Settings: Artist Research- Bob and Roberta Smith, Jessica Voorsanger

Bob and Roberta Smith, Jessica Voorsanger
The LCCA
2001
Garden shed as site
Dimensions variable

https://makeyourowndamnfilm.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/lcca-2.jpg?w=1200

Video about the work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eH01mqwA5M


Bob and Roberta Smith (actually one man) inaugurated the Leytonstone Centre for Contemporary Art with artist and curator Jessica Voorsanger. The Centre was located within a garden shed in Smiths back garden and acted as a parody to white cube galleries, the modernist art gallery. The site is challenging the notions of these modernist ideas behind the ways that art should be presented and positioned within an institution. 

The Centre has housed a number of conferences, actions and exhibitions (within the garden shed), giving a commentary on the institution and the the authority that it holds.

I found this work to be incredibly interesting in the way that the garden shed became a site of high art and class. The exhibitions held within the shed were attended by many, demonstrating that either the value of the art is not dependant on its context, or that the artworld are always jumping to the next new thing. It is difficult to move away from the idea that art exhibitions are less about the art and more about the 'being seen' element. I find myself torn between these two ideas when looking at works such as this one. I want to believe that the different environment has pulled viewers because the art is of high value regardless of where it is shown but, unfortunately, I cannot do so. 

I think the work is very blatant in what it is attempting to convey to the viewer. It is making a parody of the idea of the modernist gallery structure, but I feel that it is also making a parody of the viewer. The exhibitions, conferences and the actions that take place within this space are thus automatically challenging these ideas, regardless of their content. I wonder if the viewer of the exhibitions held within the space questioned the nature of the works of art being exhibited? I wonder if they were compelled to question to 'high art' nature of these works based on their surroundings?

I think it will be interesting to see how to audience reacts to the installation that my group and I are working on. I hope that they will find themselves questioning the status of the works of art that are being displayed, that they will be able to convince themselves that the person on the audio clip is indeed giving a commentary on the work of art that they are standing in front of. 

Interesting ideas about this art in the book 

Creative Explorations: New Approaches to Identities and Audiences

 By David Gauntlett