Conversation between Melissa Maree and Margaret Roberts about Artsider at Articulate project space: 25 July 2014. MR: Was it you who had the motivation to make Artsider a progressive changing project? MM: The idea came from a collab work with Dorit at Syndey College of the Arts. We occupied a bare, empty wall outside the auditorium, subject to the public at SCA. Both of us discussed placing an artwork on this wall in response to one another, as a dialogue. Intuitively, this visual dialogue involved overtime but with our own everyday lives pulling us in other directions the time between placing more work/replacing work from the wall got wider. It was at this point the process driven project dissipated and became a static, artefactual objects on a exhibition wall. So I thought it would be really great to have time in a space where artists were constantly making and producing work that is ephermal and transient, with a focus on practice and process over end-‐means. Dorit and myself work in a similar intuitive manner and were interested in the everydayness of artists physically using space – public and private – to make their artworks. MR: Does that mean you are not interested in making a set of rules for yourself in advance but making artwork that simply passes the time in a public space? MM: Yes and no. There is still a kind of structure, because Artsider occurs within a daily work time 9-‐5 period. We as artist already create formal rules for ourselves, limitations on what we choose to use as materials. So Dorit and myself limit the 'rules' to just formal organizations, such as when we worked on the auditorium wall at uni – we stuck to works being placed in horizontal line. I think the more rules there are the more the process is set out to fail. The only real rule is the everydayness of practice. MR: What would you count as failure? MM: Once art in a process driven show becomes static and unchanging it becomes a exhibition rather than process work. A show that is not evolving, is just a bunch of dead weight commodities. It looses the idea of the artist being live within a space. I think if a work sells in a process show – that is a failure in a way, because the temporality, anti-‐artefact, anti-‐commodity is compromised. I realized this after my work sold on the opening night, it suddenly became the only object in the room that remained static. I'd realized after much reflection
1
during the week that I had commodified this object. The need for constant change in this sort of show is imperative. Its good for my future practice to experience this to flesh out the problems. MR: And what do you actually call this practice? MM: It's performative-‐process. Live artist, making their work in front of an audience. Its like bringing an artist out of the isolated lonely studio where he or she is invisible and placing the artist in a platform of visibility. It's about revealing the material production processes of how the artworks are being made. It closes the idea that the object is mystified or distant from reality. And shows that its made by hours of labour by the artists hands. MR: Are the red dots you had around the space there as a parody? MM: Yes. Dorit came up with this idea, rather intuitively a day before the opening show. During the opening night, Dorit placed red dots on works to show they have been sold. When in fact they hadnt. It was a fun playful idea, to contrast the shows intent. The white circle stickers are mine, I had a suggestion on the night to place these on the red stickers to make Target stickers. MR: I can see things have changed here (in the center of the space). The works have changed each day, forming a dialogue between the past images with the present work show throughout the duration of the process work-‐show. For example, the white paper sculptures hung on a brick wall background read as sculptures. When placed on a white wall with lighting, the shadow becomes an extension and movement from the wind gives a kinetic aspect to the work, the three aspects functioning as a whole. nly object in the room that remained static. I'd realized after much reflection during the week that I had commodified this object. The need for constant change in this sort of show is imperative. Its good for my future practice to experience this to flesh out the problems. MR: And what do you actually call this practice? MM: It's performative-‐process. Live artist, making their work in front of an audience. Its like bringing an artist out of the isolated lonely studio where he or she is invisible and placing the artist in a platform of visibility. It's about revealing the material production processes of how the artworks are being made. It closes the idea that the object is mystified or distant from reality. And shows that its
2
made by hours of labour by the artists hands. MR: Are the red dots you had around the space there as a parody? MM: Yes. Dorit came up with this idea, rather intuitively a day before the opening show. During the opening night, Dorit placed red dots on works to show they have been sold. When in fact they hadnt. It was a fun playful idea, to contrast the shows intent. The white circle stickers are mine, I had a suggestion on the night to place these on the red stickers to make Target stickers. MR: I can see things have changed here (in the center of the space). The works have changed each day, forming a dialogue between the past images with the present work show throughout the duration of the process work-‐show. For example, the white paper sculptures hung on a brick wall background read as sculptures. When placed on a white wall with lighting, the shadow becomes an extension and movement from the wind gives a kinetic aspect to the work, the three aspects functioning as a whole.
3