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Space is a key issue for artists. I will use the word artist to describe all people who make stuff. I don’t care what you make or even how good it is. If you create something, that’s enough. And space is a key issue. You need a space to make your stuff. You need a space to show your stuff.

The spaces are as varied and as interesting as the artists themselves. Some are tidy, some are shitholes. It doesn’t matter. I collect images of artist’s studios as a way of trying to find the magic formula as to how these people work. The studio is the signpost to the practice. In some cases it is more of a gallery or museum dedicated to the act of creativity. The studio and exhibition space become one. Instinctively I mistrust an artist who works in a clean and ordered environment. I know it is wrong but from experience, all the people who I most admire visually worked in chaotic, rambling surroundings. They might have known every inch of the space but it appeared random and erratic

 

At best a studio space is a place to allow your mind the total freedom to concentrate on the job in hand. A retreat from domestic necessity. It can take any form from a shed in the garden to a shared mill. Each space has to work for the artist and their needs. So many myths persist about the space; good light, stunning views to inspire the muse. All bullshit. We need to shake off the romantic bonds of the past. If a garret and no money for food works for you, great. Equally, no amount of state funding for a pristine white space will raise your art practice. You either have it or you don’t. Most working artists know this. People work in cramped spaces and make do; the end result is the thing.


The issue of gallery space is in dire need of being addressed by artists on a serious and considered level. There are too many artists. There are too many career obsessed, networking, ladder climbing egomaniacs. There is a glut of dull, insipid space in which to show your meager offerings. Lottery money is a curse. We have created a place where people with good ideas lose out to form fillers. Property is beyond the reach of many; regulations frighten the owners of vacant buildings who worry that their investment will be harmed if they allow it to be used for a temporary exhibition. Everyone needs to see a result that can be tabulated, assessed and picked over. Concepts such as fun, risky and just because are lost. Art schools have marketing modules. The web is choked with online galleries and home pages dedicated to mediocrity and all in the slim hope of making it through a click-here selection of poor reproductions. Get a myspace.

 

The internet is only a tool. It won’t make your frigid little canvases any more interesting. If your art causes you so much pain, perhaps it is time to stop inflicting so much suffering on others. This is not a plea for any notion of elitism, just a cry for honesty. It is not a demand for technical excellence or an admission that only a thorough understanding of the intricacies of the colour wheel will make you a proper artist. Stop making crap work. You know who you are.

The worst gallery spaces are the ones who follow the national trend or who only take the work of an artist with a proven track record. Never mind that they have nothing worth saying. The best spaces are the ones who enjoy what they do and will show work that they like. There is no risk in such a policy; the curator is a member of the same public he chooses to address through the choices he makes. Curator: a fucking middle-man. A degree in arts management and a nice shirt. Artist-curator. Some people actually use this title. When did being an artist mean that you were only good enough to hold a pencil. I can spot crap. I can smell bullshit. People have different abilities. Some people can arrange a show of work, some people can organise a catalogue and so on. The word artist is not an admission of defeat or inability. The do-it-yourself art spaces know this. Painter, designer, barman, sweeper and if you are truly insane, there might be time in the day to be an artist.

bob.milner@yahoo.co.uk