From Prominence to Obscurity: Keith Arnatt's Transition from Conceptual Art to Photography

MA, Bisera IkanovićUniversity of Sussex Alumni

Currently residing in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

MA, Lamija HatibovićUniversity of Sarajevo AlumniSarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract— The article will show Arnatt’s transition from a prominent conceptual artist to an unknown photographer. It will analyze Keith Arnatt’s photographic work and put it in a context of both his own artistic career and the artistic movements at the time of their creation. Parallels between absurdism, paradox, humor, originality, perversity and the painterly characteristic are all words are shown in his works. Two exemplary photographic series will be analyzed in order to reflect the former: Pictures from the Rubbish Tip and Notes from Jo.

Keywords – Keith Arnatt, conceptual art, photography,

I. INTRODUCTION

In the British art community, Keith Arnatt was considered to be one of the most respected artists of modern British art. Recently, the respect has started to encompass his photographic career as well, although perhaps still not in the scope that one might feel it deserves to. Arnatt’s photographic work is known amongst the art scene, where his audience at the beginning consisted mainly from “photographic buffs, people who are knowledgeable in photography and the history of photography” [1], with only a handful of art critics and artists alike that felt confident enough to discuss the work and interpret it. The possible reason for the public’s unawareness of Arnatt’s photographic work may lie in the rather small amount of exhibitions of his work.

Today, not many books are written about Keith Arnatt and even less about his photography. Most of the information about his work can be found in various catalogue articles and several essays. Although the essays written in these catalogues shed some light on his pre-photographic and touch upon some of his photographic work, they are limited in information. Thankfully, Arnatt was an artist who, even though he seemed to care little about the success of his work, did not mind discussing his work with others and when doing so, he was very clear about his ideas and accomplishments, thus reducing the possibility of others misinterpreting it. However, this is more applicable to his early works than for his photographic work. Due to the fact that at that time photography was not considered to be a form of art or, at least, any form of serious art, artists that were associated with it were usually quickly disregarded. In the second half of the 20th century photography became a more prominent medium, but it was usually used in combination with other mediums, rarely on its own. So how

did Arnatt go from being a known Conceptual artist to an unknown photographer?

II. COMING TO THE IDEA

The art scene witnessed a great number of art movements in the 20th century. Never before were there so many distinctively different artistic creations in such a short time span. Each of them negated the former movement and most of them lasted for less than a decade. One of those ‘movements’ is Conceptual art. Perhaps it should not even be referred as a movement, since the artists of this period were not considered to be a group. Their styles and ideas greatly differed from one another. However, for the lack of a better expression to address this artistic style, the article will refer to it as a movement.

Up until a decade ago, not many people were familiar with the term Conceptual art and even less with the basic principles of the movement in question. It seemed to be lost in the sea of numerous art movements of the 20th century. However, the reason for its growing popularity, now almost fifty years later, could be attributed to the changed understanding of its role. Moving from a philosophy which associated art directly with an object to a, philosophically, more abstract concept of associating art with the idea for the artwork, not the object itself. Putting painting and sculpture away from the limelight of the art scene provided more space for other art forms to develop. These new art forms refrained from the traditional materials and instead used “photographs, film, sound, light, earth [and even] artists themselves” [2].

Keith Arnatt was one of the pioneering conceptual artist, not just in Britain, but a world-wide. He is considered to be one of the first people who started to question the function and the role of the artist. Art critics of the time connected this issue with Barthes’ idea of the “death of the author” [3]. However, one must keep in mind that Keith Arnatt was original in his ideas, a characteristic defined by his personality which was such that many describe him as a person that “if anything is popular then [he] would want to go the opposite way” [4]. He was not what some might consider a follower, but instead was the one that created paths for other artists to follow. The fact that he was a world-wide renowned conceptual artist is not surprising. At the time, Britain was not the center of raising artistic movements and it was even easier for him to establish himself as a promising artist abroad. According to The New Art catalogue, although people could read all about the artistic

novelties in popular art magazines of the time, most of them coming from America, in reality people have “seen very little of it” [5]. According to a letter written by Anne Seymour to Keith Arnatt, Tate decided in 1972 to start the “first stage of a push to expand [their] collection somewhat in the direction of the ‘New Art’” [6].

