bernard charnley visual artist

Inter?ogation – reflective statement September 2009

What did you do?

I worked with artist Brian Holdcroft on the Collaborative mission. Our idea, in response to the imposing nature of the gallery and the sentinel lampposts, was to construct an engagement about barriers, vulnerabilities and overcoming or resistance. The enactment involved a broken paper barrier with a performance in the gap.

How did it feel to work within the public realm in a quick and responsive way?

It opened up a space for different patterns of engagement. An analogy is ‘timed’ drawing exercises, each being given a shorter time, the aim being to generate a wider vocabulary of marks and reading of a subject. This was the effect of the Inter?ogation format.

What responses did you encounter from the public?

A very energetic response from a group of children/young teenageSome young adults engaged in a more considered way.Other older adults stopped and engaged in lengthy conversation about the intervention.A number did not want to know what was going on.

What did you enjoy about INTER?OGATION: Walsall?

I liked the comic structure, the shortness of the intervention, the promotion of response to unfamiliar conditions, the engagement of many artists working synchronistically. I also enjoyed the collaboration process which seemed to work well in converging two different practices and approaches in coming up with an idea that carried the distinctive input of both artists.

What did you find difficult?

The marrying of the performance with the barrier, which does not mean it did not work. I think the intervention took on a challenging character, which is fine but not easy to relate too. I think our intervention probably pushed the ‘boundary’ of the level of engagement with the public in this kind of setting; a bit like marmite.

What would you do differently next time?

I think all art work in whatever mode generates its own internal logic and aesthetic and with our collaborative piece, I think we both felt certain organisational decisions should have been clearer between us to allow for a more balanced distribution of roles. It is still too early for other evaluations until I (we) have viewed the video footage.

What impact, if any, could this experience have on your practice?

The experience of Inter?ogation has been a valuable contribution to a developing aspect of my practice; this has to do with the latter spanning the pre- and post conceptual periods. This span of time has seen a transition in art making from, to use another analogy, Newtonian to Einsteinian physics. As with the science, it is not about discarding all the content of the previous conceptual framework, but reconfiguring the dynamics of art making and its exchange with life and people. For me Inter?ogation represents a strand of this different kind of thinking where the format is devised to promote a dialogic exchange rather than a patrimonial one. It is this kind of re-configuring, shaping and evaluating of a new vocabulary that is current in my practice.

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