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{ Talking About Collections; Allenheads Contemporary Arts, Trading Post To the quiet group of 18 individuals seated in a large circle in ACA Allenheads Trading Post, Ben Jeans Houghton remarks in his ineffably warm and jokey manner: “It's a little like a meeting of Collectors Anonymous.” Though it seems like a far fetched concept, the laugh his comment elicits from the group also acknowledges the cutting accuracy of the simile. Whilst none of the group conform to the loaded, often pejorative stereotypes of the hobbyist collector the conversation still frequently threatens to cross over into confessions of the fanatical. Conceding to be a collector admits a certain attachment or 'desire' for material objects which is not based in necessity (because these collections are not accumulations of functional 'use' objects) but in some other indefinite, possibly superfluous, appetite or obsession. Whilst the conversation only ever hovered over the many reasons why we collect, there is often the implication that people accumulate objects to fill some felt (or perceived) lack in themselves 1.. In Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid - perhaps better remembered in the 1989 Disney Film - the little mermaid of the title voraciously collects stories from the unreachable world of mortals above the sea, a world which is full of ideas and experiences beyond her capacity for imagination. In the 1989 animated film Ariel (the mermaid) memorably hoards discarded objects from this alluring, foreign world such as forks, candelabras, cutlery, a case of corkscrews (which she calls “thingimibobs”), glasses and ladies' vanity mirrors. In both instances, the little mermaid character is collecting these stories or artefacts as metonymic surrogates, in place of her impossible desire for (and lack of) mortal embodiment, experiences, and relationships. In his book Collecting in Consumer Society Russell Belk extends this idea of collecting as a potentially endless means of completing and elevating ones' social self: “...collecting is consumption writ large. It is a perpetual pursuit of inessential luxury goods. It is a continuing quest for self completion in the market place. And it is a sustained faith that happiness lies only an acquisition away...” Belk, (2001) In contrast, the collection of “loved and unloved items”2. being compiled by ACA through donations from the people of Allenheads and the wider High Forest Area - a stuffed owl, an old newspaper cutting, an infants colourful toy, a miniature beach hut complete with miniature wedded couple etc – is not a collection of items whose value is monetary or whose function is in regards to social indicators. But rather this is a collection of objects loaded with the value of personal associations, histories and narratives, “..not explicit or innate but always merely implied” (Houghton). Similarly the personal collections of the 18 participants in the round table discussion are not “luxury” goods (though arguably inessential) but are variously discarded, found, ephemeral and/or broken objects as in Houghton's collection of rejected slides, Janet Lambert's fragments of pottery found in mole hills, Chris Sullivan's 'Destroyed' collection of personal items and Edwin Li's collection of conkers. In talking about collections it was inevitable that the conversation would turn to modes of presentation, to examples of other collections (both public and private) and to the issue of taxonomy/ the ways in which collectors select, order and codify their objects. In discussing the evolving form of the collection, Alan Smith remarked that “Museums were there because people were collecting things, rather than because we needed museums...”. It's barely disputed that Modern museums evolved from the Wunderkammer (wonder chamber) of the Renaissance and later Curiosity Cabinets of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. While it is generally regarded that Museums, as public displays of historical/ anthropological artefacts and narratives, offer an objective, scientific overview of humanity, the Wunderkammer were similarly regarded as embodying a microcosm of the theatrum mundi through their vast, disparate and mutable accumulations of objects, artefacts and curiosities. The collections of the Wunderkammer were those of wealthy, aristocratic or eccentric individuals, all filtered through the innate tastes and sensibilities of the collector and their context – social, historical, political, geographical etc. – in which the collections were amassed. These Wunderkammer and later the Curiosity Cabinets moved from the private indulgences of individuals and into the public realm either out of necessity - as collections were sold off at the death/bankruptcy of the collectors - or as part of a trend towards collecting as a more scientific endeavour; gathering, categorizing and dividing objects into discrete groups as a basis for typology and understanding4.. This evolution, from awe-struck “wonder” to scientific “knowledge”, ran in parallel to the branching of the Natural Sciences into the separate disciplines of science (intellectual, finite, evidence based) and art (emotive, subjective, fluid). In this re-ordered hierarchy of information systems science came to supersede Art, in popular opinion, as the purveyor of truths about the universe. “But...” asked Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau as we traversed the issue of the museum collection “...How can you deem what is, and what is not, 'Science'?” and is it really possible for museums, through their scientific organizing principles and explanations, to embody an accurate overview of universal reality? Some of the group explained how they applied their own strict parameters to operate within when collecting (e.g. Rachel Clewlow's diaries of journeys, obsessively documenting her minutiae movements or Houghton only gathering things which have been given away or discarded) and described their