Digitized Notes – PPD

PPD 1 = LUX

• Matt Carter, LUX, South London Art Map, /screenings Exhibitions Festivals Education

• Artist’s rights, London Filmakers Co-op

• International working with film openly works with lots of film makers.

• 6,000 artworks in their core collection, London film makers project is sponsoring them.

• support, critique, peer review, presenting work to eachother

• they look after as copy work, and it gets shown at various venues the thing about film is the distribution aspect.

• while the copyright remains in the artists hands.

• relationship between abstract visuals and sound – Lis Rhodes

• YBA experimental films in the LUX archive hidden

• How should the work be shown in different places & on you’re residence program

• stuff on website – can view previews at the place the convert stuff onto pc, like old works on 70mm / 30mm, but is based on peoples needs and requests for previews.

PPD2 = Bedwyr Williams

• Whitechapel Gallery / Museum – films sculpture drawings writings. Art commissioning; Bodics? Big, to scale instructions ? MONEY, Frieze work as part of crizedale art

• Lots of artists say they color outside the lines, but that’s impossible, there’s no escaping the

PPD3 = Art Monthly – David Bennet

• Writing + art, Applied for magazines go write articles about art, how to write about contemporary art – Gilda Williams ?

• purposes of art magazines, audiences , ideologies

• what do we mean by criticism – key idea of criticism is judgement,

• Raymond Williams in keywords: criticism can be a challenge. Ideas aren’t as linear as they seem

• subjective not authoritative , provisional not directing, contingent, subject do external factors, criticism vs connoisseurship

• my notes;

• Trying to articulate your place in the ‘artworld’ Studied fine art – background as an artist not an art historian.

• -has published art writing

• -freelance teaching, web design and teaching

• -proofs for a magazine, lots of work writing

• (How to read contemporary Art Book – Gilda Williams)

• Audiences, ideologies, magazines – don’t leftwing marxist look at history, be passive as possible

• is it academic? who funds it? is it selling ?

• Raymond Williams in key words – book, pg 86 = good helpful criticism, good  quote he made from this about criticism.

• ”Subjective not authoritative”

• ”The critic does not view the work to enjoy it, but to be convinced by it”

• ”Theories neutrality allows its absorption by the market”

• ”bad gallery writing represents work badly, not enough info or fluffs it up falsely, which helps buyers” on the other hand ‘good critic never loses sight of the work’

• Looking at the work and not understanding more unless they’re involved in the philosophical points or ideas behind the work. The need to anchor it back to the work.

• ”Criticism is aware of the market and may be a corrective to it”

• basically this lecture is about his career in art criticism.

• art criticism is not experimental , creative writing, exegetical, flowering. ”knowledge – but should the critic access privileged, information.

• Art monthly magazine website

• Don’t read passively, be active, criticize the critique, because they’re not necessarily right even it they are good at writing ‘ taking it apart’

• ”the act of writing is the act of thinking, it cuts of it and filters”

• ‘saying a good judge of art is usually just having shared interest with the editors’.

• the active viewer. ”scrutinize the act of looking at art”

PPD4 = PPD Placement second year

• Placements – probably in spring term, but could be at anytime.

• The code, Arts Admin Institutions or artist w/artist placement or group

• PPD experiences recorded and presented to peers. website, events, enterprise initiative, working with community, publication , curation of a show. other self generated initiatives

• sit in on second year presentations , ART QUEST, A.N , Arts Council, Pros Jobs, DACS, ‘air’ – paying artists , Carrotsworkers collective.

My notes ppd for ptbm lecture with rosie

• Residencies are about exploring a question

• My ideas for investigating; Ambika P3 , Artefact (Magazine), LUX

• Peckham Space

• I need to look at collectives – ask Luc about the sound one ‘maker space’

• Bringing knowledge back to the presentation

• 11th march field trip Beacons Field and Damien Hurst Gallery

Reflection on PPD

Personal Role:

Initially I broached the idea of looking at Ambika P3, mainly to look into the technical aspects of putting up shows in such a huge industrial space. I was very curious to see how intertwined the gallery was with the University of Westminster, in terms of funding. Also because the exhibitions put on were very applicable to my project work, being Time Based artworks. We have worked as quite a tightly knit group on the project.

I have helped with emailing the small team of people who work at Ambika P3, researching previous exhibitions, I wrote the questions for the interview and asked them in the recorded interview.  We contacted all of the team at Ambika P3, and arranged an interview with their curator; Michael Mazière. The interview itself went very well, Richard, Matt and I recorded an hours worth of interview

Interview Questions:

AMBIKA P3 Can you give us a short introduction to Ambika P3 (for the purpose of the recording)?

• At Ambika p3, how do you select your artists for exhibitions? Is it an internal decision, how do you find these artists?

• As curator what is your role for exhibitions at Ambika P3? Is it difficult for artworks to be installed within such a vast, industrial space?

• How do artists react/respond to the space and is this something you have a say in? Is it a mutual decision?

• As the curator of the exhibition space, how long have you been working with Westminster putting on shows within Amibika P3?

• What is the purpose of Ambika P3, is there a specific kind of exhibit you prefer to show?

• What is like working at different gallery settings across London? How do they compare and differ with their aims and teams?

• Is it difficult to put on exhibitions within a re-purposed ‘developed concrete construction hall’ like Ambika P3? How does it compare to a typical ‘white cube space’?

• How have you, personally, found working with Ambika P3 as a space?

Email / Contacting Ambika P3:

Conclusion:

At Ambika P3, they select artist to feature in their space by Using a number of different sources: – There is no real committee or board that makes grand decisions, the curator, Michael Mazière conducts general research into artists and is attentive to the international art scene; through this he can find artists that he would like feature in the exhibition space. – Often Ambika hosts large scale commercial bookings, e.g. – Calvin Klein, Topshop, Art Angel, and London Fashion Week. More often then not the commercial bookings approach Ambika P3 for these opportunities. – Sometime, though not often, artists will approach Ambika P3 with proposals for specific exhibitions.

As the curator for Ambika P3, Michael Mazière is a key component of the institution. He told us that his role as curator involves many aspects such as selecting artists, working with the artists, as well as leading the production of the shows. He is also in charge of bringing in teams of people to build the exhibitions, and is a mediator between the artist and the space.As well as traditional curatorial roles, Michael is also a fund raiser for Ambika P3.

Naturally all featured artists, performers, and commercial bookings have their own vision of how the space will be used. Mazière tries to be very accommodating for these visions, though of course there is some mediation required as not all plans can be realised. From the first meetings held between Mazière and the artists drawings & CAD designs are drafted and then all aspects of these designs must be created from scratch and placed into the space.

The space is a blessing for both Ambika P3 and the artists that feature there. A blank canvas to realise ones ideas couldn’t be better, though there are hurdles to jump in terms of building walls, structures, and rooms within a repurposed hanger. Everything must be built from scratch and is completely unique to that specific show.

Of course a space as vast as Ambika P3 doesn’t come cheap, at a very base price the space has a price tag of £5000 a day, however this is a very flexible figure, and completely depends on the who the show is from, what the work is, and how long the show will be running for. For example, if the current artist featured is one whom Mazière and the P3 team want to feature themselves, then the price is lowered significantly, however if Calvin Klein is renting the space for a run-way show, then the prices will naturally be higher as the shows will be shorter, as well as being grander in scale.