Please Touch, Use and Destroy
Transgression, Boundaries and the Public Art Institution
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© Tate Photography
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CANCELLED
Art institutions have great power and responsibility in determining not only what constitutes art but also how we produce it and how we respond to it. Although art, institutions and audiences are often referred to as autonomous entities, they are engaged in a dynamic negotiation that contributes to the constant redefinition of the art institution's physical and symbolic boundaries.
From the architectonic structure of the institutions to the implicit and explicit rules and regulations that pervade its gallery space, the boundaries of the institution are what defines its aesthetic, social and economic roles. They also contribute to the creation and the education of audiences. Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, Maurizio Cattelan, Marina Abramovic, Mad for Real, WochenKlausur, Superflex and many others have made work focusing on the productive tensions between intuitions, audiences and artists.
But what does an artist or a member of the audience gain by challenging these structures? What differs between the position of the critical artists and that of the critical audience? Can works of art that are critical of institutional authority operate a fundamental change in its boundaries? How directly do critical works of art have to engage with the boundaries of the institution for them to have an impact in and out the institution?
In this course, you have opportunity to explore ways in which you can challenge Tate's rules and regulations as well as its structures of authority. Through direct engagement with the gallery space, you participate in critical discourse resulting in performance, radical actions and ephemeral works.
All are welcome.
£110 (£90 concessions), booking recommended
Price includes drinks afterwards
Course outline:
Session 1:
Setting the scene: What are the Boundaries of the Institution?
Public art institutions comprise of a number of implicit and explicit boundaries. Some are physical, other are more conceptual. By looking at these boundaries in the gallery space, we explore how they contribute to define the institution and our relationship to art.
This session includes exploration in the gallery space and sets the parameters for the upcoming sessions.
Session 2:
Please Touch: Bending the Rules
Touch was not always prohibited in the museum. There was a time when it was even an expected part of the experience. How did it become the most prevalent interdiction in the gallery space? Looking at the historical evolution of the art institution from the private to the public, we explore how the rule not to touch came about and introduced a distant engagement with art.
Session 3:
Nothing that a Little Trip to the Museum Can't Fix: The Museum as Instrument of Reform
Surveillance and security pervade the gallery space in more or less obvious ways. They protect the visitors, the employees and the art yet, as audiences, we have integrated the rules. Looking at the security structures of Tate and at a number of incidences of violation of the rules, we evaluate what happens when visitors break the institution's rules.
This session comprises the creation of a temporary work that makes use of the security structures in the gallery space.
Session 4:
Challenging Taste: Artists and the Change of Paradigm
Looking at the work of artists Hans Haacke, Gustav Metzger, Andrea Fraser and Doris Salcedo we examine the ways in which artists actively challenge the institution with their work.
This session includes the devising of a performative work aimed at challenging explicit and implicit rules and structures of authority.
Session 5:
Spectacular Shells and Counter-institutions
Public art institutions often appear to be spectacular buildings that house art yet these impressive shells can also accommodate criticism, challenges and public spaces in the form of counter-institutions. Starting from the concept of counter-institution, we explore how to be critical of the institutional structures of authority within the institution itself.
This session includes the creation of a temporary work establishing a counter-institution in Tate.
Session 6:
The Possibility of Radical Art
Can artists ever go too far in challenging institutional and social boundaries? In this session, we examine cases of challenges that exceed the remit of the institution.
This session might include a performance of works devised in session 4.
Tutor's Bio:
Martine Rouleau has a PhD in Cultural Studies and Humanities from the London Consortium pertaining to museum studies and institutional boundaries of public art institutions. She obtained a Masters in Semiotics and Communication specialising in documentary photography from the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2002.
She currently lectures in the Fine Arts department of Goldsmiths College and in the Arts Management and Policy MA programme of Birkbeck College. As a freelance Cultural Programmer, she organises interdisciplinary talks and events at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and at Tate Modern. She is known to her family and friends as an enthusiastic questioner, a weekend gourmet and a neophyte aerialist.
