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I have returned from our sojourn in Uppsala feeling refreshed but the weather is still a trial, and these November days really get one wondering about things, the mind drifting off this way and that, making one feel a little dotty in fact.
It is night when I leave in the morning and night when I return and low dark grey cloud in between. Rain and mist also are distinct possibilities. Imagine if the oxygen in Norrtälje was very very slowly and imperceptibly reduced, causing a creeping drowsyness in the people well it that is how November seems to me and when the sunlight shines it is like an increase in oxygen - how ever do they manage in the dayless north?
It never ever felt so heavy in England but I have discovered over my years in Sweden that to thrive in these conditions takes a little strategy, the bastun for example goes a long way as does maximising outdoor time in the middle of the day and positively rushing out to catch the sun if it ever appears. These things help (as does a two night stay at the Clarion Inn) but it is hard not to succumb to the gloom, which makes the default Jante weight1 of Sweden that little heavier still.
My last letter has got us thinking. With the Uppsala show plus the change we saw in the focus of old Holmes at the St Joost Masters, are we seeing evidence of a broader environmental turn in contemporary art? Or at least a marriage between the contemporary art matrix and environmental science/activism? If so is this an emerging trend or, more likely, are we just cottoning on? My reason for thinking this is that the Non Human Animals show reminded me of the way I encountered 'issue based' political art as it begin to seep into the institutions and then over the years we saw this blossoming into the saga of participation and anti capitalist or more often termed anti neoliberal art which dominated the critical context for so many years and was eventually deemed The Social Turn. Are we at the beginning of a similar round with environmental activism as the critical context? It must be. Our little detective work to discover the whereabouts of Old Holmes revealed the topic of Art and the Anthropocene which seemed well underway; a hint of the new buzzword to mention in the funding applications. If one were studying I am sure that one would discover a whole world of cutting edge research and practice prevalent at the numerous masters programs and research institutes around the world, but we are not in that business. We cannot expect to tackle the full banquet on offer even if we could find it, (the research context that is) but what I would like to know is who is playing the role which that sourceball Bishop2 played with such acclaim during the participation era, single handedly lighting a fire under all and sundry with her sharp critique of the critquers? Perhaps she will play the role herself? She is still in the heart of it at the CUNY in New York it appears, nursing the likes of young Mckee who under her tutelage has already made his splash.
Well, we will find it if we focus on it but contemporary relevance of that sort is not necessary for us in our Dignity Scholarship where we have already a line up of full plates to eat through. But having said that, awareness is important and will help us and indeed the exhibition yesterday certainly felt like a tentacle of which one can easily imagine is attached a great contemporary critical art beast spreading across the globe; the contemporary art institutions collaborating with the environmental science faculties.
I have been busy in the snickeri the last couple of evenings making new stretchers out of wood from the old veranda that I demolished. The beams are about fifteen cm by three meters and when that is cut down the middle we are left with six meters to play with and I must have eight or ten of these drying out. The good people of Lindris3 have lost my custom for the foreseeable future it seems.
The paint is really getting low and this time we really have no money for more so I plan to start work on a larger drawing board along the lines of the sketch from Work 5.
You know those few days in Uppsala provided some much needed time to mash-in4 our thoughts, to distil and reflect on our entire enterprise and we were indeed able to draw off a few ideas from the breakfast bar and now with the benefit of a couple of evenings in the snickeri, which always focuses the mind I find, we have one or two things decided. Firstly we must revisit our thoughts on the contemporary in art and as a wider framing device. We must return to TAS Work 23 and ask how has the situation transformed in the post truth era and we must think about that also in relation to the the discourses of post critical critique we reminded ourselves of on the boulder. How does the idea of the ineffectiveness of critique based on a crisis of authenticity feel now? The idea, I remember, was that because there is no solid ground or exterior position from which a critique of society can be mounted, all attempts at critique are ineffective. Well, now the unfixed, unmoored and uncertain nature of society has increased ten fold in the post truth era so what of Rancieres Emancipated Spectators now? There is a difference between being unable to experience authenticity as a lefty and actually being offensively targeted and attacked by the far alt right as a lefty; "I have listened carefully to all your ideas about emancipation. Now I'm going to smash this brick in your face". Yes, yes, the violence of the far alt right will breed authenticity pretty quick. (And while we are at all this lets ask whether in TAS Work 24 and our great reverse at the Carbielle Inn, we perhaps saw the seeds of our present state).5
Secondly we must concede that in this humble endeavour of ours we are, in a very real way, involved, in; contemporary art. Yes we are, and not only that we are in theory at the front of it. In practice however we are a world away but why not test ourselves? Why not seek a chance to exhibit our TAS or indeed the first Dignity Scholarship, in a contemporary art venue? It will still be a hard sell due to the heavy text and our laboured traditional painting and it will need to be championed by a open minded and brave curator, but its worth it and I will of course report progress. Our TAS publication is now ready and even though it is 'independently' published it may hold some sway. Young Robinson at the Northern6 might be of assistance, at least in judging the weather over work like ours. You know he once permitted the Open Council to share a space in an art exhibition at his gallery so he is game enough to be sure.
Thirdly with the extra time I did some reading of the Whalthur text and found it very inspiring and full of ideas and interpretations of Van Gogh that did not sink in on the first couple of reads. I greedily re-filled my cup with Vincent and have resolved to bring him back more, I mean to go to him more, to remember that he is the scaffold and crutch of our breakage.
I have just received word from my mother that my father has fallen in the night and is currently in Hospital in Norrtälje. This on the day we write about his portrait and to be quite sure I am not massaging porkies for narrative effect. No, this is real and quite cuts through our blustered abstractions above. My mother did not accompany him and but has been assured that he is in good spirits and will remain in the hospital for the foreseeable future while he rests and is checked. He now has many health niggles in addition to the dements and it may be a good thing that he can now be examined in whole rather than on a niggle by niggle basis, as has been the case thus far. That said he is 80 years and, well, the future is perhaps not so far off.
The portrait was taken two days ago and at that time he was in a depressed and disoriented state yet just yesterday morning we took coffee in Biltema at 8am and he was in sparkling form, his own brand of surreal make believe flowing like water - he became convinced, for example, that I was signalling the staff in morse code with my cup on the table leading to a merrygoround of absurdity, all told with a straight face of course but always on the verge of corpsing. As always a key part of the game is to keep a straight face so I try to swallow my laughter, but I'm sure he can tell.
Yours,
John
1 Jante Law, see Dignity Scholarship, season 1, Work 10
2 Art critic and historian Claire Bishop. A divisive figure.
3 Hardware merchants in Häverödal.
4 Base ingredients in the brewing and distilling of alcohol. To mash-in is to let the ingredients sit for a period of time before distillation can occur.
5 John was verbally abused by a large group of people which he speculated might be a new type of 'austerity public'.
6 Refers to Alistair Robinson, the curator at a gallery in Sunderland. The Open Council, which John represented, featured in the Hints To Workmen exhibition in 2011.