Conceptual art was not what one might consider an immediate success. In America it seemed to be progressing at a faster pace and was appreciated by the members of the art scene, but the movement did not find the same acceptance with the everyday visitors. Many art gallery visitors seemed to be unable to understand the concept of art-as-idea and demanded to see more ‘artistic’, not intellectual, artifacts. In its essence, Conceptual art was the art of intellect. Aesthetics was not a priority to conceptual artists, as it was to their predecessors. The idea and the explanation behind the artwork is what mattered and what made the created piece - art. Evolving from an object centered art to an idea centered art was a long process. The reason why it was named Conceptual art is because it explored “what the concept of art and the concept of artists were” [7], basing itself on the idea, “rather than style or any specific aesthetic regime” [8].

Keith Arnatt was considered to be an extremely intelligent artist, with both profound and witty writings and philosophy. What made Arnatt different, as David Hurn said, is that he was “able to put that into the pictures in a way that the general public could understand” [9], something that Conceptual art lacked in general. He was one of those artists that could not settle for one artistic medium and changed his artistic tendencies and preferences a number of times in his career. He was interested in all forms of art from paintings, sculptures, photographs, performance art and language art. He began his artistic career as a painter, where he attended the prestigious Royal Academy in London, becoming a landscape painter [10]. His knowledge of fine arts is something that will be constantly referred to in his later work, including in his photography. Not finding satisfaction in painting by the mid-60s, he turned to experimental art and unknowingly helped to form a new movement. The basis of the movement already existed with the works of “leading conceptual artists in the UK such as Art & Language, Victor Burgin, Michael Craig-Martin and John Latham” [11]. Today he is probably most known for his performance art, with works such as the Self-Burial (1969) and Trouser-Word Piece (1972).

The Self-Burial, occasionally known as The Disappearance of the Artist [12], presents a perfect example of self-portraiture combined with the use of photography. The work bluntly expresses the idea of darkness and death, with the artist being buried, but at the same time more subtly relates to the already mentioned popular theory of the death of the artist. However, when Arnatt was asked to describe this work, he simply claimed that it was “an advertisement for nothing” [13]. The performance has a certain dose of humor in it. An exhibition souvenir of a sort is kept in the Tate archive and presents a

form of a flick book, which shows a sequence of images that, when turning the pages fast enough, together show Arnatt’s gradual burial [14]. However, seeing that it was done as a TV project, it is particularly interesting that during the nine days that the project was taking place, the TV program schedule was printed on the back of each shot, or vice versa, depending on one’s stand and point of view. There are numerous accounts of Arnatt’s Self-Burial, which vary in their claims relating to the duration of the TV screening. Some reports claim that each photograph was presented on television for two seconds [15], while others claim that each photo was presented for four seconds [16].

So, what would be the most appropriate description of these photos? Ian Walker, for example, describes them as “static images, lugubriously deadpan in their very stillness, pretending to be ‘stills’ prom some probably very slow event” [17]. Richard Cork considers the Self-Burial to be “prophetic of its maker’s subsequent development” [18], referring to Arnatt’s later disappearance from the art world. The latter mentioned piece, Trouser-Word Piece, is considered to be the epitome of Arnatt’s Conceptual creations. It was a work aided by a strong philosophy, which was taking “egocentricity as its subject matter'' [19]. This artwork consisted of two parts: one was the photography of the artist holding the I’m a Real Artist sign, and the other was the “text taken from philosopher J. L. Austin's Sense and Sensibilia, exposing the indeterminacy of the meaning of the word real” [20].

