| This section showcases various projects, past and present, that don't fit into the other categories. Anything goes here, from representational to experimental. Also here will be the occasional essay and latest news and plans.
For now, the latest news is that I have a decent computer with a broadband connection. This means that I can now send and receive rough sketches, proposals, reference materials, and in some cases finished artwork.
In the next six months I hope to get the hang of the graphic programs, which allow me to combine my various skills and produce digital artwork from scratch.
Also I will soon have some prints for sale. The buildings at the top of the page will go on sale soon as signed prints, mounted with a card window. All prints are 42cm high with varied widths.
Other information, projects and links will appear over the coming months, watch this space!
Love and Peace Adrian Day
Conceptual art has an all-pervading presence in our lives these days and not all of it in galleries either. Turn on your TV and the influence of early performance and video art is discernable in anything from reality TV to comedy, magic, advertising and documentaries. Music created now, even in the blandness of the pop world would have seemed avant-guarde thirty years ago. And the economic/ computer revolution of the past twenty years has afforded western society the time to embrace it (somewhat) socially.
Funds are available for initiatives to galleries and artists on an unprecedented scale. This is State policy writ large and to a cynical eye can look like social engineering. Engaging the local communities is high on the agenda on a number of levels and is part of regeneration initiatives around the country. Why should this be? Pondering the politics behind it can produce all sorts of wild theories. But it is politicized.
In the news recently, an exhibition involving Damian Hirst is being used to forge new political links with Iran! Yikes!!! AMD Alert!
A number of years ago channel 4 ran an art documentary series called ‘Hidden Hands'. In one episode they showed how the CIA and a trust set up by Nelson Rockerfeller at the Whitney Museum in New York influenced the acceptance of new art, mainly the ‘Abstract Expressionists', at home and abroad. Before that they had their own ‘New Deal' with FDR and the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which helped provide work and education for thousands of artists. This translated into large public mural projects and artist refugees from Nazi Germany provided the education.
Other hidden influences could include Theosophy and Freud. And of course the Church in centuries past has used art as propaganda to further political agendas. Most of the major cathedrals and churches were built within a hundred years to shore up and consolidate the corporate Christianity machine.
The new galleries sprouting like cathedrals and churches seem to be doing the same. What is their agenda? Regeneration is the catchall watchword, and it works on a number of levels. Shoring up our faith in 20 th Century art process and making it more accessible engenders a general interest in creativity. Conceptual art and music have been around for some time now. What do people get out of it? Faith is linked with hope. 20 th Century art and music were concerned with opening up the creative process to include chance procedure and oblique strategies where hope is your worst enemy. The great void is consulted like an oracle or the I Ching to provide revelations in a spiritually adrift world. Monkeys and typewriters then. It does seem to work, kind of. It can be difficult to tell. George Bernard Shaw on being asked to listen to a piece of 20 th Century music (Stravinsky? Shoenberg?) commented “This music is better than it sounds!” You could apply this to art too. At the tail end of the Sixties, Situationism, Minimalism and the Fluxists heralded the end of ‘ism' movements and so now we have a constant shifting kaleidoscope. Permanent Flux.
And now we have our own friendly local Oblique Strategies, spearheaded by the Turner Contemporary, neh Centre. The effect on the Old Town is noticeable and positive. As a local artist I say Whoopee!…I think. I do sometimes feel like a chicken in a weird scientific experiment. I go to the shows, crane my neck and make clucking noises when the treats arrive. And I do benefit from the regeneration aspect with help to start my mural and art business. Some local artists who would like to show their work feel a bit miffed by these curator led activities and the only antidote to this is to form some kind of a fringe event.
The Turner Contemporary and the attendant projects around town have the tricky problem of pleasing a wide range of people, young and ahem, not so young. I don't envy their task. Battling local cynicism isn't helped by the general perception of contemporary/ conceptual art. “Where are the Turners?” People feel money is being wasted on something that is a minority interest. Also some political resistance from certain local entrepreneurs is predictable. The new program of the ‘Designed for You' series has upped the ante as far as addressing these problems is concerned. I can see one problem though. The shows thus far at Droit House have been bland, fluffy even.
The re-branding exercise got up peoples' noses. I used to work in advertising and publishing as an illustrator and there are horror stories of such apparent waste. I can tell you that the cost could have been worse if not taken care of early. The gallery has to do what it says on the tin. But the news did irk. “Norwegian bleedin' embassy? “Watch out agent Pomerey, that blue parrot in the corner might be bugged!”
And what of poor old William Mallard? I would like to know more about his links to Margate apart from the obvious ones. Did he do that much painting here or did he just come here for the ‘nookie'? The latest statement from the Turner people reiterates their commitment to showing work by him, er…kind of. I think the words Trojan and Horse come to mind.
So as you can see, unless you're an insider it's difficult to get the big picture and these hidden hands can feed our imaginations in infinite variations.
Adrian Day. Free-range artist
Courtesy of Neat Neat Neat Magazine 2004
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