The Master’s programme I’m enrolled in at UQAM is in the Department of Visual and Media Art, which means that the disciplines explored by the students are quite diverse – everything from drawing to robotics. So in the first semester, we had a small show where we could all check each other out and the professors could also get a better idea of what kind of work we did. I don’t remember much of that initial show, but I do remember that there was a lot of video work, and only one painting.
A year later, we had another show together. I had to admit that I knew what some people in the class were up to, but most of the work would be pretty new to me. There was a lot of solid work, and I was really enjoying the show, when I came upon the last piece in my little tour. One painting, but this time with a video next to it and a bag hung on the wall, in a little cluster at the end of the gallery.
I will admit to you all now that I am a pretty jaded gallery-goer. I can do a tour of a show in thirty seconds. With nearly no background in painting, I find I usually browse through paintings especially quickly, choosing to focus energy on work that I would know more about, like video or interactive work.
But at this painting with the accompanying video and object, I stopped and watched for a long time. I savoured that rare feeling that I get when I see something I really like: a sudden welling up of curiosity, as I almost hold my breath, and engage in a sort of transfixion on the piece.
The piece was called “L’histoire d’un vieux sac” (Story of an old bag) and the video was performance documentation of someone {{popup nicflem2.jpg vieux sac 500×331}}crawling through a park in a large canvas bag. It was a simple, beautiful scene, with the park seeming to envelop the slow progress of this erased person as he {{popup nicflem3.jpg vieux sac 500×331}}inched across the screen. The bag itself, covered in grass stains and other marks representing the journey, was hung on the wall, and on the other side of the video, a painting that froze one of the frames of the video for further analysis.
Having enjoyed it so much, I grabbed one of my passing classmates and asked “Who did this piece?” I had no idea. “Nicolas Fleming,” my classmate replied. Now I was really interested. This was the fellow who did the singular painting I remembered from earlier in the year, and at the time, I had thought he’d seemed cool, but what conversations could I ever have with a painter, knowing nothing about painting?
“It’s amazing work,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. I was impressed with the execution of this dimunitive performance, but even more impressed with Nicolas’ acuity at also presenting the bag as art object (bearing the scars of its travels) and the painting as further documentation (an unconventional way of documenting a performative process, and simultaneously referencing a long history of landscape painting). This piece was really resolved, confidently combining dialogues about painting and markmaking with performance.
At first I questioned the wisdom of UQAM at combining visual and media art in the same Master’s programme, but now I saw the wisdom of it, crystallized in one artist’s progression. Someone who was open to challenge himself came in a painter, and was going to come out a performer as well. I don’t want to give the institution too much credit, but I suspect the environment may have at least partially made this transformation possible. And so far, that has been the most enjoyable part of my experience at UQAM: feeling that it’s accepted or even expected that I will challenge myself, which means I might fail, and watching others struggle to incorporate radical changes in their practice, and succeed, as Nicolas did.
…and this just in: Nicolas is taking part in a show called “MOTIF, FIGURE ET ALIBIS” at Centre Amherst, which is at 1000 Amherst, local 104, Montréal, 27 novembre au 23 décembre 2004
Vernissage : samedi 4 décembre, 14h-18h.
5 replies on “Crawling towards interdisciplinarity”
It’s lovely and simple, this bag.
I went to an opening at Artcore in Toronto yesterday afternoon and there was a 1988 video piece by Francis Alÿs. A guy is walking a sheep in a circle around a monolith. Each time he passes 9 O’Clock, another sheep joins, and follows. So he slowly grows a long line of sheep behind him. Was quite wonderful.
Quite a contrast to the Istvan Kantor piece also showing of the artist spraying his blood and getting arrested at the MOMA. It’s simple too, but absolutely uninteresting. Museums are so close minded, i know i know!! Tell me more, Istvan! I’m *stupid*!
wow.. it sounds nice, the piece at Artcore.
and the bag… I can’t get enough of the bag.
Not to rain on anyone’s uh, parade, but wasn’t the whole "painting (markmaking) as action" thing explored pretty thoroughly in the 50s? And didn’t people get inside big bags in the 60s? And weren’t issues of documentation of performance chewed over pretty thoroughly in the 70s, when people were arguing about whether a 1/2" portapack tape (and yes, I’m old enough to remember 1/2" portapacks!) was a documentation of the performance, an artifact unto itself, or some other breed of cat? Obviously, it’s not fair to critique something that I haven’t seen,but it just sounds so *retro*. Like a teenager singing Frank Sinatra songs. And not pleading irony as a defence. Don’t get me wrong. I like Frank Sinatra, and if a teenager does a good job singing his tunes, I’ll be the first to clap. But I *will* wonder why he’s not in his bedroom with an iBook inventing the next big thing…
hi Rob,
Points well taken, though it highlights some interesting issues to me… for example, this problem of creating something "new" all the time, and how artists who choose not to work with digital can be particularly boxed in by this idea of "newness". Also, about how performances are never the same twice, so what do the subtle differences bring to the dialogue? Is Nicolas’ work unique because he is bringing a background in painting and doing the performances in specific sites in Montreal? The beauty of performance is that it’s often not the first discipline that people arrive at – and so they bring baggage from their previous lives as artists, and incorporate that. So for me, Nic’s work is interesting in that I will be curious to see where he takes the markmaking stuff, how it expands his notion of performance and then possibly a general notion of performance, and also how site will play out in his work. In an era when everything has been done, should the obsession be not with newness but with perfection?
As my sister (a former performance artist turned painter) says, "sometimes a pretty picture is enough." I’m not sure what makes me expect novelty in performance art. I’m often quite satisfied with "mere" virtuosity in painting or dance. Perhaps it has to do with the intensely personal nature of performance-something that fades as more people get into the game. "Oh, a bag piece. Ok.", rather than "Omigawd, he’s inside a freakin’ BAG!".
Hmm. I dunno. One thing that did occur to me, is that, by hanging a bag on a wall, he is, wittingly or not, opening the door for the commodification of performance. If you can put it in the living room, beside the formaldehyde shark, and the fat corner, is it still performance art? (of course, as soon as I typed "fat corner" I realized that this too is old ground. Damn, I forgot to go to art school…)