III. BECOMING A PHOTOGRAPHER

The change from being in front of the camera to being behind the camera was not as sudden as it might seem. Even during his period as a Conceptual artist, Arnatt would include photographs in his artwork. However, in most cases, he was not the one taking the pictures, but rather “directed the camera” [21] while he was in front of it. The photos were “usually taken by friends or colleagues from college” [22]. These photographs were used only as “records, not first-order works of art” [23], thus documenting his work and with it making the documentation a part of the work. The first contact with photography for Arnatt was a matter of necessity, given the fact that he was “doing things which were fixed to a location; the only way [he] could show people what [he] was doing was to photograph them” [24]. His wish to document his work was something learnt on his predecessors’ mistakes. In his interview with Susan Butler, Arnatt stated that a tremendous influence on his work was the work of Claes Oldenburg, whose work Hole (1967) “puzzled [him and left him] wondering had it in fact been done [since at the time] there was no reproduction, no film, no visual evidence [just] a report of an action being performed” [25]. So, at this point, photography was just a necessity of his Conceptual art.

When describing the difference between his photography and his Conceptual art, Arnatt stated:

A fundamental difference, I think, between the way that I worked earlier and the way in which I work now is […] that the idea was of central significance, that anything that was made was made almost incidental to the idea. I don’t think I work that way at all now; things I do now are the result of […] discovering something in the process of working; I do something and then reflect upon it. [26]

So, the difference lies in the change of his approach, where

the former has been described as “intuitive”, whilst the latter stood for “logical [and] pre-ordained procedures” [27]. The shift can be attributed to both personal reasons and to the society’s lack of understanding and appreciation of his conceptual work. The personal reasons for the change could be associated to Arnatt’s altered behavior and his change of priorities. Critics attribute this change to an unfortunate accident that Arnatt had suffered at his house in Tintern Abbey in Wales. On one recorded occasion when Arnatt mentioned the accident, he merely stated: “It changed the way I feel about a lot of things [making me] develop a terrific attachment to [Wye Valley]” [28]. The change in his personality Duncan Wooldridge attributes to the accident where Arnatt “fell from the top of a ladder […] and was never the same [becoming] quiet, evasive and introverted” [29]. He believes that this fall affected Arnatt’s artistic development and instigated the shift in his artistic direction, which could be traced in his 2007 exhibition in the Photographers’ Gallery. However, the only medical evidence that we have which could explain Arnatt’s changed personality is the fact he had Alzheimer’s disease and even then we do not know the severity of the disease.

Photography to Arnatt presented a new world filled with unexplored subjects and ideas. Similar to his transition to photography which was to be expected, his decline from the a relatively known Conceptual artist to an unknown photographer was gradual as well. According to his close friend David Hurn, the sole reason that Arnatt became prominent was that people and critics where interested in his work at the time and that “people came to him” [30]. According to Charlotte Cotton “it all went downhill after the show in the Tate” [31]. The show was held in 1972, where Arnatt exhibited “all 230 gallery staff photo cards” [32]. In his opinion the exhibit was a success, but in reality people perceived it differently. According to Grafik, the personnel removed their photos one at a time and that resulted in the exhibit being closed before it was planned to. David Alan Mellor mentions that Arnatt was far from affected by these developing events, jokingly naming them the “disappearing act” [33]. After the exhibit, and when he turned to photography, the galleries seemed to have lost their patience with the unpredictable artist. His 1980 series, on the other hand, were not so known in the art world, but instead gained their fame in the photography world “which was still rather separate from fine art” [34].

IV. THE WORLD WHICH I SEE, THE WORLD OF THE RUBBISH TIP

The camera is now incapable of photographing a tenement or rubbish heap without beautifying it. It has succeeded in turning abject poverty itself, by handling in a modish, technically perfect way, into an object of enjoyment. – Walter Benjamin [35]

It took approximately a decade for Arnatt to find what he

was really interested in photography. With the Pictures from a Rubbish Tip, he embraced the use of color and he put the theme of abjection as the primary theme of his work. He photographed seemingly irrelevant objects and played with the concept of turning non-artistic items into artistic photographs, or as Arnatt phrased it “making pictures which are not chaotic out of chaos” [36]. The vivid colors “and impeccable finesse of advertising photography” [37] in the Pictures from the Rubbish Tip create an illusion of a painting, thus making the photographs visually ambiguous and beautify the rubbish presented in such an extent that the viewer forgets the negative connotation of rubbish and sees it as something beautiful.

