Last month I was in Italy creating a site-based work through the Eremi Arte program. It was a wonderful experience to be able to create work in response to and collaboration with such an amazing place.
I wrote this little bit about the process of working:
To fly in a plane, to go to a place with language you don’t speak, to be surrounded by strangers, to first arrive in a place after dark and wind up the curving road not knowing where, in a new time- this is dis-orienting. To re-orient takes time. To know a place may take months, years, a lifetime. So what is it for an artist to come to some place they don’t know- really deeply don’t know, and respond? This is a difficult question. I am most interested in artists whose process in some way responds to a specific situation/time/place. But why some artist, why here- why me? And what danger is there in this approach? How can we fail- the expectations of the hosts, my own expectations, the community, the place? With this feeling of uncertainty comes discomfort and fear. Look at the beautiful landscape! Look at the deep history, culture and spirit of this place! Now what will you do?
Actually this uncertainty and discomfort is probably very good, and very important. So I think an experience like this is good for an artist: mind-refreshing, fear-inducing, challenging. If a work comes together in a short time, and feels successful, it is also satisfying for an artist and community working together. However, we must also be prepared for a work to “fail” and for this process of failure to still have some value to those involved in it. For me it is also important that the discussion and presentation of the artwork highlight that it is contingent: arising from relationships between people, institutions, location, timeframe and context. The artwork is not the idea or vision of an individual expressed in the place, rather it is a confluence of forces temporarily arising in the place.
I would like to thank the organizers of the Eremi Arte program for creating a situation in which this confluence of forces can occur. I am thankful that enthusiastic students were willing to engage in an uncertain process. I am also very grateful that, because of the happy confluence of people, place and ideas, we have created a work which I believe has some depth, presence and sensitivity.
Grazie.
I wrote this little bit about the process of working:
To fly in a plane, to go to a place with language you don’t speak, to be surrounded by strangers, to first arrive in a place after dark and wind up the curving road not knowing where, in a new time- this is dis-orienting. To re-orient takes time. To know a place may take months, years, a lifetime. So what is it for an artist to come to some place they don’t know- really deeply don’t know, and respond? This is a difficult question. I am most interested in artists whose process in some way responds to a specific situation/time/place. But why some artist, why here- why me? And what danger is there in this approach? How can we fail- the expectations of the hosts, my own expectations, the community, the place? With this feeling of uncertainty comes discomfort and fear. Look at the beautiful landscape! Look at the deep history, culture and spirit of this place! Now what will you do?
Actually this uncertainty and discomfort is probably very good, and very important. So I think an experience like this is good for an artist: mind-refreshing, fear-inducing, challenging. If a work comes together in a short time, and feels successful, it is also satisfying for an artist and community working together. However, we must also be prepared for a work to “fail” and for this process of failure to still have some value to those involved in it. For me it is also important that the discussion and presentation of the artwork highlight that it is contingent: arising from relationships between people, institutions, location, timeframe and context. The artwork is not the idea or vision of an individual expressed in the place, rather it is a confluence of forces temporarily arising in the place.
I would like to thank the organizers of the Eremi Arte program for creating a situation in which this confluence of forces can occur. I am thankful that enthusiastic students were willing to engage in an uncertain process. I am also very grateful that, because of the happy confluence of people, place and ideas, we have created a work which I believe has some depth, presence and sensitivity.
Grazie.