processes akin to the fieldwork of early science. But equally, everyone in the group acknowledged the impossibility inherent in building a collection which could be objective or unbiased: “We're always thinking about things in regards to ourselves, that relate to us and what we're interested in...” (Houghton). However, by the same measure, scientific investigations are carried out by individuals in specific contexts whose choices will ultimately be influenced by a plethora of criteria and background influences (everything from personal interests and skills to economic influences). Could it be - as Paul Feyeraband suggested in Against Method - arguable that scientific discovery and understanding may be enriched by encouraging more subjective, empirical and fluid approaches of Art, the artist and the individual collector to enriching scientific investigation and understanding? “...Is it not possible that an objective approach that frowns upon personal connections between the entities examined will harm people, turn them into miserable, unfriendly, self-righteous mechanisms without charm or humour? "Is it not possible," asks Kierkegaard, "that my activity as an objective observer of nature will weaken my strength as a human being?" I suspect the answer to many of these questions is affirmative and I believe that a reform of the sciences that makes them more anarchic and more subjective (in Kierkegaard's sense) is urgently needed.” Feyeraband (1993) With the collection of objects at ACA, and the collections of many of the individuals in the group, the approach to ordering the objects offers a critique of the reductive approach of museum displays. Rather than cataloguing, categorizing and explaining items along strict, scientifically/historically governed parameters and existing classification systems, these collections are diverse, dispirate and even contradictory. By offering “...personal connections between the entities...” as in Irene Browns' collection which encompasses, simultaneously, Disney figurines and reliquiae of Capuchin Crypts, they reposition objects in a way which acknowledges their infinitely transient and mutable meanings. Though the collection at ACA offers a tableau of its locality – through the objects, songs and sounds of the place and the people there – it is without the traditional accompaniment of long museum texts which can overly analyse, explain or hyperbolize the objects of a collection. As such, it invites a subjective enquiry suffused with mystery and wonder, closer to the experience of the Wunderkammer than the overly sanitized modern museum, and offering a window through which to develop new connections, narratives and interpretations of these objects and the collection as a whole entity. For a few of the collectors in the group, the physical process of 'collecting' or seeking objects for their collections was almost as important as the objects themselves. “...the thing that drives me is the state of praxy that I place myself in. It's almost like an ever-folding process where it's constantly happening and it doesn't have anywhere necessarily to get to...” Houghton (2009) Many of the participants described a mental filtering process similar to Houghton's which happens almost unconsciously in the act of discovering an object, whether accidentally or deliberately, and the revelry experienced in that instant was often described equivalent to a moment of immanence “...the power of the object finding you...” (Alan Smith). Underscored by the accounts of “...arressting, possessing and making our own...” (Iris Priest), these descriptions echo to a more instinctual or primal impulse to hunt*. The notion of collecting as a process connected to hunting and survival is implicit in the title of Houghton's piece On the Ark and I. In this piece Houghton constructed a large (3m x 5m) glass house on the 3rd floor of The BALTIC which, over the duration of the exhibition, contained, juxtaposed, and examined an ever-changing display of his entire - inconceivably immense - collection of found objects. On Houghton's Ark, it was not two of every animal ("two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life."Genesis 7:15 KJV) that would be preserved from the Apocalypse and immemorialized for the future but rather a dissected, examined, and re-presented slice of the collector's unique time and location. This collection of discarded objects operate on the level of simulacra; every one embodying a different facet of this reality; of cultural phenomena, histories, relationships and memories. A collection this extensive (more than can be seen, taken in or comprehended, much like the ever-growing archive at ACA) hints at the potentially infinite, it embodies a whole universe of systems, connections and contradictions within itself. All of the objects in Houghton's Ark embody individual lexis which are, in turn, adopted or by the collector to convey meaning through their reappropriation (whether ironically, fetishistically or deliberately) or incorporated by them to extend themselves, their ego or social self, through the act of possessing and re-presenting these artefacts. The collections - much like object petite a 7., transitional objects and comfort objects - dissolve the boundaries of our social being and enable collectors to adopt languages of things other than themselves, to live beyond themselves. In essence the Ark that Houghton built was an infinitely complex hybrid of experiences and influences encompassing the past (through worn or antique objects), the present (of utilitarian and every day objects) and future (through the endless transformations and potential existences, all the objects could occupy depending upon relocation, grouping and individual interpretation). Similarly to Houghton's Ark, the collection at ACA has the potential to continue ad infinitum. As data and objects continue to be donated to the collection it will encompass an exponentially diverse array of items, reflective of the multifarious times, perspectives and experiences of the High Forest area. But this collection also has the potential, through the constant re-contextualisation, re-examination and discussion of the objects, to generate new interpretations, stories and future histories for the collection, the area and its people. *Collections of stones for their use value (flints for making fires, tools and weapons) but also for their aesthetic value have been discovered dating back as far as the Lower Paleolithic Period (the Early Stone Age, some 200,000 years ago) which may infer that collecting is a genetically ingrained compulsion as much as a learned action.
