DRAWN preamble

It turns out that DRAWN, which is the show currently on in Plan 9 in Broadmead in Bristol is only open from Wednesday to Saturday, so my initial thoughts on coming to the space and finding it locked were out of place. ("Hmmm. Perhaps this is some sort of ironic statement about how the dominance of multinational corporations in our marketplaces essentially "locks us out" from the available cultural capital in our cities...or maybe the invigilator has a hangover") Er... I just turned up on the wrong day.

It was a wee while before I realised this however, and, thinking
that they were probably just a bit tardy in opening up, I took myself
off to the nearby Super Sari Sari Philippine Supermarket and Café for a
cup of tea to see if someone would've turned up by the time I got
finished. Whilst there, I wrote some notes about how difficult it was
for artists to put on shows in cooperative or alternative spaces when
they usually had to invigilate them themselves. Most artists, for
better or worse, have other jobs that they need to take time out from
in order to do this, so a lot of shows probably end up subsidised by
people's holiday pay, despite the funding they sometimes receive. (This
was based on my assumption that the problem with the DRAWN show was
that noone could turn up. In any case, it's more of a residency thing
there, anyway). What I realised was that the blurb about DRAWN "looping
back to a 'perpetual state of becoming'" and "Eschewing the recent
emphasis of product over process" (what, in pop surrealism or
something?)- paralelled a shrewd bit of logistical planning. This
'perpetual state of becoming' is work that's done on site, and in the
space (the artists are relating to their environment), and it also
means that time spent on site is at least productive and that there is
a minimum of work to do preparatory to appearing (though of course
setting out a proposal is a bit of an effort in itself).

I wonder about the "process over product" thing espoused here. I'm
all for us trying to peer inside artists' processes, but I do wonder
how communicative this can be. One needs a specialised sort of
curiosity, I'd argue, to be curious about what's going on. Am I wrong?
Is this more zoo-like than I thought (with the artists playing the role
of the beasties). I noticed a sign saying "do not feed the artists"
which seemed to hope this would prove to be the case, but I have some
doubts that will need to wait for a proper look for me to develop
further thoughts on it.

I also wrote some notes up about Richard Serra, whose work currently
is all about channelling people through a space and having them travel
through it and around it: my interpretation was that the
"perambulators"- the viewers- were the ones doing the "drawing as a
verb" in this case. I have my misgivings about what we viewers, we
perambulators, of DRAWN will be able to draw from the show that's on
here, but I'll have to reserve judgement until I have a chance to see
the show, which in any case is set to become more and more interesting
as time goes on.

More on this when I have a chance to see the show.