Wednesday 5 February 2014

to make or not to make...


Paraphrasing Christian Boltanksi, there is one thing better than making work and that is not to make it. Taking a leaf out of his book, I’ve recently started writing instructions as an alternative to making sculptures.

dailymade #131125

This is something I’ve been thinking about for some time. I've written about 'task driven' work and making by instructions in previous posts, tried this strategy on students and participants in recent projects, and it's become more topical now than ever as I'm writing a new project book on sculpture. It is a device familiar with artists who work in dance, theatre or film, so why not visual artists?  

dailymade #131112

Writing instructions and passing these on seems an efficient and open ended way of communicating ideas and allowing for these to reinterpreted and explored with each iteration of the work; an instruction as opposed to an object remains full of promise and full of potential. My love of making and tinkering with stuff however will get in the way of me being a purist about working in this way, and I'm certainly no Lawrence Weiner, but watch this space for further instructions...