Imogen's talk - British Artists of the 1980s - Art, Money, and Radical Practice

Imogen gave a presentation on her research to date for her next book.  She has two options for the title:

Diverse Practice: British Art in the 1980s
British Artists of the 1980s: Art, Money and Radical Diversity.

I think the second is better because it tells the reader it is about the artists - the people behind the artwork - and includes Money, which was important to 1980s society.  However it does not include the word Sculpture - which is what I think the book is about.

Why:  Imogen wants to focus on the unknown names, the lesser known artists.  Those who are not in archives.  Or are still in boxes and not listed.  Some artists have disappeared, went off to do other things and were not collected.  There was much marginalisation of women and BAME.  Her book aims to focus on how these people got around these issues.  The French describe the 1980s as the Lost Decade.  So far, the 1980s has been written out of history.  Imogen aims to address this.

New British Sculpture became the promotional name at the time - patronage dependent.  (Does this indicate that private patronage supports white men?  Or is it that patronage supports 'people like me'? Which could be any type of person?). The Lissom Gallery in particular was a big supporter, plus major museums and national collections.  However, archives become fractured (how?) and the continuum is lost.  Thus, Imogen has been conducting semi-structured interviews - gaining trust - in order to access the artist's archive.

Difficult to find people - many are wary by bad experiences or designation.  Allow them to structure the interview.  How do they want to be represented?  Essential to gain trust.  This is a new style of research for Imogen so it is a learning experience for her.

Ailsa Wilding
Cathy de Monchaut - hand maker - the patina of the hand made.
Catherine Gili - loves her materials - steel - follows her own agenda - deeply impressive.  Does not work with a Gallery as she wants to work to her own path/inspiration.
Helen Chadwick - Mutability exhibition.  Used own body.

After the interview, Imogen sends the transcript for authorisation.  But she finds speech is fractured - ungramatically spoken.  So she has taken to stating there will be a 'light edit'.  As an experienced interviewer and transcriber, I think there are ways round this.  In the interview introduction, you say the purpose of the book/interview is to portray them in a positive light; that you will make grammatical corrections to the first transcript to make it readable; that the interviewee has the right to edit out chunks that go off on a tangent; that they have the right to hear the recording while editing so they can check for authenticity.

Money became more important from the late 80s.

Her book aims to be demonstrating rather than theorising.  Material and metaphor eg place and belonging.

Put interviews in PhD appendix - gives legal protection (against slander?  how/why?)

We had a quite a debate about how/what you write about people.  There was a PhD student who managed to get right up my nose.  Obviously very clever, and appeared to want to be an art critic.  He had been talking to a mature writer who had given him a serious warning to be careful what he wrote, as this mature writer was living in the garage of his children, because he had been sued (for slander?) and lost everything in damages.  But even so, this student was pontificating about how he wanted to be a critic  and ....  He kept talking in half sentences, about his right to write articles as he thought fit, resulting from interviews.  He was implying he was strongly critical to an artist's work, but did not actually say it, and also assuming the audience understood the point he was (not) making.  Came across as a right smart Alec.

It made me think of my Study Abroad landlady, Tangea Tansley, who was a university creative writing lecturer.  She told a story about being interviewed live on radio in Sydney.  The discussion before the broadcast was all very friendly and chummy, but once they went on air, the interviewer publicly threw some very hostile questions at her and was snide about her work. Tangea was immediately on the back foot, and felt publicly humiliated by the interviewer.  The outcome is that Tangea will never do another live interview on air.  It only takes one experience like this, for artists to become suspicious of interviewers' motivations.  Add into this mix, that the interviewers are highly trained, and the interviewees are not, and you have the situation where power is unequal in the relationship and trust is non-existent.

Just from the behaviour of the student in this presentation, I would not participate in an interview with him, about my work.  How easy to lose trust!