My editor thought I might like to write about an artist called Chloe Steele. She is one of 15 artists taking part in a project called Residue. This is the final series of shows organised by First Site at the Minories gallery in Colchester before they move to their swanky new home. What caught the attention of a newsman is that Chloe Steele’s proposal for this residency was to do nothing, not anything, zilch, nil. Maybe he thought there was a possibility of stirring up some public outrage: “artist does nothing with public money!”
Art history over the last century or so is punctuated by acts that to many seem ridiculous or offensive. The first and most influential must be Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, of 1917, in which he showed us, by displaying a ready-made urinal, that art can be anything an artist chooses.
In 1953 Robert Rauschenberg performed an artistic oedipal act using 40 erasers to rub out a drawing by Willem de Kooning. In 1960 Yves Klein made prints by pressing nude female models covered in his characteristic blue paint on to paper in front of an invited audience perched on gilt chairs.
In his 1961 work Merda d’artista, Piero Manzoni canned his own excrement and sold it for the equivalent weight in gold.
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The American performance artist Chris Burden was a master of the stunt as art. In his 1971 piece Shoot he got a friend to shoot him in the arm with a .22 rifle; in a 1972 performance Deadman he got himself wrapped in a sack and left on the freeway; in 74 he had himself crucified against the back of a VW Beetle. I particularly like the fact that all that remains of these legendary feats are a couple of grainy photos and the testimony of a few onlookers.
These are all famous events in the history of art, and many British contemporary artists today carry on this proud tradition of provocation. Gavin Turk’s MA show consisted of just an English Heritage-style blue plaque in the studio that stated “Gavin Turk worked here, 1989-91”. Cornelia Parker had the actress Tilda Swinton sleeping in a vitrine for her piece The Maybe, and Martin Creed won the Turner Prize with his Lights going on and off. I don’t think any of these artists had the sole motivation of outraging the public or getting press attention.
The works are part of a continuing development of ideas and, because of their nature, specific pieces garner column inches. Certain organs of the media see it as their duty to mock or to be outraged by what is seen as business as usual within the art world. “How can this be art?” they howl with monotonous regularity, but for me “what is good art?” is a much more interesting inquiry. Getting good publicity might be one of the criteria that good art needs in our overcrowded cultural landscape.
With the increasing acceptance of the ways of contemporary art by a wider public, it is quite hard to elicit more than a rolling of eyes from a media and public, who look on artists as parents at their adolescent child who is desperate to separate.
One of the cans of Manzoni’s faeces was recently purchased by the Tate for £22,300, more than the price of 30 grams of gold and curiously causing little outrage with the press, compared with the hoo-ha that greeted the purchase in 1972 of Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII, better known as “the bricks”. Shock surely has lost its sting.
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But still I find the idea of Chloe Steele doing nothing quite appealing. I think it shows admirable restraint. I long ago reached my cultural saturation point and welcome selfless acts of creative abstinence. And, as I suggested a couple of weeks ago, it also has the benefit of being very green. It brings to mind John and Yoko’s Bed-In of 1969. We live in a culture fixated on progress and achievement. Nothing must be a very difficult thing to do in this hyper-stimulated age, when the average person doesn’t seem to be able to walk a few hundred yards down the street without interacting with some electronic entertainment device.
So I rang Chloe Steele and asked her expectantly what she planned to do for her residency. She said she might do some wall drawings or a sculpture. She might do nothing.
I was feeling small — changed here — she might do nothing! When I go to the studio I might end up doing nothing but it is not a statement. Vito Acconci didn’t say in 1972 I might lie under a ramp masturbating and voicing my fantasies about the gallery visitors as they walk over me. Surely the crux of the idea is in the intention and motivation. Surely the interest lies in her saying I will do nothing.
I am a great fan of clarity, I found Steele’s lack of conviction outrageous, I mean, honestly, call that conceptual art?
Chloe Steele is at Firstsite, Minories Art Gallery, 74 High Street, Colchester, Essex, from Saturday to December 22 (01206 577067; www.firstsite.uk.net)