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Mark, Kester:
I am puzzled. The ship was made by skilled model-makers; the bottle was made by specialist glassworkers; the fabric for the sails was made by African batik artists; the sails were cut and sewn by specialist needlewomen. What is the ‘artist’s’ input into this creation? ‘Ah, Philistine,’ the art critic will say, ‘his was the concept’.
Sorry. The dictionary definition of an artist is ‘one who practises fine art,’ that is, one who has not only a concept in his head, but also a skill in his hands that transmutes his materials – paint, clay, fabric etc. into something else. It is not enough merely to choose the ingredients and use others’ skills to make real the idea you have dreamed up. I have on my sitting room wall, a painting of a jug of flowers. I decided on the jug and the flowers and I paid an artist to paint them for me - exactly as the skilled craftsmen made this chap’s ship in a bottle. It is called ‘commissioning’, which, imho, is something different from artistry.
I know that some artists, such as Henry Moore, work closely with craftsmen, and rely on them for the ultimate realisation of their vision –often on a grand scale - but there is a great deal of preliminary input from the artist – drawings, sketches, reduced-scale maquettes of the image he has created from his own imaginative sources. In this case, however, the ship already exists, the fabrics for the sails, designed and made by somebody else, already exist – just as my jug and flowers already existed. It is just a question of assemblage – and it seems that others, not the ‘artist’ are involved in that. Just what is this ‘artist’s’ input into the finished work?
For the sake of argument, let’s allow that I’m an old Luddite/Philistine/ignoramus, and let’s concede that you don’t have to be able to paint, draw, sculpt to be an artist and that the role of ‘conceptual artist’ is a valid one. Can we make any useful comment on the quality of this ‘concept’ – his only input to the finished work? Is it challenging, provocative etc. as he asserts art should be? The artist claims to be making multiple statements, via this creation, about Nelson and imperialism, London’s multi-ethnicity etc. but they seem to me to be rather rambling, disconnected and incoherent ones, very different from the socio-political art of, say, Paula Rego, which is enigmatic, but also thought-provoking and disturbing about the nature of power and oppression. It is possible to be ‘challenging’ and ‘provocative’ about imperialism and Nelson’s role in it – and I would have no objection at all to something of real power and significance that did that, even in Trafalgar Square – something that came from deep within the artist, and was grounded in profound knowledge. Despite the undoubted skills of the craftsmen, I find this creation banal, superficial and intellectually reductive in its concept. If the ‘artist’ had said, ‘Going to have a bit of fun here and jazz up old Victory a bit,’ then I could have coped with that, I think. Playfulness has its place in art too; but this ‘concept’ is not only trivial, it’s pretentious.
I also find the confusion of purpose here rather irritating. Henry Moore, for example, worked with craftsmen to create something completely new, shapes and forms conceived in his own mind. On the other hand, model makers, ships-in-bottle makers impress us by their skill in perfectly re-creating an existing object on a reduced scale. This creation is neither one thing nor the other: it isn’t a totally original form; neither is it a faithful recreation. It is ‘Victory’ with multi-coloured sails in pretty fabrics. Maybe a more skilled and intellectually rigorous artist might indeed, by the fusion of creativity and craftsmanship, have made a challenging statement about Nelson and imperialism. This is just a pitiful muddle.
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Anna
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