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MARCH 7 - APRIL 4, 2014 RO

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eDue to the nature of the exhibition, which involved the regular repositioning, uniting, and separating of objects, the artworks shown in the photographss accompanying this essay are without titles or medium information. All Photos by Lindsey Bond

Against Criteria

A RESPONSE BY

Courtney R. Thompson

CRITICAL DISTANCE VOL 19:3

I wasn’t sure when I finished if anybody would take it seriously. It turned out to be

kind of interesting to watch. I gave a certain amount of thought to how I set up

the shot and then after that… That’s not an uncommon way for artists to proceed.

What makes the work interesting is if you choose the right questions. Then, as

you proceed, the answers are what’s interesting. If you choose the wrong ques-

tions, you still get a result, but it is not interesting. —Bruce Nauman

In 1966 Susan Sontag released Against Interpretation and Other Essays. Her impassioned words in the title essay, originally written in 1964, dictate a state of stifling criticism rooted in translating the content of a work of art. She further laments that Freud and

Marx’s doctrines are employed to tease out smothering subtexts with words shoveled feverishly into what amounts to interpretive quicksand. In her closing statements she demands attention to immediacy and an

Installation view 2

experience that is engendered from form, not suffocated by theory. In short, an engagement that leaves the artwork untethered and free to play across our senses. While Sontag’s battle was fought in another moment, the stakes still resonate fifty years later. However, I propose it is not only the content of the artwork that is currently belaboured for meaning, but the artist.

Creativity has been compartmentalized within the professionalization of studio activity and an epidemic of burgeoning Master of Fine Art (MFA) programs in the last decade. Dizzying specialties lay claim to broad swathes of heritage traversing film, architecture, and design. With it interdisciplinarity is the new medium, carousing globally from art

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fair to biennial and other pop-up pavilions between. Artist statements bubble with the currency of art speak, engulfing all means of produc-tive engagement between opaque narratives of making to materials as fact. Artist talks can be slideshow burlesques—pasties of influence viewed through a fan-dance of art history. It is not enough anymore to be only an artist. One is an activator, a hybrid animal in a diorama of hyphenated landscapes that proclaim an ecosystem of fluid art world duties.

Conversely, theories, texts, images, and artworks are scavenged and reassembled, often devoid of contextual history. While this is nothing new, influence is still cannibalized: at its best, transformed, at its worst, regurgitated. Yet with this taste, judgment, and connoisseurship become anachronistic, and artists may desire to resist both the white tower and the white cube as a means to reflect upon their production. It is the self, the will, and whims that hold court in these studios. While this strategy is not immune to criticism, it may be fruitful to consider at this moment the artist against criteria.

I’m certainly not suggesting that Robert Taite’s painting installation is without principles, standards, or judgments. His desire to inhabit the gallery space at length during installation would indicate otherwise. However, his exhibition presents selections that baffle rigorous examina-tion. Hermeneutic encounters are confounded by pastel colored forms that lounge on and around walls, nestle in ledges, and perch on frames. His artworks exist as full and partial permutations in play with both the space of the gallery and neighbouring artworks. Push-paintings1 hinge against the gallery’s central columns, providing decorative slats of bland color, more accent than an act of territorialization. Certain surfaces recall generic kitchen countertops while others hold muted, off-tints of paint

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that saturate creased vinyl. Nearly nude canvas is splattered and unfin-ished, in broken conversation with its more polished siblings drenched in monochrome tarps of apricot, mantis green, and sluggish cyan. There are clever visual nods across the room: a level-shaped object reveals how dramatically warped the floor is; a corner presents a collection of canvas polygons that emanate pink and brown noise emitted through speakers while sky blue vectors explode above them; on their far left, a mathematical aqua monochrome, its precision arrangement of arrested movement surrounded by goofier, less sophisticated acquaintances.

Here, Sontag’s desire for form has reached an orgy of objects that seem to crave roving eyes. Furthermore, Taite’s Gesamtkunstwerk is not lim-ited to static form. Over the duration of the exhibition the installation is adjusted and pieces are removed, however, replacements are not

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preplanned.2 Questions of meaning are deflected by convictions housed in impulsive selections.