The “idiosyncratic use of non-photographic colors” [38] was uncommon at the time, and it was one of Arnatt’s original ideas. Colors range “from sumptuous [with] the richly autumnal tones to dramatic chiaroscuro.” [39]. The scenes are obviously staged, placing the selected rubbish in a carefully selected background made out of plastic bags which emphasized the beauty of the food presented and creating “psychedelic patterns” [40], choosing the right objects and the right light.

Fragments of rotting food are isolated from the greater mass of refuse, turned thereby into abject still life by crumpled polythene which recalls classical drapery [41].

David Hurn thinks that Arnatt “is always referring back to

something in painting” [42], more specifically, that he references Samuel Palmer. This would mean that Arnatt’s previous fine art background came through in his photography. Another reference to this series, comes from Schwabsky who compares Arnatt’s rotten food with the “castoff clothes and rotting fruit that connects to Atget, but the intensity of attraction/repulsion embodied in these works seems very much of its time, recalling contemporaneous work by Helen Chadwick” [43].

Two important photographic movements can be found in Arnatt’s work. The ideas of the Pictorialist photographic movement can be linked to the characteristic of his photographs to appear painterly. The movement which originated in the final decades of the 19th century, promoted the idea of creating ‘artistic’ photographs [44]. Photography was a new medium at the time and it was not as highly esteemed as painting was, primarily because it was seen to be “simply the mechanical means of reproducing reality” [45]. Photographers, in order for their work to be appreciated, had

intervened with their photographs to blur their photographic qualities and pronounce their painterly ones, such as composition and structure. Similar classic still life composition and structure is found in the Pictures from a Rubbish Tip, except for the fact that Arnatt achieves the painterly atmosphere not by denying the photographic qualities of his work, but by embracing them and emphasizing them.

In this respect, Arnatt’s work is reminiscent of the second photographic movement - Straight Photography. This movement was based on showing the beauty of tone and detail found in photographs and the ideas which could only be shown with photography avoiding the classical fine art themes and subjects. It appears that Arnatt possessed that subtle ability to combine the two opposites in his work – the pictorial quality with the realistic one. However, he took it a step further by introducing color to his photographs.

Some art critics mention the environmental issue when discussing the Pictures from a Rubbish Tip. For example, Sara Allen claims that the 1980s photograph makes the viewer “ponder man’s impact of the environment” and she even takes it further by saying that the conclusions that the viewer might make are those how “man unthinkingly ruins natural spaces with litter and so on” [46]. This might be the opinion of some viewers, but in truth the photographs do not send the message ‘rubbish is wrong and do not throw it around’, but it seems to send a rather opposite message of ‘rubbish can be beautiful if you look at it the right way’. When we look at the photographs we do not get the sudden urge to go and pick up garbage, but rather prefer to admire the unexpected beauty found in the seemingly unworthy objects. Even Arnatt himself stated in an interview: “The concentration on rubbish often leads people to believe that I’m concerned with ecological issues, that the point of my pictures is to make some comic about the disastrous effects of overconsumption and things like this. They are essentially ‘comics upon the nature of picture making in a number of ways” [47].

V. WHERE ARE MY WELLINGTONS YOU STUPID FART?

The weight of words. The shock of photos. [48]

Keith Arnatt might not have had the support of the art world during his entire career, but the constant support that he had was of his wife Jo. As David Hurn explains it: “Keith had a strange and loving relationship with his wife, who was a remarkable lady [and] who tolerated his strangeness” [59]. Arnatt previously experimented with using text as a form of art in his conceptual work. So how exactly d Notes from Jo differ from his earlier Conceptual work?

The first difference is that the notes were not written by him. He had nothing to do with the creation of the notes, but rather with photographing them and thus making it art. Turning something so mundane and personal into art and including the observer into their everyday life is an ingenious and a witty idea. Since this was their daily ritual, there must have been hundreds of these notes written during their life together.

