art week is days away from opening
Written by Penelope Payne.
September has arrived and is speedily moving forward, with it comes that cool sharp edge to the air. A suggestion of the winter to come. Autumn for me always brings a sense of excitement as we move from one season to the next, this year the sense of anticipation is acute, it means that the Art Week is days away from opening.
Wind and monsoon style rain hit the Auxiliary building yesterday scattering us like leaves checking for leaks, and potential puddles. The main gallery is pristine and in stasis. The walls are whitewashed and the floor, freshly painted gallery grey waits for the work to be positioned, unwrapped and brought to life.
Adam Shaw and I installed the first work in the main gallery. There is a collective sigh of relief as the work began to appear from its protective boxes, the months of planing on paper materialising in front of our eyes. Sarah Maple’s “Labour of Love’ is a mammoth work, a sum of the 650 times she fed her baby over a three month period. Each image is a reflection of the unfolding complexities, emotional and physical involved in bringing a child into the world.
Unwrapping each panel brought Adam and myself into punctuated conversations about birth, children and being a parent. The time lapse shutter clicked in the background capturing us as we moved backwards and forwards along the gallery, recording our own narrative.
That’s the wonderful thing about art, it is the touch paper for conversations between creator and audience, it allows us to observe each others world and reflect on our own human condition. Art for this very reason should be a valued commodity, (it is powerful medicine,) with a structure that can sustain an artist’s basic living requirements. As part of the festival programme there is a discussion about just that. How can artists survive in the institutional, political and financial environment that is 2023 and beyond. The WeIndustria report Structurally F****d (do look it up its very good) did the sums and the average median rate for artists pay equates to £2.60 an hour. That’s not great is it?
Come along to the talk, lets see what we can do to keep art and artists doing what they do best. Take a moment too to see the ‘Punchcard’ collective art work that responds to the same theme, devised by Liam Slevin and Kyp Kyprianou see what art can or can not be produced for £2.60. An interesting experiment.
The final coming days will be a mixture of calm and intense activity, problems and problem solving. Time will slow down and speed up as we near the start of the festival. The shortening autumn daylight reminding us of how we measure our lives. If you want to use a few hours or even a day wisely come visit us and find solace, joy, beauty, questions and so much more in the art of Middlesbrough Art Week.
