The Local/Global Studio

Yesterday evening saw the fourth in the Lecture Series, with a consideration of the “Global/Local Studio”. Georg Schöllhammer, curator and writer introduced he session, outlining the themes and giving us the background of the members of the panel.

The first speaker was Christoph Draeger, a conceptual artist who ran a course in the first half of the Summer Academy. He wanted to consider the theme of the local/global studio in terms of travel. As a young artist he sought a project which would allow him to travel, settling on the idea of visiting and photographing sites of disaster and catastrophe. The result was his "Voyages Apocalyptiques", taking him to sites associated with disaster throughout Europe, America and the Far East. This led to an invitation to work in New York, where he had his first "real studio" - which he also lived in - giving a new meaning to the phrase "studio flat"! Later opportunities took him to Mexico City, London, Birmingham, Warsaw, Cairo, often finding, or creating, relevant projects in in each place.

Jens Hoffmann is a well known curator and writer based in San Francisco, who recently published a book entitled The Studio. The book sought to examine the role of the studio in the production of art and as a romantic construct. The studio is much more than a place for the creation of art: recent claims for the "death of the studio" are overstated, as it has been more a case of transformation or "expansion" - even a computer can be a "studio". It has become a social and collaborative space. Hoffmann discussed the historical development of the role and function of the studio, and presented some of his own exhibitions exploring the theme. The construct of the studio, he suggested, is essential for the romantic notion of the artist.

Bisi Silva is a curator from Nigeria. She began by raising the challenging problem that while there is much information about studios in the west, there has been virtually no discussion of studios within an African context. Silva described the visibility worldwide of cultural production from Lagos, and the growth of art schools and courses, despite a lack of government support, and then turned to the introduction of western concepts of the studio by Aina Onabolu in the early twentieth century. These notions were developed by major artists such as Ben Enwonwu and El Anatsui. Contemporary practice is varied, and Silva shared images, processes and ideas from a number of young Nigerian artists with us. These examples show that we need to consider whether there is anything definitively Nigerian in these spaces and practices. She concluded by asking whether is there anything inherent about the studio beyond geography, a question we must address in the future.

Bojana Pejić is a curator and writer from Belgrade, currently working in Berlin. She is interested in the balance between "memory matters" and "body matters". Memory is undergoing a profound change, a "memorial change", as "minority memories" challenge establishment constructs of the past. These relate to the practices of art and public space. The monument as a cultural act performs a remaking of specific pasts, and plays a role in collective memory. Pejić discussed the role of memory in nationalism and the national imagination, which, she argued, centres on collective perceptions of shared suffering and defeat. Artists have manipulated monuments to comment on and critique dominant narratives, demarking them as nationalistic or sexist. These alternative memorials present an alternative narrative of the past and its relation to contemporary power structures. However, she believes that the opposition between the monument and counter-monument in recent years has begun to blur.

The talks were followed by discussion and questions, which considered issues such as studio practice as a political act, the idea of studio as “self”, and the notion of the gallery as a studio. Further ideas suggested that we should not necessarily associate the construct of the studio with either object or artist, as even legal process – as a current case in Russia suggests – can be a “studio”.