguar plant not
employing people over 35?’ (Ibid.)
51 Ibid.
52 Brisley argues that ‘for work to be satisfactory, there needs to be an
aesthetic component’, in relation to both the work of art and labour itself.
(Ibid.)
53 Graham Stevens, ‘How the Arts Council Destroys Art Movements’,
AND: Journal of Art and Art Education, 27, 1992, p. 2.
54 Robin Campbell, letter of 11 January 1971 to APG. See also the letter
from Professor Christopher Cornford to Barbara Steveni, giving the
Arts Council advisory panel’s eight reasons for no longer supporting
the APG. These included the following objections: ‘APG does not
produce any results, tangible or otherwise, that are worth mentioning.’
‘Its language is incomprehensible and mystificatory.’ ‘It is
highly compromised by dubious relationships with industry, capital,
and other ancillary agencies.’ ‘The whole enterprise is, in any case,
chimerical and quixotic, because either it will liberate the workers
and dish capitalism, or, if it doesn’t then it is a cosmetic operation. It
is not the business of the Arts Council to support “social engineering”.’
Both cited in Dodd, Artists Placement Group 1966– 1976,
pp. 55– 6.
55 As Breakwell notes, the Arts Council ‘dumbed down’ the idea of placements
and turned them into residencies, thereby breaking two basic
principles: fi rst, the Arts Council paid for the artist, rather than the host
organisation (who then had less commitment to the project); and second,
the artist was no longer expected to get involved in the host organisation,
but advised to stay separate from it. (Breakwell, interviewed by Victoria
Worsley, December 2004/ January 2005, National Sound Archive, British
Library, Tape 16910, side B.)
56 In a preparatory document for the exhibition, APG cites Robert Kelly in
Business Horizons (June 1968): ‘If business wants to read its future, it had
better look not just at business but at the whole culture of our time,
including the arts – painting, music, theatre, literature – and philosophy
and religion. It is in these activities that tomorrow’s markets, business
legislation and new business structures are most clearly prefi gured.’ The
last sentence is cited three times within the document. Art and Economics
1970 (Inno 70), working document, undated, early 1969?; uncatalogued
APG archive at Tate.
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