Iris Aspinall Priest © Notes 1. Stewart, Susan, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, (1993), Duke University Press, Durham, USA. p.151/3. 2. Allenheads Contemporary Arts Website, http://www.acart.org.uk/tradingpost.html, (Quote checked 1st May 2011). 3. Baudrillard, Jean, The System of Objects, (2005), Verso Books, New York and London, p.78. 4. Olalquiaga, Celeste, Object Lesson/ Transitional Object, (2005) article, published in Cabinet magazine, Winter 2005/06. References Belk, Russell Collecting in Consumer Society(Collecting Cultures), (2001), Routledge, London. p.1. The Little Mermaid, (1989)), motion picture, Disney, distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, USA. Feyeraband , Paul, Against Method, (1993), Verso, 3rd Edition, London and New York, p.53 Houghton, Ben Jeans, A Duck for Mr Darwin: Video Podcast, (2003), BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK. ~ ~ ~ { On Arka; Intro and essay by Iris Aspinall Priest 'The print is a silent witness. Whether deliberate, as with a constructed print, or involuntary (a fingerprint, the impression left on a pillow in the morning), a print is always the tangible evidence left from a past action, now gone. It seems significant therefore that Ben Jeans Houghton's new works in Lithography were germinated by a double absence. First of all, by his discovery of a discarded collection of medical illustrations (the author absent or gone), and secondly, by the subject matter of these illustrations: cadavers in the Newcastle University morgue (the body without the presence of self). The atmospheric virtue of this series of prints doesn't just lie in the myth of their origins however, but in their sublime and delicate rendering. The Series begins as a literal, figurative transcription from the found illustrations and original cadavers which Jeans Houghton visited in the Morgue. Then with the idiosyncratic trepidation and wonder of an artist exploring his subject on the edge of discovery, Jeans Houghton's images become increasingly volatile. The recognisable, figurative human elements (simultaneously beautiful and horrible) rupture and destabilise as the images become permeated with the mists of the unknown, and the imaginary. While the series begins as a witness to real death, these prints do not depict fear or explicit horror but instead they speak of a latent divine, and the corporeal, which exists at the border of ourselves, our imagination, and non-existence.' What's in a name? If we were to trace the etymological roots of the title On Arka we may be led to believe that it belongs to two (diametrically opposed but simultaneous) modes of being. The 'ARK' (minus the 'A') is a concrete noun ascribed to a place of refuge or security. It resonates to the biblical portrayal of Noah's Ark, the boat built by Noah to preserve himself, his family and two of every animal from the floods (Genesis 6:19). Or the mythical Ark of the covenant, the vessel said to have been constructed after the commandment of God, as a container for the Stone Tablets onto which Moses carved the ten commandments (Exodus 25:10). But ARKA does not belong to the concrete, nor the figurative. While it acknowledges the parallels, the insertion of the abstracting 'A', ruptures the implicit meaning, making the title ambiguous and metaphysical. It is important to consider because the poetic title of the show prefigures the work which embodies a similar duality; a dialectic of infinite possibilities oscillating between the literal and the metaphorical, flux and inertia, and between existence and oblivion. Reproduction, Reduplication, and Death Print is a tool for the dissemination of ideas and evocation of desires. Our day-to-day lives are saturated with printed information from packaging to magazines and newspapers. In the miasma of contemporary advertising, bodies are increasingly aestheticised and disembodied. Put into operation for the fashion industry and advertising, the body and it's parts are fragmented, replicated, and exteriorised, becoming empty vessels for the projection of consumer desires and aspirations. Disconnected from the internalised life or identity, the operation of scopophilic desire is endlessly ignited, and gratified, through the consummation of these dead images (as ceaseless, flawless substitutes for reality). In Jeans Houghton's crucible of the remembered, imagined and appropriated, fragments of this legacy float to the surface through his exquisitely rendered mouths and tongues (reminiscent of the alluring mouth of any Vogue cover model). But here these effigies are not left to exist as pure ornamentation, but are suffused with the repugnance of a very physical orality. Freud's theory of the first stage of psycho-sexual development implicates the mouth of the infant (who suckles, bites and swallows) as the first source of pleasure and nourishment but also, through denial, as the first source of longing and fixation. Whether we choose to take Freud's interpretation seriously or not, the mouth is certainly poignant as the primary organ at the border of ourselves. Its use is intermingled with ingestion (food and air), expulsion (language, breath and vomit) and pleasure (taste, kissing, sex). It is interesting to observe that, in the initial stages of this edition of prints, it is the mouth of the remembered corpse where the first distortions, and manifestations of the fantastical take place. These mouths and tongues teeter on the brink of sensuality and oblivion. They are as corporeal as they are divine, becoming increasingly ruptured and volatilized by the devouring haze of the unknown. A Sculptor who draws On a cold, February morning, in a warm and orderly print studio, Ben Jeans Houghton, examining the prints before being “chopped”, commented jokingly “I think these drawings are about how much I love sculpture”. But perhaps this was more than a joke. His use of form and line to manipulate the illusory space of the drawing by rendering it variously dense, vaporous or visceral, readily draws parallels to the sculptural act of moulding or chiselling an object from a formless lump of matter. Even the lexis of 'space', 'dense' and 'visceral' is more commonly associated with the 3 Dimensional properties of objects.