Ten Texts on Sculpture 10: Maintenance

The tenth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read three texts about maintenance and art. We look at ‘What It's Like to Live With Art That Doesn't Love You Back’, a 2017 magazine article by M.H Miller, Ben Lerner’s 2016 piece for the New Yorker about the Whitney museum’s conservation team, ‘The Custodians’, and Helena Reckitt’s, article about feminist art and maintenance ‘Forgotten Relations: Feminist Artists and Relational Aesthetics’ from 2013.

Download PDFs of the texts below

Miller, M. H. ‘What It’s Like to Live With Art That Doesn’t Love You Back’. The New York Times, 22 September 2017, sec. T Magazine. Download PDF.

Lerner, Ben. ‘The Custodians’. The New Yorker, 3 January 2016. Download PDF.

Reckitt, Helena. ‘Forgotten Relations: Feminist Artists and Relational Aesthetics’. In Politics in a Glass: Case Feminism, Exhibition Cultures and Curatorial Transgressions, edited by Angela Dimitrakaki and Lara Perry, 7:131–56. Value: Art: Politics. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013. Download PDF.

Ten Texts on Sculpture 9: The Non-Object

The ninth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read two texts that help us get to grips with developments in Brazilian art and sculpture in the mid-20th Century. First we look at Ferreira Gullar’s foundational Neoconcretist text ‘Theory of the Non-Object’ from 1959, with the help of Michael Asbury who embeds it within his essay, ‘Neoconcretism And Minimalism: On Ferreira Gullar’s Theory Of The Non-Object’ from the book Cosmopolitan Modernisms from 2005. Then, we take a closer look at the career of a famous Brazilian Neoconcretist, Lygia Clark, by reading Suely Rolnik’s essay ‘Molding a Contemporary Soul: The Empty-Full of Lygia Clark’ from 1999.

Download PDFs of the texts below

Asbury, Michael. ‘Neoconcretism And Minimalism: On Ferreira Gullar’s Theory Of The Non-Object’. In Cosmopolitan Modernisms, 168–89. Annotating Art’s Histories. London: Iniva, 2005. Download PDF

Rolnik, Suely. ‘Molding a Contemporary Soul: The Empty-Full of Lygia Clark’. In The Experimental Exercise of Freedom: Lygia Clark, Gego, Mathias Goeritz, Hélio Oiticica, Mira Schendel, edited by Rina Carvajal and Alma Ruiz. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999. Download PDF

Ten Texts on Sculpture 8: Sculptural Pedagogy

The eighth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read a few texts about sculpture and pedagogy. We look at Elena Crippa's essay about how Anthony Caro brought the group crit over from New York and used it to change the Central Saint Martin's sculpture course. We discuss the impact that had on British art schools from the 60s onwards. We also look at David Harding's writing on his time as the course leader for Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art from 1985-2001, which though explicitly was not a medium specific sculpture course, seems to reflect a lot of the issues that we have been speaking about in other episodes through the lens of trying to do something different with art education.

You can download the texts we read for today’s episode and an auto-generated transcript, below.

Crippa, Elena. ‘From “Crit” to “Lecture Performance”’. In The London Art Schools: Reforming the Art World, 1960 to Now. London: Tate Publishing, 2015. Download PDF.

Harding, David. ‘ENVIRONMENTAL ART AT GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART – David Harding’. https://www.davidharding.net/. Accessed 26 April 2022. https://www.davidharding.net/?page_id=402. Download PDF.

Auto-generated transcript. Download VTT file.

Ten Texts on Sculpture 7: Park McArthur

The seventh of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read a selection of texts to get to grips with the work of Park McArthur. We read a 2015 essay from Afterall by Andrew Blackley called ‘Geometry, Material, Scale’, an interview with McArthur from Bomb magazine, one McArthur’s own texts about care, and, in order to make sense of McCarthur’s conceptual art inheritence, we read the 2010 preface to an edition of Lucy Lippards book, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. We talk about sculpture in relation to care, the meaning of the art object when an artwork also has a conceptual and critical component, and what it means to think about the positionality of the artist, without reducing art to an expression of identity.

Below are the texts we looked at for this podcast, with links to download a PDF of each text.

Blackley, Andrew. ‘Park McArthur: Geometry, Material, Scale’. Afterall, 2015. Download PDF.

BOMB Magazine. ‘BOMB Magazine | Park McArthur Interviewed’, 19 February 2014. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/park-mcarthur/. Download PDF.

Lippard, Lucy. ‘Preface’, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. London: University of California Press, 2010. Download PDF.

MacArthur, Park. ‘Sort of Like a Hug: Notes on Collectivity, Conviviality and Care’. The Happy Hypocrite, no. 7 (2014): 48–60. Download PDF.