Arnatt chose only “the most poignant notes, and photographed eighteen” [50]. The viewer is both fascinated and amused by the notes, but at the same time, skeptical of the tone of the notes. The tone is not what one might call affectionate, at least not at first glance. This was their way of expressing their relationship. Proving how much Arnatt actually enjoyed these notes, is the fact that he decided to document them, so they “would [not] disappear” [51]. The idea of preserving the ephemera, text which was created with no intention to be preserved, creates a paradox. Just as he did with the Pictures from a Rubbish Tip, Arnatt has given “value to something essentially transitory” [52].

VI. CONCLUSION

In the end, we can say that Keith Arnatt was both an original artist and an original photographer, although in his own opinion the two should not be even considered to be separate terms. He created series which were undeniably unique and, on several accounts, ahead of their time. Decades after his Pictures from a Rubbish Tip, during the great environmental movement, photographers focused on rubbish as their subject, possibly completely unaware that Arnatt had done this years before, without the trendy movement as his instigator. That was his original quality, regardless of his effort to deny it: he managed to see beauty in everyday scenes and people, in common rubbish and discarded items, in simple notes left by his wife. Being unconventional might have not brought him fame and recognition as a photographer, at least not during his lifetime, but it was by no means because of the lack of ideas or because of the poor quality of his work. It was only three years ago that part of his photographic work was displayed in the Photographers’ Gallery, with the help of his friend David Hurn. Yet even today, many people are oblivious of his later work. His photographic work is greatly appreciated in the art scene, by professors, curators and art professionals alike. However, the public should be better acquainted with his work and join the elite in their knowledge and appreciation of his work.

REFERENCES

[1] K. Arnatt, “Oral History of British Photography”, [Audio Interview]. British Library. With Susan Butler, 1993.

[2] R. Campbell and N. Lynton, “The New Art”, London, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972, p. 5.

[3] R. Barthes, “Image, Music, Text”, New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1977.

[4] G. MacDonald, “Keith Arnatt: Interview with A. Fox, C. Grafik, D. Hurn, D. Mellor and P. Fraser”, Photoworks, Spring/Summer, 2007, p. 46.

[5] R. Campbell and N. Lynton, “The New Art”, London, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972, p. 5.

[6] A. Seymour, “Keith Arnatt 1972-1977” [Letters], The Tate Gallery Archive, London, 1972.

[7] G. MacDonald, “Keith Arnatt: Interview with A. Fox, C. Grafik, D. Hurn, D. Mellor and P. Fraser”, Photoworks, Spring/Summer, 2007, p. 48.

[8] D. Bate, “Keith Arnatt: 1930-2008”, Photoworks, Spring/Summer, 2009, p.4

[9] D. Hurn. (April, 2008). “I'm a real photographer”. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV93rpWgv-U

[10] M. Caiger-Smith, “Keith Arnatt: Transport to Another World” Creative Camer, No. 6, June, 1989, p. 25.

[11] C. Grafik, “Keith Arnatt 1930-2008”, Art Monthly, no. 323, February, 2009, p. 21.

[12] W. Wood, “The fish ceases to be a fish: a critical history of English conceptual art, 1966-1972”, University of Sussex, Brighton, 1998, p. 80.

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[14] B. Reise, “Keith Arnatt” [Correspondence letters], The Tate Gallery Archive, London, 1972.

[15] L. Lippard, “Six years: the Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972”, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1973, p. 119.

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[19] B. Reise, “Keith Arnatt” [Correspondence letters], The Tate Gallery Archive, London, 1972.

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http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/photography+%26+film/art48553

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[49] D. Hurn. (April, 2008). “I'm a real photographer”. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV93rpWgv-U

[50] M. Parr, “Keith Arnatt In Keith Arnatt: Works 1968-1990”, London: Hurtwood Press Limited, 2009, p. 9.

[51] D. Hurn, and C. Grafik, “I’m a real photographer”, London: Chris Boot, 2007, p. 134.

[52] S. Arkette, (2007). “Keith Arnatt: I'm a Real Photographer”, Studio International. Available at: http://www.studio-international.co.uk/photo/arnatt.asp