the centre of attention
On Demand
Go back to the exhibition list
throughout
August and September 2005, free, central London
with Oreet Ashery, The Guerrilla Girls, Ben Morieson, Eileen Perrier,
Markus Vater
(call 020 8880 5507 or email on@thecentreofattention.org)
On Demand:
- Select a work from the artists shown below
- Arrange
a time for the Centre of Attention to bring the selected work to your
home
- There
you may view it and, if you wish, discuss it
- With your permission we will document photographically the work in the environment it is viewed
ACCESS
Empowering the viewer! Seeing or experiencing the work on your own turf,
within your own terms, puts you in control... or does choice instead only
lead to a limited range of options being managed for you?
And, as access is widened and opened to all, on demand, might this lead
people to no longer be interested? Is art an elite badge?
THE
REAL THING
What is the nature of the need to be present in front of the real thing?
Is it a question of authenticity: witnessing for yourself? Or is it more
a sublimated democratic principle in action: we may all as individuals
stand before the object, experience it and as equals be bathed in its
aura?
OUTTA
CONTEXT
Focusing attention exclusively on the art object itself, without the gallery
set-up, paraphernalia, décor, the daunt and the rituals creates
a purer, more direct experience: not manipulated by the 'white cube' luxury
shopping experience or the 'warehouse' risqué discovery alternative,
the work can be experienced for what it is.
or
does it in fact undermine the work? leaving it weak, floundering, without
the authority of the institution and the mystique of shrine and pilgrimage...
And how does Art, which thrives using the gallery space to create an 'out
of context'situation, fare if we further deny it the context for the 'out
of context'?
WITHHELD
The success of the curatorial endeavour, the motive for the selection
of the work, the visual hanging together of the show are abandoned as
criteria for judging the curatorial exercise. The mechanisms of art viewing
have been tampered with, the unities of action/space and time fragmented,
the exhibition dislocated. The curatorial aim in the traditional sense
will remain unverifiable as the curatorial notion is unapparent if unexperienced…
On demand, and in your service, but each viewer will experience only a
restricted view.
PLEASURE
Does instant gratification enhance or undermine the perfect pleasure?
Where desire can be easily sated, as Proust says, is the pleasure lessened?
Does making fulfilment and pleasure easy remove the quality of the pleasure?
If art is for many a form of disappointment... can disappointment become
a material for art?
click here for a documention of some of the visits
read reviews in the Guardian and in the Times
viewer:A.G., New Cross
artist/work selected:
Guerrilla Girls
viewer:B.M, Acton
artist/work selected:
Oreet Ashery
viewer:K.F., Clerkenwell
artist/work selected:
Eileen Perrier
