neil cummings

the enthusiast has the same relationship to capital as the gift to the commodity

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Almost three years work as a trustee, part of a big team, and here it is

The inaugural welcome from Alex Farquharson, Director

At the Wysing Arts Centre just outside Cambridge, I took part in an all-day workshop for artists and students from the Curatorial Course at the Royal College of Art.

It was organized by Kit Hammonds and included Sarah Thornton, and Francis Outred from Christies.

"The Economics of the Art System will take an in depth look at the art market, exploring the financial and cultural economies that drive the industry. From commercial galleries, collectors and art fairs, to the influence of auction houses this retreat will question the value of art as commodity and the commercial influences on artists' practices, as well as considering survival tactics for artists, curators and gallerists."

Bouvard and Pecuchet

These are short extracts of a larger text comissioned by Anna Colin at Gasworks to accompany an exhibition of Olivia Plender. The full text will be online shortly, the publication was launched by A Prior

Intro

In Bouvard and Pécuchet, Gustave Fluabert distills the curse of the middle class into a deadly poison. Comfortable after a financial windfall, the two leisured bureaucrats, Bouvard and Pécuchet retire to the countryside to indulge their pleasure in knowledge. They buy, devour and study books on every subject that drifts through their attention. They read on agriculture, landscape gardening and food preservation, whereupon every animal they buy dies, crops wither, rot or burn, fruits waste and preserves are not. They read chemistry, anatomy, medicine, biology and think themselves doctors, whereupon they fail to treat or cure any patients, make themselves ill and estrange the local doctor. They read Romances, have romantic interests and quickly contract venereal disease. They study gymnastics, occultism, theology, philosophy and religion; they adopt an orphan to ‘improve’ who runs-away, they fall-out with the parish priest, argue with everyone around them, and finally contemplate suicide.

Expert 3

The third of the Procesos de archivo /Archivalprocess expert working sessions took place at Intermediæ in Madrid. The working sessions are to enable the core curatorial team to gain knowledge and experience. The sessions are closed but resources will be on-line soon.

Curator, editor and librarian Miren Eraso, recent director of Arteleku lead the sessions. In the first, Miren made an interesting analogy between the problems for libraries in post-Franco Spain and contemporary archives, and in the second we refined the mapping of the knowledge ecology of intermediae.

I wrote into Miren’s presentation as she spoke, following are the tweaked notes....

circulation

I wrote a short text, commissioned by katya Sander for Circulation, a special issue of Printed Projects.

I assembled some of the research I did around art auctions........

Markets are a brilliant bundle of technologies, assembled to circulate things. All kinds of things. The most visible form of market, is the competitive market. A neo-classical economic model of a competitive market, pictures rational individuals pursuing their own self-interest - without regard for others - as the motive force for markets. The laws of supply and demand at play amongst these rational individuals, extrudes the values - often represented by a financial price – exchanged, in any transaction. These fundamental elements; rational agents, supply and demand and price mechanisms function in all markets everywhere; like natural laws.

Except of course competitive markets don’t actually work like this. Or at least, only in ideological models.

Industrialtownfuturism

In 2006, as part of a group of artists, researchers and academics, I was invited to research and imagine the future centenary of two industrial towns. The project was curated by Jakub Szreder and Martin Kaltwaser.

Both towns evolved from the middle of the last century, and both were planned around the image and function of the factory. Since 1939 Wolfsburg has been the home and global headquarters of the Volkswagen Group, and since 1947 Nowa Huta developed around the formerly Lenin and now Sendzimira steelworks.

The Fordist-factory has dominated these towns.

Ice Trade

This is a short text that accompanied an exhibition at Chelsea Space in London, January 24th - March 3rd 2007

The ice trade, that is the trade in huge cubes of ice hewn from the frozen lakes of North America or Scandinavia and shipped to warmer climes, exists somewhere between brute fact and fairytale.

The trade existed, flourished even, throughout the later part of the 19th century. Grainy photographs depicting sawn meter square cubes of ice, cut from the frozen crusts of freshwater lakes are waiting, stored as documents in relevant archives. You can visit luxury loft apartments inserted into the hollow remnants of bunker-like Ice houses – warehouses for frozen water - found in many former ports of Britain, especially in Bristol, Liverpool, and London. There is also compulsive testimony from the American author, naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau writing one of the foundational texts of the environmental movement, Walden (published in 1854). Thoreau records the cold winter of 46/7 when from the window of his forest cabin he sees the frozen skin of Walden pond being stripped by a hundred Irish labourers, and carted away.

‘[….] in a good day they could get out a thousand tons, which was the yield of about one acre.’

Expert 1

The first of the Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess. 'expert working sessions' took place at Intermediæ in Madrid. The working sessions are to enable the core curatorial team to gain knowedge and experience. The sessions are closed but resources will be on-line soon.

Artist and amateur archivist Jorge Blasco Gallardo, founder of Culturas de Archivo and Amateurarchivist lead the sessions.

In the first, Jorge gave an extraordinary 5 hour tour-de-force presentation on the history, politics and philosophy of the idea of the archive.

I wrote into Jorge’s presentation as he spoke, following are the tweaked notes....

Enthusiasm

After extensive research amongst the remnants of amateur film clubs in Poland under socialism, I co-developed the Enthusiasts: archive. A critical archive of beautiful amateur films found, restored and made available for you.

Presented as a collaborative artwork the Enthusiasts: archive enables you to explore how the generosity of the enthusiast reveals a range of interests and experiences generally invisible amongst the breathless flow of the State sponsored, or professionally mediated.

My intention with Enthusiasts: archive is to stimulate interest and discussion into the nature of creative exchange, the function of public archives and the future of the public domain. In many ways, the project informs Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess

Trustee

This will be the cafe, designed by Caruso St John.

For the last 2 years I've been a trustee of the emerging Nottingham Contemporary. Its been fascinating - and quite a lot of work - to participate in creating a new kind of art institution. An art institution 'fit-for-purpose' in the 21st Century

“Art is what makes life more interesting than art”. Robert Filliou

At Nottingham Contemporary we believe that contemporary artists offer extraordinary perspectives on society, and so:

• We promote the research, exchange and dissemination of ideas inspired by today’s art practices across disciplines and cultures, working with a wide range of partners.