Ten Texts on Sculpture 6: Entropy

The sixth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode we talk about entropy in relation to sculpture. We look at two texts. One is Robert Smithson’s 1966 essay, ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, and the other is a 2015 publication on the work of Beverly Buchanan from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, edited by Park McArthur and Jennifer Burris Staton. We talk about entropy, ruins, major and minor approaches to work, and the relationship between wider culture and formal developments in art.

Below are the texts we looked at for this podcast, with links to download a PDF of each text.

Smithson, Robert. ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’. Artforum, 1966. https://holtsmithsonfoundation.org/entropy-and-new-monuments. Download PDF.

McArthur, Park, and Jennifer Staton, eds. Beverly Buchanan: 1978 - 1981. Mexico City: Athénée Press, 2015. Download PDF.

Ten Texts on Sculpture 5: Sculpture and Ritual

The fifth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture with Andrea Francke. In this episode we talk about the artist Barbara McCullough’s film, ‘Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes’ from 1981. The film takes the form of a series of interviews with Black American artists about their relationship to ritual. We focus on the sections with the sculptors David Hammons, Senga Nengudi and Betye Saar. We also look at an essay by gallerist Linda Goode-Bryant and art historian Marcy S. Philips called, ‘Contextures’ from 1978 that talks about the work of a related group of artists, including Hammons, Nengudi and Saar, who had shown at Goode-Bryant’s New York gallery, Just Above Midtown, in the mid 1970s.

You can watch the film at the below links, and download the PDF of ‘Contextures’ below

Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space. Digital video, color, 1981. https://vimeo.com/7777082 & https://vimeo.com/8264658

Goode-Bryant, Linda, and Marcy S. Philips. ‘Contextures’. In Contextures, 37–78. Just Above Midtown, 1978. Download PDF here.

Ten Texts on Sculpture 4: Sculpture in the Expanded Field

The third of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode we talk about Rosalind Krauss’s essay, ‘Sculpture in the Expanded Field’ from 1979. In the essay, Krauss lays out what has become an influential idea of postmodern art through defining a very particular genealogy of Minimalist and post-minimalist artists working in the US in the 1960s and 70s. We also read a chapter from Tina Post’s 2023 book, Deadpan, in which Post thinks about Minimalism in relation to an aesthetic of looming and an affect of threat.

Below are the texts we looked at for this podcast, with links to download a PDF of each text.

Krauss, Rosalind. ‘Sculpture in the Expanded Field’. October 8, no. Spring (1979): 30–44. Download PDF

Post, Tina. ‘Minimalism and the Aesthetics ofBlack Threat’. In Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression. Minoritarian Aesthetics. New York: New York University Press, 2023. Download PDF

Ten Texts on Sculpture 3: Phyllida Barlow

The third of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode we talk about Phyllida Barlow’s proposal from 2012 for her Tate Britain Commission in 2014. We also talk about Barlow’s ‘The Hatred of the Object’ from 1997 and ‘Hearsay, Rumours, Bed-sit Dreamers and Art Begins Today’ from 2004. It’s basically a big love in for Barlow as an artist who writes towards making rather than theorising. Andrea and Matt talk about vitrines, art made for Instagram, and theatricality (again).

Below are the three texts we looked at for this podcast, with links to download a PDF of each text.

Barlow, Phyllida. ‘Artist Proposal’. Tate. Accessed 17 July 2023. Download PDF or Read Online.

Barlow, Phyllida. ‘The Hatred of the Object’, 1997. Download PDF

Barlow, Phyllida, Mark Godfrey, Alison Wilding, and Jon Wood. ‘Hearsay, Rumours, Bed-Sit Dreamers and Art Begins Today’. In Objects for --: And Other Things, 210–15. London: Black Dog, 2004. Download PDF

Ten Texts on Sculpture 2: Robert Gober and the Part Object

The second of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode we talk about Hal Foster’s ‘An Art of Missing Parts’ from 2000 where he writes about Robert Gober’s sculptures as dioramas and primal images. The text is an explicitly Freudian, psychoanalytic reading of Gober’s work and Matt and Andrea have different views on how appropriate that is. Because of the theatrical nature of dioramas, Matt and Andrea also speak about Michael Fried’s famous (and famously derided) critique of Minimalism, ‘Art and Objecthood’ from 1967.

Below are the two texts we looked at for this podcast, with links to download a PDF of each text.

Foster, Hal. ‘An Art of Missing Parts’. October, no. 92 (2000). Download PDF.

Fried, Michael. ‘Art and Objecthood’. In Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 322-384. Malden, Massachusetts, Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. Download PDF.

Ten Texts on Sculpture 1: Duchamp and the Handmade

Matt and Andrea begin a new series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In the first episode we talk about Helen Molesworth’s ‘Duchamp by Hand, Even’ from 2005 where she upends the received narrative of how Duchamp’s readymades from the 1910s led to the dematerialised conceptual practices of the 1960s and beyond. By focusing on the handmade qualities of Duchamp’s later work such as the three erotic objects from the 1950s, Étant donnés (1946-66) and the crafted replicas by which modern audiences know the readymades, Molesworth discovers a ‘wrinkle’ in the received version of art history. Molesworth’s text allows Matt and Andrea to think about contemporary art’s renewed interest in the handmade, the crafted, and the handheld, as well as sculpture’s relationship to touch and desire.

