the project R.S.O.L.
In the week before Christmas 2017, I arrived in my studio around three o'clock. I noticed that the lights in the neighbouring studio where still on, and it occurred to me that it was unusual for my neighbour to still be working. As she usually stopped shortly after noon.
After working and cleaning up, I got ready to leave around 6:30. When I left I saw that the lights in the studio next door were still on. Suddenly I realized something wasn't right and I knocked on my neighbour's door and called her name. Since I got no response, I became afraid to just pull open the door, that was closed from the inside with a rubber band. I decided I needed help. The whole building was empty and dark as usual. So I asked a few neighbours from across the street, who I knew a little bit from their walks with their dog. They walk past my studio several times a day.
Long story short, we opened the door and found my neighbour dead on the floor.
My neighbour was a painter in an un-contemporary way. By this I mean, among other things, that she never switched between media, except for the traditional painting media: oil on canvas and charcoal, or coloured pencils on paper. And sometimes also some graphic media.
She produced many canvases and drawings with the same subject and in much the same way. The development of what we might well call her style, went over a very long period, in very small steps. Spread out over a large number of paintings and drawings. The difference between what she did ten years ago, when I first met her, and what she did lately was only subtle.
When we spoke, which did not happen very often, my neighbour would usually say at one point during such a conversation: I hope I will be able to sell something. It is significant to note here, that she mainly painted half-fictional children's portraits and had no children herself.
This event was the catalyst for me to rename my studio to R.S.O.L. - Room for the Study Of Loneliness - and to start the Faculty of In-humanities. In the preceding period, social and political developments had forced me to relate differently to the commercial art world, which had now become highly internationalised and globalised. Artisthood was increasingly framed in terms of so-called 'cultural entrepreneurship'. Years of social-programming and policy-making from governments had preceded this. My last contacts with a gallerist for instance, had led me to withdraw all my work from it on the very morning of the day of the opening of my exhibition with that gallery. I was active in the trade union movement and was confronted in that role with the particular, very vulnerable and low, socio-economic status and situation of autonomous artists in the Netherlands. Autonomous art, whether it was called 'visual', or literature, music or dance, had been made part of an overarching economic sector: the 'cultural and creative sector'. Within that sector, I had to draw attention for autonomous artists among, among others, representatives of journalists, designers, performers, artists (pop and entertainment), location scouts, cameramen, directors and voice actors. Colleagues and people from the unions who often, either went along with this politically implemented idea of cultural entrepreneurship, or did not (sufficiently) see through this policy and its consequences for autonomous artistry, did not always understand my choices. This is one of the reasons why I thought the pronunciation 'R-Sol', was so appropriate. (Initially, the abbreviation was pronounced as: R - Sol (with the syllables connected together). Later on, I stopped doing this because it made artists I worked feel uncomfortable.) The artist on the fringes of society, of whom people do not know what she, he or they does and of whom people do not understand why she, he or they does that - and who can therefore fall dead in her, his or their studio, unseen and without being missed by anyone, in a building on the fringes of the city that is nominated to be demolished.
Pascal Gielen (University of Groningen) mentions in his essay 'Artistic praxis and the neoliberalization of the educational space' (Denken in Kunst, eds H. Borgdorff and P. Sonderen, Leiden University Press 2012) four domains in which the artist enters and where she, he or they relates to. The personal, private space (Gielen calls this the domestic space), the community space (this is the space of all practitioners of (autonomous and contemporary) art), the market (the commercial art world), and the social and political space (Gielen calls this the civil space). In this essay, Gielen argues that an artist must enter all these spaces or domains in order to prevent his work from degenerating into what he calls 'thoughtless tinkering and tampering without (...) accountability,' and 'endless chatter or theorizing without this ever leading to a finished product.' (p. 92 a.w.) As a positive counterpoint, 'both the domestical domain and the sphere of the community,' Gielen also writes, eminently offer the 'room for trial-and-error, for experiment and thus loss - things that the (other) two spaces tolerate much less.'
However, it must remain a question whether Gielen's negative expectations are entirely correct. And whether contemporary art (as a distinct mode of art practice) actually needs commerce (the market) to function. In addition, I think that a work of art can never be understood as a "finished product", as Gielen suggests. Rather, a work of art (at least within and from the perspective of contemporary art - and this as a distinct mode of art practice) is and can never be "finished". I think that a work of art "lasts" in contemporary art, and can be revisited again and again - be re-activated and worked on, as the process of both the artist and the contemplator. After all, and for good reasons, the artist is merely the first viewer or reader of his own work (Paul Ricoeur, Text and Meaning (translation of: Tekst en Betekenis), Ambo, Baarn, 1991, p. 112).
It is important to understand the term praxis or practice, as Gielen puts it in this essay, as a mutual "interpenetration" of theory and action. But it is just as important to see that the practice of autonomous and contemporary art has an ethical dimension too. With Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana, 2007) I understand a practice as: 'any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.' (p. 187 - it is important to understand the concept of 'goods' here, not only as 'products' in a thing-like sense, but also and especially as values and knowledge). The things that are "extrinsic" to a practice in this sense, are those that can also be acquired in a different way than from or through the practice concerned. MacIntyre mentions in that respect, 'goods such as prestige, (social) status and money.'
