"I have always held... that the cathedral of Lincoln is out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles and roughly speaking worth any two other cathedrals we have." John Ruskin

Lincoln Cathedral (Or more properly The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln) is a beautiful 12^th Century masterpiece. It has not been without it’s share of catastrophe and it is fairly amazing to be standing at all.

William the Conqueror ordered the first cathedral to be built in Lincoln, in 1072 but the cathedral now standing on the present site was built by Bishop Remigius, finishing it in 1092 a mamouth feat of engineering and a testiment to his power and influence – but he managed to die two days before it was to be consecrated on May 9 of that year.

About fifty years later, most of that building was destroyed in a fire. This time Bishop Alexander rebuilt and expanded the cathedral, but it was destroyed by an earthquake about forty years later, in 1185!

This third cathedral is also the third largest in Britain (in floor space). It is Lincolnshire's largest building dominating the skyline above the city and until 1549 the tower was the tallest building in the world for over 200 years (1300-1549) but the central spire collapsed in the sixteenth century and was not rebuilt.

The cathedral currently houses a beautiful display of the Stations of the Cross also known as The 'Forest' stations a pun on their materials - mixed wood sculptured relief pieces by local artist William Fairbank.

Fairbank was born in 1950 and is a carpenter and joiner by trade. Having studied at Ravensbourne, he ran his own carpentry and joinery business and became an expert in woodcarving and veneering. He was involved in a serious car accident in 1987 and has since devoted his creative time to the sations series uncommissioned for seven years. They comprise of 15 pieces.

The Stations of the cross: -

The stations (or Way of the Cross; in Latin, Via Crucis; also called the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows, or simply, The Way) have their origins in 4th century Jerusalem when pilgrims would flocked to the Holy Land from all parts of the world. Heading the list of places they visited was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built by the Emperor Constantine in 335 AD atop Calvary and the reputed tomb of Jesus.

Processions of pilgrims to this church were common. Over the years, the route of pilgrim processions, beginning at the ruins of the Fortress Antonia and ending at the church of the Holy Sepulcher, was to become commonly accepted as the route Jesus followed to his death.

"Stations" developed on this route as early pilgrims honored places where specific incidents took place as Jesus went Calvary. However, the search for them was complicated because the Jerusalem of Jesus' day had been almost completely destroyed by Roman armies in 70 AD. In many cases, therefore, pilgrims could only guess where some incidents described in the gospel took place and are estimated to have originated momento and possibly the first tourist items later interpreted as reconstructions in stone, wood, or metal, sculptured, carved, paintings or engravings in churches as the build spread the Christian world to a largely illiterate population. They became a widespread sign of Christian devotion towards the end of the 17^th century, now found in nearly every church world wide.

Formerly their number varied considerably in different places but fourteen are now prescribed by authority to be the numbered sequence depicting the last passion. They are as follows: -

Christ condemned to death

the cross is laid upon him

His first fall

He meets His Blessed Mother

Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross

Christ's face is wiped by Veronica

His second fall

He meets the women of Jerusalem

His third fall

He is stripped of His garments

His crucifixion

His death on the cross

His body is taken down from the cross

And laid in the tomb

The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make in spirit, as it were, a pilgrimage to the chief scenes of Christ's sufferings and death, and this has become one of the most popular of Catholic devotions. It is carried out by passing from Station to Station, with certain prayers at each and devout meditation on the various incidents in turn.

 

As usual - It's only my opinion but....

 

 

 

Oh yes it all happened in March dontcha-know. Those last minute pay rises bonuses at management level slipped in at the end of 'any other business', the holes in the road which mysteriously need digging and over resourcing over night, that last minute dash to Spend Spend Spend! on meaningless unnecessary research that never gets read. In short the funding spend bonanza.

 

What am I saying?

Funding as a concept and the funding and economic redevelopment projects aimed at supporting ‘creative industries’ has actually become a system supporting government ‘intervention[1]’ and policy. That policy has either intentionally or inadvertently become a controlling factor in the human act of creativity and now acts in a legislative, often excluding manner and is often damaging for the industries it claims to ‘support’[2].

The funding system has led to: -

 

1               A skewed artificial view of the creative industries in both nature, practice, shape, scope and for the purposes of counting economic value attached to it.

2               A new industry[3] which originated as a parasite on the back of creativity – and has now been extremely manipulative in reversing the role. This new ‘industry’ is policed by Civil Servants, Accountants and is predominantly made up of those who are not from a creative background and have little or no understanding of the nature of either creativity or indeed commercial practice.

3               This layer of industry has a workforce skilled only in administrative practice and procedure.

4               This industry began to recognize its lack of credibility and sought to legitimize its position of ‘superiority’ over the creative industry by creating often unnecessary layers of beaurocracy and or statistical data analysis which again bares no resemblance to the actual nature shape or practice of the business. In more recent years it has transcended this feeling of inadequacy and in a process of self promotion and sheer ignorance now largely believes in it’s own myth.

5               Because of this the funding system[4] is often flawed in it’s remit and misunderstands the nature of the industry. It has done two things: -

a)     Imposed artificial rules on creativity and therefore the creative process.

b)    Generated a need to either alter the course of original concept in order to gain financial support or cause the creative practitioner to give false indication as to the intention to meet those inappropriate requirements and outcomes.