Below are the two texts we looked at for this podcast, with links to download a PDF of each text.

Molesworth, Helen. ‘Duchamp by Hand, Even’. In Part Object Part Sculpture. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Download PDF.

Molesworth, Helen. ‘My Funny Valentine: Étant Donnés’. Artforum International, New York, 2010. Download PDF.

Emma Bennett

Matt speaks to artist and academic Emma Bennett about theatre, talking to the audience and ASMR.

Cian Donnelly

Matt talks to the performance artist Cian Donnelly about character, voice and ‘Belfast Music’.

On Ed Atkins (with Ross Jardine)

Me and Ross of off Radio Anti talk about Ed Atkins’ poem ‘Old Food’ in its book form, and as a performance by the British actor Toby Jones.

Radio Anti: White Noise

Radio broadcast for rummur radio, Bergen, 2021. Join Radio Anti (Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau & Ross Jardine) as they play white noise tracks and talk about the commercial, affective, and attentive qualities of noise.

Sophie Lewis

Matt talks to Sophie Lewis about translating two books by the French writer Noémi Lefebvre. They cover the practical aspects of translating, literary tone, and what happens when you try and use an English colloquialism for an American publisher.

You can buy both the books we spoke about, Blue Self Portrait and Poetics of Work, from Les fugitives in the UK - https://www.lesfugitives.com/authors#/noemi-lefebvre/

And through their website you can read some of Sophie’s writing on translation as well - https://www.lesfugitives.com/authors#/sophie-lewis/

Dina Kelberman

Matt speaks to the artist Dina Kelberman about her 2019 film ‘The Goal is to Live’.

The feature length film is made entirely of clips from the Canadian TV series ‘How It’s Made’, and we discuss the process of making the film, including the soundtrack made by musicians Rod Hamilton & Tiffany Seal. We also geek out about ‘How It’s Made’ more generally, and talk about its relationship to the capitalist production processes it purports to explain.

Dina’s website with a trailer for the film - http://dinakelberman.com/#thegoalistolive

Manufactured Landscapes by Jennifer Baichwal -https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/projects/films/manufactured-landscapes

Rod Hamilton & Tiffany Seal - https://soundcloud.com/rod_and_tiffany

Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy3W-3HPMWg

Workers Leaving the Factory (1995) - Harun Farocki - https://vimeo.com/59338090

Images of the World and the Inscription of War, Harun Farocki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjOl8TY8GkU

Workers Leaving the Googleplex by Andrew Norman Wilson - http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/WorkersGoogleplex.html

ON ADAM CURTIS PART SIX: WITH ANDREA FRANCKE AND ROSS JARDINE

Matt, Andrea and Ross discuss the final episode of Adam Curtis’ TV series ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’.

We’re in a park! Together! In the sun! We sum up - talking about what we’ve learned about Adam Curtis, and ourselves.

References

Atlantic story about the data historian Peter Turchin - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/

Time of the Gods a film by Lutz Dammbeck - https://www.kanopy.com/product/time-gods

On Adam Curtis Part Five: With Andrea Francke and Oscar Francke

Matt, Andrea and Oscar discuss part five of the Adam Curtis Series ‘Can’t Get you Out of My Head’.

References:

John Akomfrah in conversation - https://www.lissongallery.com/studio/john-akomfrah-tina-campt-saidiya-hartman

C Thi Ngueyn - The Seductions of Clarity - https://philpapers.org/rec/NGUTSO-2

Maryam Tafakory's video essay Irani Bag - https://watch.eventive.org/monographs/play/6021b3a8555932006e2111b0

Riar Rizaldi Ghosts Like Us - http://rizaldiriar.com/ghostus.html

Black Power: a British Story of Resistance - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tj50#credits

On Adam Curtis Part Four: With Andrea, Oscar and Ross

Matt, Andrea, Oscar and Ross discuss episode four of Adam Curtis’ new series ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’.

We talk about scripts, the active vs passive voice, and the problem with making individuals the bearers of history.

Just one reference today - Schneider TM & Kptmichigan, The Light 3000 (Smiths cover) - https://youtu.be/vodnI38cNI0

On Adam Curtis Part Three: With Andrea Francke, Oscar Francke and Ross Jardine

The third episode! Ross is back, and he hasn’t watched it, so me, Andrea and Oscar try and summarise it for him. Also includes a good story by Ross about catching a mouse.

Woman captures dramatic video driving through flames while fleeing Woolsey Fire in Malibu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR0RQ8Gx6I0

Watching The Pain of Others - https://vimeo.com/298425068

Desktop Documentaries Tutorial with Kevin B. Lee - https://vimeo.com/500495238