From this understanding of the practice of contemporary and autonomous art, "the market" is a domain that belongs to what is extrinsic to the practice. Therefore, I think an artist can do without that domain. She, he or they focuses primarily on the translocal and transhistorical community of practitioners, and allows this to form the standards which her or his practice (theory and action combined) meets and which it jointly shapes. (Indeed, contemporary art practice is now also historical - why and how is a question for The Faculty, among others, to elaborate, this essay is not the place for that.) That this human activity has a place, historically, socially and also economically, in society - and therefore is also political - is evident. The practitioners are part of the civil space, and relate to it in their work and as a person. For example, under the current adage of cultural entrepreneurship, it is in part a political act to practice autonomous art. (How and why is again a question to elaborate on in another place and time.)
R.S.O.L. is no longer just my studio and the house of the Faculty of In-humanities, but also a space where the practice takes place as a common goal of practitioners, a project space. At the time of this writing, several presentations have already taken place in R.S.O.L. Like the Faculty, R.S.O.L. is both a work of art and an actual art space - in the case of the Faculty, an actual faculty (albeit an independent and non-institutionalised faculty).
The vision of R.S.O.L. as an art space is described on the webpage of the R.S.O.L. website, which remains part of my personal website. By making the website part of my personal website, I am showing that R.S.O.L. is and remains part of my own artisthood. In that description, I indicate that R.S.O.L. as a cultural enterprise is on the margins of today's commercial art world. Within R.S.O.L., it is all about the practice and its practitioners, not about earning a living or making a profity - nor about acquiring social status from the circles that buy or fund art. R.S.O.L. is only in part funded from sales. Consciously, R.S.O.L. keeps away from the high administrative burdens and conditions of grantors. These burdens are too high for self-employed artists with hybrid funding practices.
Like other works of art, R.S.O.L. is a work in progress - which is never 'finished'. Its functioning as a work of art is, in a certain sense, 'invisible'. It addresses not a wide audience, but dedicated practitioners. Every time it opens, this is a performance, a re-actualisation: A work that is done - even when no direct audience is present. In this way, R.S.O.L. opens insights and acquires knowledge like other artworks. Waiting silently and alone to see if anyone comes to take part in it - and on some days closing up again without having had any visitors. People passing it by, on the street, in the (social) media, in the translocal art world - while the work being done in it is being done extremely serious and conscientious. This is all part of how R.S.O.L. works as a work of art and as an actual art space.
1-1-2021/26-6-2024
After working and cleaning up, I got ready to leave around 6:30. When I left I saw that the lights in the studio next door were still on. Suddenly I realized something wasn't right and I knocked on my neighbour's door and called her name. Since I got no response, I became afraid to just pull open the door, that was closed from the inside with a rubber band. I decided I needed help. The whole building was empty and dark as usual. So I asked a few neighbours from across the street, who I knew a little bit from their walks with their dog. They walk past my studio several times a day.
Long story short, we opened the door and found my neighbour dead on the floor.
My neighbour was a painter in an un-contemporary way. By this I mean, among other things, that she never switched between media, except for the traditional painting media: oil on canvas and charcoal, or coloured pencils on paper. And sometimes also some graphic media.
She produced many canvases and drawings with the same subject and in much the same way. The development of what we might well call her style, went over a very long period, in very small steps. Spread out over a large number of paintings and drawings. The difference between what she did ten years ago, when I first met her, and what she did lately was only subtle.
When we spoke, which did not happen very often, my neighbour would usually say at one point during such a conversation: I hope I will be able to sell something. It is significant to note here, that she mainly painted half-fictional children's portraits and had no children herself.
This event was the catalyst for me to rename my studio to R.S.O.L. - Room for the Study Of Loneliness - and to start the Faculty of In-humanities. In the preceding period, social and political developments had forced me to relate differently to the commercial art world, which had now become highly internationalised and globalised. Artisthood was increasingly framed in terms of so-called 'cultural entrepreneurship'. Years of social-programming and policy-making from governments had preceded this. My last contacts with a gallerist for instance, had led me to withdraw all my work from it on the very morning of the day of the opening of my exhibition with that gallery. I was active in the trade union movement and was confronted in that role with the particular, very vulnerable and low, socio-economic status and situation of autonomous artists in the Netherlands. Autonomous art, whether it was called 'visual', or literature, music or dance, had been made part of an overarching economic sector: the 'cultural and creative sector'. Within that sector, I had to draw attention for autonomous artists among, among others, representatives of journalists, designers, performers, artists (pop and entertainment), location scouts, cameramen, directors and voice actors. Colleagues and people from the unions who often, either went along with this politically implemented idea of cultural entrepreneurship, or did not (sufficiently) see through this policy and its consequences for autonomous artistry, did not always understand my choices. This is one of the reasons why I thought the pronunciation 'R-Sol', was so appropriate. (Initially, the abbreviation was pronounced as: R - Sol (with the syllables connected together). Later on, I stopped doing this because it made artists I worked feel uncomfortable.) The artist on the fringes of society, of whom people do not know what she, he or they does and of whom people do not understand why she, he or they does that - and who can therefore fall dead in her, his or their studio, unseen and without being missed by anyone, in a building on the fringes of the city that is nominated to be demolished.
