The Whole Package

Spending a Wednesday afternoon punctuated by chai, samosas and cigarettes at the Khoj studios, a privileged group of us sat listening to three dedicated artists and one artists' collective talk about their bodies of work.

Privileged – because anyone who has the opportunity to gain such a valuable insight into an artist’s thinking and development over time has to be so, and dedicated – because artists working on the fringes of art and science, I believe, often have to work harder to validate themselves in both fields. (As one artist aptly said that afternoon, “Making art like this is what keeps me selling furniture as a day-job!”)

And so we come back, once again, to the question of validation.  What validates these artists’ works as fine art rather than ecological research, political activism, performing arts or simply scientific experimentation?

In 2011 the criteria for judging art seems to be hazier than ever before; suffice it to say we live a time where art can simply be ‘classified’ as pluralistic - which leaves the contemporary critic with variegated ways of comprehending, evaluating and of course, translating the art they view.

What struck me at Khoj that afternoon was my personal response to each artist's body of work.  (Postmodernism may have killed the author and given birth to the subject, but I still believe that only by seeing an artist’s inner workings, their previous concepts and structures, can one fully appreciate their current practice – I believe it’s all about context.)  Back to what’s important – the artists:  I was fascinated by Brandon Balengee’s depth of research and presented aesthetic; I was heartened by Pratik Sagar’s intersection of spiritual exploration and performance-based works; I was intrigued by Navin Thomas’s juxtaposition of industrial found-objects with sound-wave monitoring but lastly, I was extremely moved by the profundity of Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey’s large-scale, socio-ecological works.

The impression left on me by this afternoon also made me think of a session we had had back in Dubai at a Bidoun writing workshop (Jan-May 2010).  We discussed many aspects of writing about art in these workshops, but the one in question was about the ‘baggage’ a critic or a writer brings with them when critiquing an exhibition or an artwork; basically their personal bias, whether this be emotional, political or cultural etc.  A certain extent of this personal bias may be inevitable and we came to the conclusion that if it did exist, it should at least be acknowledged.

So, when dealing with a socially/politically/culturally engaging work, is it audience response (in a way, the effectiveness of the works translation) that determines its efficacy? Or should it ultimately be the aesthetic that qualifies the piece as a work of art? Is it in fact its experimental and unclassifiable nature that draws a viewer in and defines it as so abstract as to put it in the frame of being cutting-edge? Or is this area of work just so telling of the zeitgeist, that we are simply placated by the fact that more artists are engaging with environmental issues?

I wonder, what makes this type of art, art? Or even ‘good’ art?

For me, it is the whole package – the pure dedication to this field, the creation of a body ‘alternative research;’ the experimental nature of it, including all the failed experiments; the effect on the local and wider community, the communicative quality of the work; and of course the overall presentation of these very complex ideas into a wondrously formed, visually-engaging aesthetic.