Saatchi, Bedlam & Frieze
Towards the end of last summer I took a trip to London with my brother and a couple of friends to visit a photography exhibition called Out Of Focus, an interesting looking show organised by Lazarides in the Olv Vic Tunnels called Bedlam, and finally the Frieze Art Fair.Ruminating on the events of the day, it has become clear that certain dissatisfactions with the trip had been bothering me for what at first seemed fairly straightforward reasons. By contrast to the positive notion of 'indisciplined' or 'undisciplined' spaces covered in the module, our little art trip demonstrates that in certain instances, strict discipline is entirely necessary for the sake of maintaining the illusion of the 'serious' art institution...
Arriving at the Saatchi gallery, as always, my expectations to be 'wowed' in the usual fashion were high. The gallery is a big favourite of mine I should mention... The photography was a mixture of interesting super size portraits of strange, marginalised individuals, the stark realities of slum life, unusual photographic techniques and photographs that had been altered in some way, added to, intervened with (intermediality!!) and so forth. Ground floor, so far, so good!
My annoyance at what we found upstairs on the first floor I couldn't contain as soon as I realised we had been 'duped' somewhat, that the intended exhibition had been commandeered by a whole floor of fashion photography by Karl 'f&^%ing' Lagerfeld... I understand that as Frieze was on and due to some odd, incestuous relationship Saatchi must have with Lagerfeld (pure conjecture on my part!), this interruption of normal proceeding was in some way linked with the art super-event that is Frieze. My disappointment was entirely justified. We'd come to see cutting edge photography, some of which crossed disciplines into more sculptural forms, the promise of wall reliefs and assmeblages, all of which 'would' have been on this floor had it not been for the images that took their place. I found it immensely distasteful, that something like 'fashion' had come to take the place of art and that the photographers and artists we had come to see would remain to us, unseen.
After a bit of a rant to my companions, but ultimately undeterred at this stage, we next alighted at the Bedlam exhibition in the Old Vic Tunnels - this I would say certainly qualified as a more positive undisciplined space; an art show in dark, dank tunnels where the works were illuminated by often inadequate spotlights and could be largely thought of as 'outsider' or verging on street art. The concept was entirely successful I think - the theme of 'Bedlam', itself linked to the lunatic asylum by the name of Bethlehem of years past, dealt with themes of mental illness and psychosis, exemplified by neurotic, chaotic and oftentimes slightly unnerving works made more so by the strange, dark (and I DO mean DARK) surroundings. Audience involvement and interaction were encouraged and in some ways, like 'Theanyspacewhatever' exhibition at the Guggenheim in 2008, the 'event as medium' played out nicely, with spaces containing works bleeding into one another via the 'theme'. Despite not necessarily being the 'finest' art, it was certainly the most successful exhibiton of the day...
Frieze was something else entirely. Taking a HUGE amount of art work out of the context of the individual gallery space only served to denigrate its perceived value as art to my mind, and in the end made the whole thing somewhat questionable, an alienating experience for the art fan (as with Lagerfeld's untimely intrusion at the Saatchi Gallery), though clearly a fairly serious deal for the art buyer - whilst there were a number of pieces that stood out despite missing their 'normal' confines (and adding to their intrinsic autonomy as art objects perhaps), the remainder, likely by virtue of the sheer volume of stuff on display, were difficult to get an immediate reading from, and so appeared to be quite terrible. As my friend said of one pieces, 'it looks like an A-level student's temper tantrum' - arguably conceptual art is in some way designed to elicit responses such as these, though being fairly au fait with art generally, it really did look like a pile of crap so to speak. This 'lack of discipline' only further served to extend the gap between the layperson and the supposed connossieur, and if I'm honest, I'm still making sense of it now - when you have aspirations of making art, events like this certainly prove problematic when considering notions of the value of your own work, and art work in general!
The overall point I am trying to make here is that from what I have gathered of the installations and events such as Theanyspacewhatever, the negation of the traditional space is intended to form an inclusive nexus for audience and artist alike to explore certain relational ideas. In the instance of the Saatchi gallery, the decision by this well known and well respected gallery to stage, temporarily as it may have been, a completely off-brand, non-art (as far as I am concerned) disruption of a pre-existing event could not be more insulting to the more savvy audience. The gallery has shown indiscipline of a fashion, though one which isn't in any way positive. Frieze, by that same token of indiscipline provided an apt counterpoint to the more positive idea of the indisciplined or undisciplined space/concept.
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