Pascal Gielen (University of Groningen) mentions in his essay 'Artistic praxis and the neoliberalization of the educational space' (Denken in Kunst, eds H. Borgdorff and P. Sonderen, Leiden University Press 2012) four domains in which the artist enters and where she, he or they relates to. The personal, private space (Gielen calls this the domestic space), the community space (this is the space of all practitioners of (autonomous and contemporary) art), the market (the commercial art world), and the social and political space (Gielen calls this the civil space). In this essay, Gielen argues that an artist must enter all these spaces or domains in order to prevent his work from degenerating into what he calls 'thoughtless tinkering and tampering without (...) accountability,' and 'endless chatter or theorizing without this ever leading to a finished product.' (p. 92 a.w.) As a positive counterpoint, 'both the domestical domain and the sphere of the community,' Gielen also writes, eminently offer the 'room for trial-and-error, for experiment and thus loss - things that the (other) two spaces tolerate much less.'
However, it must remain a question whether Gielen's negative expectations are entirely correct. And whether contemporary art (as a distinct mode of art practice) actually needs commerce (the market) to function. In addition, I think that a work of art can never be understood as a "finished product", as Gielen suggests. Rather, a work of art (at least within and from the perspective of contemporary art - and this as a distinct mode of art practice) is and can never be "finished". I think that a work of art "lasts" in contemporary art, and can be revisited again and again - be re-activated and worked on, as the process of both the artist and the contemplator. After all, and for good reasons, the artist is merely the first viewer or reader of his own work (Paul Ricoeur, Text and Meaning (translation of: Tekst en Betekenis), Ambo, Baarn, 1991, p. 112).
It is important to understand the term praxis or practice, as Gielen puts it in this essay, as a mutual "interpenetration" of theory and action. But it is just as important to see that the practice of autonomous and contemporary art has an ethical dimension too. With Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana, 2007) I understand a practice as: 'any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.' (p. 187 - it is important to understand the concept of 'goods' here, not only as 'products' in a thing-like sense, but also and especially as values and knowledge). The things that are "extrinsic" to a practice in this sense, are those that can also be acquired in a different way than from or through the practice concerned. MacIntyre mentions in that respect, 'goods such as prestige, (social) status and money.'
From this understanding of the practice of contemporary and autonomous art, "the market" is a domain that belongs to what is extrinsic to the practice. Therefore, I think an artist can do without that domain. She, he or they focuses primarily on the translocal and transhistorical community of practitioners, and allows this to form the standards which her or his practice (theory and action combined) meets and which it jointly shapes. (Indeed, contemporary art practice is now also historical - why and how is a question for The Faculty, among others, to elaborate, this essay is not the place for that.) That this human activity has a place, historically, socially and also economically, in society - and therefore is also political - is evident. The practitioners are part of the civil space, and relate to it in their work and as a person. For example, under the current adage of cultural entrepreneurship, it is in part a political act to practice autonomous art. (How and why is again a question to elaborate on in another place and time.)
R.S.O.L. is no longer just my studio and the house of the Faculty of In-humanities, but also a space where the practice takes place as a common goal of practitioners, a project space. At the time of this writing, several presentations have already taken place in R.S.O.L. Like the Faculty, R.S.O.L. is both a work of art and an actual art space - in the case of the Faculty, an actual faculty (albeit an independent and non-institutionalised faculty).
The vision of R.S.O.L. as an art space is described on the webpage of the R.S.O.L. website, which remains part of my personal website. By making the website part of my personal website, I am showing that R.S.O.L. is and remains part of my own artisthood. In that description, I indicate that R.S.O.L. as a cultural enterprise is on the margins of today's commercial art world. Within R.S.O.L., it is all about the practice and its practitioners, not about earning a living or making a profity - nor about acquiring social status from the circles that buy or fund art. R.S.O.L. is only in part funded from sales. Consciously, R.S.O.L. keeps away from the high administrative burdens and conditions of grantors. These burdens are too high for self-employed artists with hybrid funding practices.
Like other works of art, R.S.O.L. is a work in progress - which is never 'finished'. Its functioning as a work of art is, in a certain sense, 'invisible'. It addresses not a wide audience, but dedicated practitioners. Every time it opens, this is a performance, a re-actualisation: A work that is done - even when no direct audience is present. In this way, R.S.O.L. opens insights and acquires knowledge like other artworks. Waiting silently and alone to see if anyone comes to take part in it - and on some days closing up again without having had any visitors. People passing it by, on the street, in the (social) media, in the translocal art world - while the work being done in it is being done extremely serious and conscientious. This is all part of how R.S.O.L. works as a work of art and as an actual art space.
1-1-2021/26-6-2024