6               The result is that the new industry of bid writers have taken up a very old industry mantle which solicits money under false pretenses – this used to be called extortion.

 

With this in mind we are currently at an important time for the creative accounting. The mad dash to spend spend spend which inevitably results in Shit Shit Shit!

If only there was a way to be…well…thrifty or selective in these times of tax-payer-benefactor[5]. If only there was a recognition for spending on the worthwhile and handing back if there weren’t enough interesting and culturally engaging things to ‘buy’. If only the decision was made by those who actually know something of the business and arts they are  'supporting' If only they had ever run a business themselves - or even worked in the sector - or even worked in the commercial world. 

But no, the directive engineered from policy (Government[6]) is ‘If you haven’t spent it this year then you don’t get it next year’[7] – which is basically saying creativity is a constant state and never deviates in volume. If you have set the bench mark at the start of the process then it remains the bench mark.

In fact – what we are talking about is imposing mechanical economic and fiscal practice on creativity.

It’s odd that to value creativity we need to align it with financial value and business terminology.

Are you creative? Come and see our business advisor…Have you got a good idea? Come and help us spend some money to provide us with an unnecessary position.

When the government foisted the ‘creative industries’ banner on us they were both insightful and manipulative. They were also a bunch of Civil Servants who, without fail, get it spectacularly wrong. Where they are clever is in instilling plans through the route to everyone’s heart in these sorry times of economic downfall – CASH.

But only a little bit and never enough to create true independence from the hand that feeds.

5 – 10 years ago if I would ask any designer, musician, writer sculptor or painter if they see themselves as industry? The answer would be largely ‘No I am an artist’. 

Well here’s the thing. Ask the new generation of ‘creatives’ if they are industry and the answer is invariably ‘yes – I work in the creative industries’ so entrenched is this idea and terminology that within 5 years we have lost the right to be creative for the sake of it. Oh Thatcher you did wonders stamping out individuality.

The first to go were the independent art colleges – swallowed up by the dash to become a University. There is no place for creativity in the traditional sense, free thinking, political insightful and dangerous. Does society really see creatives as lazy near-do-well’s or has government driven media created this notion? Was the lottery ever set up to subsidize Mrs. Jones’s hip op? Why have we consistently had the notion of a conflict between arts funding and health? And why do we have a whole layer of bureaucracy, civil servants and accountants, and now university teachers who perpetuate this nonsense because it makes for more interesting paperwork?

We have been assimilated by buzz words and business strategy and slowly grown dependant on funding in order to even create. What we have now is creativity by committee. If you want to create you have to follow the prescribed rules of engagement. You have to create by government design and in their own image. In short we have replaced the disproportionate scale of the once wealthy patrons alongside the slightly smaller religious figures with the same design albeit without the lapis Lazuli emblazoned clothes. Those writing the cheques are now the larger of the saints.

Where once we found the Catholic church peddling it’s own visual propaganda, we find a new religion peddling spending power.

Where once collectors were benefactors or there to be harbingers of good taste, we have a whole new industry of bid writers[8]

Creativity if it is an industry SIC code based business is in decline due exactly to those who purport to help and advise it. 

Businesses are closing daily and being replaced with funded projects who occupy the market sector with 'free' services. Free web design, Free video, Free marketing, Free business advice and free representation to governments and think tanks - but at what cost?

Ask any client whether they would like to buy a service or have it for nothing and guess what the answer is? 

Ask any SME if they can offer a service cheaper than free? and well...

Real business with overheads are either propped up by funding themselves - usually distracted from core activity or being replaced with funded trading arms of universities and other education establishments who masquerade as profit making. RDA funded initiatives who have a finite life-span on the life support of the funding whims of those 'in the know'. And we have the cartels who sit at every panel, discussion group and decision making board carving up  the spoils of the governments lame attempts to benefit the arts and emerging imaginary 'digital revolution'. Those who write the opportunities and publish them reluctantly in the most obscure sites and papers so as to be 'transparent' in complying with the rules - but leaving little or no opportunity for anyone to bid for or win the funds which are already allocated to the usual suspects.

The system is corrupt, ineffective and manipulative. The system is not supporting creative industries - it is killing it! 

Material Gestures – Tate Modern

 

Despite me often referring to Tate Modern as Modern Tat on account of it’s predilection to consider ‘Modern’ a pre-requisite for exhibition in itself, I am not an artistic luddite.

 

The reason why I mention this is because whenever galleries ‘bring out the dead’ they do so usually in two different ways. One to form an educational or sequential timeline in which to try and make sense of a purely stylistic development or two, in an attempt to marginalise 20^th century works as amateur or not for mass public consumption. Or in the case of more ‘seated’ collections - anything non figurative.

 

More can be made of this through the writings around ‘dehumanisation’ of art by Ortega Y Gasset 1949.

 

Material Gestures is, for me, an uneasy fit from the first curatorship approach. It is of course great to see old favourites given an airing, but this ‘exhibition’ is an odd fit for either chronology or stylistic osmosis.

