I was supposed to go to an opening last night in Charlottenberg to see the photography show of a friend of a friend of a friend. Charlottenberg is where my grandmother grew up. But neither the photographer, whose work I looked up on the Internet and rather liked, nor interest in my grandmother’s old stomping grounds, or even the opportunity to meet new people, provided enough of a pull. So, I stayed home instead and decided make good on an idea I had had right after lunch, just before I slid blissfully into my post-lunch nap: why not write art reviews about work people already have in their homes? I could start right here, in Abi and John’s flat.
I have been thinking about writing art reviews for a while now as a way to plug back into the scene in Toronto, and to hone my skills, but I’m always stymied by the fear that I don’t have enough of a contemporary theory or art history background to put the works into reasonable context. I’d be shooting from the hip, giving my visceral responses, which is OK when standing in front of the work and discussing it with buddies, but does not cut mustard with savvier art-reading audiences. Have I mentioned how terrified I am of looking . . . well . . . dumb?
But it occurs to me that we spend so much more time with a work when it’s in our home, or in the home of a friend or relative, giving us an amazing opportunity to develop a relationship to the work over time, one that changes daily, rather than the one-shot assessment we tend to make when see a work in a gallery. We become both sensitized and desensitized to the art in our homes. As someone who recently lost all her worldly objects in an apartment fire, and who has quite happily lived amongst the objects of family and friends while finding a new home, I am keenly interested in the objects that coalesce into people’s personal portraits. Lynn Donaghue once made a series portrait paintings that depicted people’s personal objects, and it was amazing how you could put the objects and the person together very much in the same way people’s dogs often resemble their owners!
What I find intriguing about this approach to art reviewing is what it reveals about the people who acquire the works as well. Abi and John may not be artists, per se, but they are savvy art viewers in the sense that they get out and see stuff. But what I love about them is that they don’t give a shit about what is trendy; they trust their gut and follow their noses and surround themselves with objects that speak to their unique aesthetic. In fact, I find knowing too much about what’s going on in the art scene a liability. It tends to form my taste instead of engaging and enriching it (but that could just be my weak and impressionable character). Going to galleries and other cultural events is part of the fabric of Abi and John’s everyday lives, but so is going to flea markets and movies and bookstores and restaurants and other cities and so on. What I find impressive about Abi and John is that not only do they go to shows, but they buy work! And we’re not talking rich yuppies trying to find something that matches their couch. We are talking about people who need to watch their pocket books as much as the next person, but who truly believe in supporting artists and in owning to-live-with pieces that speak to their hearts and their sensibilities.
When work is displayed in someone’s home, its purpose changes. Now housed in Abi and John’s flat, the viewership for the portraits I want to review gets “reduced” to Abi’s and John’s friends, family and acquaintances. And the owner’s and viewer’s relationship to the work changes as a result of context. Will a guest take time to really look at the photographs or think about what they mean in this home context? Do people really consider the work that hard even in galleries? I don’t always, I’ll be the first to admit. And if reading a didactic panel or artist statement is required of me for the full appreciation of a work, I grow even less interested, feeling as if someone else’s ideas are shutting off the flow of direct contact between me and the work. I mention this because I’m interested in what happens to “art” when it moves from the gallery into the home. Does it just become decoration? I don’t think we can say it is always one thing at all times. For me, the pieces come in and out of focus as decoration, as objects that tell me more about their owners, as discrete carriers of meaning, as moments of personal connection to truths and beauties.
So, that’s the premise of this “column”. To review the works that live in the homes of people I know. Perhaps to see how the work operates in that context and/or what my relationship is to it. And since I’m here in Berlin, I want to start with two photographs that Abi and John acquired in Berlin, the inspiration for this column in the first place.
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