Conceptual or Commercial?

So the debate over the last two weeks in the SWA house - should we be putting a commercial or a more conceptual slant into our exhibitions? Should they be exclusive? Does one override the other?

The truth being a matter of a nice balance of both seems to be the most sensible. We want to be able to showcase great contemporary work of all practices but like with anything we need the capital to do it.
Putting on an exhibition costs money, through promotion, and the curators time, as well as artists material expenses. In the ideal world we would want to be able to pay the artist for their showcasing their talent not just pay them for materials. This time next light year Rodney when we have found the right formula, which once again comes down to this debate, how much Commerical? How much Conceptual?

Of course some pieces can be both, but not all. I can only assume very few people would want a film of an ass crack suspended over a circle of short film work named Moonlighting, created by Fine Artist Ed Jones. The day we sell that to put in someones living room I promise to eat my left shoe. But the point of the piece isn't to appeal to the buying market, its appealing to the art viewer, the art appreciator. The entertainment of the piece is right there in the exhibition space, to view, enthuse and move on. Of course if someone wishes to buy it this is a bonus. An unlikely happening, but still a bonus.

This is why we need funding in the first off, before the exhibition begins to enable the exhibition to be realised fully, and to get the general public to want to come in and see it. And yes we do our exhibitions for the public, for everyone, not just the elite 'artist circles' you can get in some areas. This is the problem with contemporary art or any art for that matter, why just open the doors to a select few? Art is for everyone. Anyway I'll get off my soapbox on that matter and come back to it on a another blog post.

So back to buying, selling, buying, selling. Of course the more we sell the more we can reinvest into the SWA to enable us to put on more shows and show off the great talent we have here in the South West, dahling. But if its all pretty 2D work that people are happy to take away and put above their mantle piece then some of the magic of an art show can be lost. The exhibition is the entertainment, well thats what we believe anyway. The exhibition should be curated in such a way the space is alive with work, concepts, musings, ideas, debates, entertainment.
Getting the funding to do this however, is now minimal. We aren't big enough yet to compete with the organisations that get over £100k a year from the Arts Council, but we are keen on getting even a percentage of it if it means the artists and the general public can enjoy something a bit different. That however isn't as easy as it may sound either. Hundreds of man hours filling in proposals , funding applications to get £100 isn't that appealing I have to admit.

So we are back to selling! The scrap yard show was intentionally bereft of 'sellable' work. The space warranted a more conceptual theme, the poundbury garden centre show however has a more open element of people coming in to 'buy' something, usually some pesticide and bulbs but if there is some artwork in the space that takes their eye then we hope to sell it to them. Then we can always have the odd conceptual structure that has the viewer enthralled, entertained, but not necessarily a piece they can buy.

For now thats the way to play it, I think anyway. Of course if we sell both commercial and conceptual in one show I'll eat both my shoes. As then I'll be able to buy a new pair!

If you are around between the 14th - 30th August pop in to the Poundbury Garden Centre, see what you think of the mix.

'....But There Are Just So Many of You'

It does seem I have to admit, that anyone who picks up a pencil, crayon or felt tip at the moment can call themselves an artist.

Especially here in the South West of England. Never mind the bloody caravans the place is awash with these creative types. And then I move down from London and only add to the mayhem.



Now don't get me wrong, the more artists the better! Especially for companies like us who are always on the look out for new talent to exhibit with us.

It does however throw a number of frogs into the boiling pot that tend to do none of us any favours.

Funding is of course the biggest issue. I had a 2 hour meeting with our local MP all about this last week. And his response was actually quite enlightening I thought...'We want to help the Arts but there are just so many of you...!' And he is right. To a degree.
The difference however, between a self proclaimed artist doing sketching work of ones pet at the weekend and a trained fine artist struggling to get the very best sculpture/conceptual work shown is quite well, different.
And now as we are seeing the doom day arrive of mass spending cuts, I must say I actually welcome shaving expenditure to big organisations that 'enable' the arts as most of the money seems to go towards staffing, admin and utilities - and the artists involved may just get a free pint :) Is this what funding for the Arts is for? Surely not...

The next issue is of course how do you stand out from the crowd?? Its rather like trying to play Chinese Whispers at a Rage Against The Machine gig.

So to do this we decided that the quality of work we exhibit has to be paramount.

We will only exhibit thoroughly thought through contemporary work, preferably by artists who have been trained at a tertiary level in their practise.

**I often wonder is this elitist? Well our customers and spectators will expect the best from a contemporary art organisation like us so we have to ensure we can provide the best**



One solution that was suggested to me was if all these groups, organisations, enablers etc work together to form a mass art company that covers all areas. Well, not too sure about how that could work to be quite honest...it's rather like saying we should have one radio station, one TV channel, one clothes shop....then of course we are delving into a political agenda that I think by all accounts didn't work out too well for some people and countries...



Competition is healthy and so is diversity.



What we aim for in our company, what we strive to succeed in and what responses we get from the people enjoying what we offer seems to work thus far. So I think we'll keep doing it.

Plus I'll bring a loud speaker to the next RATM gig, that should do it.