 

The presence of Monet seems a strange populist choice if only there to say ‘Monet did it first’ as an example of abstraction. It would not in itself take account of style borne out of physical ailment and therefore set it up as purposeful which, despite what we now call impressionist having broken the rules in it’s use of En plein air, would really not claim to have invented abstraction or expressionism.

 

Despite the weird curatorship, three pieces really caught my eye and I felt privileged to once more stand face to face with a Pollock, Hepworth and an artist I had only ever seen in reproductions Mark Tobey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jackson Pollock

Summertime: Number 9A (1948)

Oil, enamel and house paint on canvas

 

By 1948 Pollock had been living in Long Island for 3 years having escaped the New York city sky line.

His move was helped by Guggenheim having lent him the money to move to his new studio a 'converted' barn with no heating or lighting, a small homestead in The Springs, a rural hamlet near East Hampton, Long Island.

In Summertime Number 9a we see a man liberated (and sober). His process which was to become his trade mark dripped and poured paint was now formed and this painting seems a celebration of the summer senses he must have been immersed in both physically and mentally.

The pattern is beautifully balanced across the surface, it’s layers suspended over one another. Summertime reflect his belief that ‘The modern artist ... is working and expressing an inner world - in other words expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces’. From 1947/48 his dripped layered canvases provided abstract expressionist compositions that earned both praise and scorn from the critics. Some dismissed them as meaningless and chaotic, while others saw them as superbly organized, visually fascinating and psychologically compelling. Clement Greenberg, one of Pollock's most ardent supporters, argued that he was "the most powerful painter in contemporary America and the only one who promises to be a major one".

With several one-person exhibitions to his credit and work included in important group shows, Pollock was receiving significant attention. A profile in the 8 August 1949 issue of Life magazine introduced his challenging art to a nationwide audience and cemented his growing reputation as the foremost modern painter of his generation.

For me this painting is a celebration of nature and personal freedom. Pollock seems able to provide the viewer with a cinemascope landscape worthy of a John Ford westerns and here Pollock also creates, by way of the elongated canvas, a view into his natural vista.

This period offers an all too short burst of creative freedom in bloom which by 1955 had stopped painting all together as he reverted to drink which finally killed him in a car crash, driving while drunk.

 

Mark Tobey

Northwest Drift (1958)

Tempera and gouache on paper laminated on board support

This one is, on the face of it pattern like to the point of banal. Once you stop and look the use of a limited tonal pallet is though, a craft in itself. I use the term craft because to me this is applied art as fine art. His ability to balance the tone across the canvas is superb. The more you look into this one the more you see.

 

It is of course derived and representational of natural forms but his background in studying Chinese calligraphy shines through this gouache piece, bringing weight, balance and control.

 

 

 

A departure from Pollocks often random visual appeal, Tobey is an altogether more considered and meditative painter in application.

 

He called this approach 'white writing' a term reflecting his background and approach. He described the piece and the landscape which inspired him.

 

 ‘Seattle where I painted this picture is a place of virginal winds, air currents and intermingled seasons... Gray skies, grey water make one conscious of this colour and I have used a series of grey tones which seem so indigenous to the locale.’

 

My Third piece is a sculpture from British Sculptor Barbara Hepworth

 

 

 Dame Barbara Hepworth

Orpheus (Maquette 2) (Version II) 1956, (edition 1959)

Brass and cotton string sculpture

This is a smaller version of a previous larger work Theme on Electronics (Orpheus) made for an electronics firm (Oh yes in those days corporations saw contemporary art as a status symbol). The theme being a harmony between modern technology and music composition.

 

Although this piece differs from the other two pieces not only as a sculpture but in that Hepworth's work did not derive 'from' nature but instead was born out of abstract forms, her approach to the art of sculpting was described by her as a 'biological necessity' and more abstractly through her interest in telluric forces which shape the landscape.

 

 

For Hepworth a reaction against representational art was developed as early as the 1934

 

"I do not want to make a stone horse that is trying to and cannot smell the air. How lovely is the horse’s sensitive nose, the dog’s moving ears and deep eyes; but to me these are not stone forms and the love of them and the emotion can only be expressed in more abstract terms. I do not want to make a machine which cannot fulfil its essential purpose; but to make exactly the right relation of masses, a living thing in stone, to express my awareness and thought of these things ... In the contemplation of Nature we are perpetually renewed, our sense of mystery and our imagination is kept alive, and rightly understood, it gives us the power to project into a plastic medium some universal or abstract vision of beauty."

 

This piece is a beautiful example of Hepworth and contemporaries like Henry Moore having explored the idea of ‘hole’ in sculptural works – a little like the negative space employed in painting. The breaking down of solid forms to allow movement through and around and bringing the outside – in while also suggesting form with the use of threads and wire. These forms and concepts had also been explored around this time in architecture which would be epitomised through architects like Mies van der Rohe.

 

By the 1950’s she was celebrated and internationally renowned leading to these private and public commissions working largely in bronze but always retaining an approach which referenced her early work through carving and an innate sensibility and faithfulness to materials – beautiful!

 

Material Gestures – Tate Modern, London UK