This is not to say Taite’s exhibition is concerned purely with form and surface outside of art historical canons of painting, sculpture, and instal-lation art. A boldly painted, enfolded canvas is a bright Joseph Beuys souvenir or if one squints, perhaps a deflated Claes Oldenburg. Hans Arp comes quick to the lips as a referent but so do childhood building blocks and endless hours of construction. Imi Knoebel is in a line or angle and Blinky Palermo might register on an ochre painted wall between two columns. However, referent maps start to get a little cloudy around Hélio Oiticica’s sensuous Bólides created in the 1960s, or Georges Schwizgebel’s animations.3 A formal debt can also be acknowledged to a particular lineage of composition and installation such as Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist4 monochromes and geometric arrangements or Eleazar Lissitzky’s Prounenraum (Prounroom) (1923). In sum, referents might echo the objects of the exhibition if the interest is in making lists and in the end, any historical sampling is mystified in the arrangement and treatment of materials, and ultimately governed by Taite’s inter-est—sustained over time but inherently temporary.

Looking back to Bruce Nauman’s epigram that began this essay, it is hard to discern what standard is employed to judge something “inter-esting”. What denotes a wrong question from a right isn’t specified, but it appears that outcomes arise out of an ongoing selection process particular to the artist. In an exhibition tour with Taite, I noted a similar exchange with the exception that his answers were even more open ended. In other words, for Taite, his criteria frolic in impermanence and the discovery of the relationship of form and color holds prominence. The standard of judgment is not so much unresolved as perpetually reevaluated.5 While this stance promotes fluidity, it can also appear

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indecisive. Conversely, one could argue Taite’s environment is an open opportunity for the viewer to engage in the work without overreaching narratives claiming ownership of the installation. In Sontag’s essay she asks what criticism would look like if it served the artwork rather than seized it. This begs the question, does Taite’s interest hold our own? Is meaning found in our responses to Taite’s choices or is an encounter with his installation better served by the types of questions it can pro-voke, hold, and sometimes fail?

To be against criteria is not so much about asking the right or wrong questions of art and artists. It’s more about enjoying the liberation and excitement of not knowing all the answers before you begin.

Notes

1 Taite’s term; conversation with the artist, March 2014.

2 Ibid.

3 I am indebted to Taite for bringing Schwizgebel’s film Rapture of Frankenstein

(1982) to my attention. In the film the point of view travels along a series of endless

corridors with cutouts to other rooms. These cutouts are reminiscent in a number

of Taite’s works but their execution in wood also alludes to cabinetry, framing, and

craftsmanship.

4 Malevich defined Suprematism as “the supremacy of pure feeling in creative

art.” While this statement may resonate with Taite’s installation, it is important to

note that Malevich’s legacy is borne out of his political views leading up to the

Russian Revolution in 1917 and in contradistinction to the Soviet Union’s program

to promote Socialist Realism in art.

5 A quality too soon to tell would be hindered or honed by undertaking the

aforementioned MFA degree (Taite currently holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts).

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aceartinc.2nd floor, 290 McDermot Ave. Winnipeg MB R3B 0T2

204.944.9763 gallery@aceart.org www.aceart.orgTuesday-Saturday 12 - 5pm

Critical Distance is a writing program of aceartinc.

that encourages critical writing and dialogue about

contemporary art. The program is an avenue for

exploration by emerging and established artists

and writers. Written for each exhibition mounted at

aceartinc. these texts form the basis of our annual

journal Paper Wait.

aceartinc. gratefully acknowledges the generous

support of associate members and donors, our

volunteers, the Manitoba Arts Council, The Cana-

da Council for the Arts, Media Arts and Visual Arts

Sections, The City of Winnipeg Arts Council,

WH and SE Loewen Foundation, the Winnipeg

Foundation, The Family of Wendy Wersch, and the

Sign Source.

aceartinc. is an Artist-Run Centre dedicated to

the development, exhibition and dissemination of

contemporary art by cultural producers. aceartinc.

maintains a commitment to emerging artists and

recognizes its role in placing contemporary artists

in a larger cultural context. aceartinc. is dedicated

to cultural diversity in its programs and to this end

encourages applications from contemporary artists

and curators identifying as members of GLBT

(gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender), Aboriginal

(status, non-status, Inuit, Métis) and all other

cultural communities.

Courtney R. Thompson is a freelance arts writer/

critic/worker in Winnipeg. She graduated with an

MA in Art History, Theory & Criticism from the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and

has been writing about the arts in both print and

online publications for more than a decade.