* Unlike sculpture, however, these drawings do not have to obey the laws of gravity, time, or the possible. They are transitive pieces, oscillating between existence and non-existence, and occupying a simultaneity of tenses; the past tense (through the artist's remembering and appropriation from former styles), the present tense (the figurative object which is perceived as existing in reality), and the future tense (manifest in the elements of the imaginary, the unknown and the potential). In contrast we tend to experience sculpture, and the 3 Dimensional world, predominantly in the perfect present tense. That is, as existing at the moment of physical encounter. Like a contemporary Vanitas, suffused with rapture and fantasy, these drawings instantiate the tenses of past/present/future and the dichotomies of existence/ non-existence. They are drawings of flux, gesturally they are in flux and which take place on the liminal threshold between observation (knowing) and imagination (oblivion). Carefully, deftly, these drawings embody all these contradictions to reflect the artists' gaze, and imagination, operating on the edge of understanding his subject: a corpse in the morgue (both real and remembered). With wonder and idiosyncratic honesty, Ben Jeans Houghton has epitomized a thing which is both familiar and beyond comprehension, and which undermines our capacity to categorize and understand through its ambiguous state of real nothingness. *Indeed, the process of Lithography on Limestone involves the application of a chemical etch which transforms the drawing into a 3 Dimensional relief for printing. Iris Aspinall Priest Is an Artist and Writer currently based in Newcastle. ~ ~ ~ { POP MAGAZINE; Interview by Becky Poostchi I was led by my Newcastle friends to the Baltic to meet young artist Ben Jeans Houghton who told me all about his work installed in the Duck for Mr Darwin exhibition.
Baltic curator Alessandro Vincentelli and Exhibitions Co-ordinator Laura Harrington contacted me and spoke about an international group show that was being curated, focusing on Darwin's Legacy. Tell us a bit about the thinking behind your work? Since childhood I have explored my environment, collecting things from back lanes and skips. I have always had a sense of communion with objects and my understanding of the world has been greatly informed by this fascination. On The Ark And I is a durational installation that questions our understanding of the world through classification. Objects are stripped of context and chronology, instead grouped by colour, creating an Ahistorical order. To me a red paper clip, speaks of elements, invention, ingenuity, industrialisation and immutable forces. It is a symbol of so much beyond its clear and simple function. It is this potential universe of referents and connotations present in all things that endlessly fascinates me. Darwin's base search for interconnections and understanding of the world, through his collection and dissection of the world around him, is what I find so compelling about his search. Why is it important to you to be so interactive with your work? Do you think this interaction is a sign of the times (where we communicate constantly)? For this exhibition it was important for me to embark on a journey, through time with no predetermined conclusion. My interaction with my archive has always been part of the process. Using the form of the exhibition to caption part of an ongoing process interests me. I have always wanted the chance to engage with everything I have collected in one place for a period of time and I have been lucky enough to do so. I hope in some way it has prompted visitors to view aspects of their relationship with the world that surrounds us in a fresh way. The second piece Dear... is a participatory postal piece that invites the public to send any object to the gallery for display as part of a new archive. In an age where communication is becoming more and more digital, virtual solutions to correspondence out way pen to paper a hundred fold. Darwin was a prolific letter writer and was said to have sent over 10,000 letters in his life time, many of which were stretching out a hand of inquiry, relying on the kindness and generosity of people of whom he often had no acquaintance, to provide him with samples from which he could work. The piece mirrors this process and calls for a physical interaction from the public, inviting further thought and consequent inclusion. I have received all kinds of objects from all over the world. Some have been labelled or appear with letters explaining their significance to the person who sent them. When the objects are displayed they are void of explanation, stripped of this often deeply emotional significance. Within this piece it is the idea that any object can be charged with importance, usually in a very personal way, that is invisible without explanation, that fascinates me. I was so impressed by Ben i wrote to him to ask for a picture of his brooch (yes Northerners are progressive) and he sent me the cheeky snap above. Boys in brooches who make great art.Thats where its at! ~ ~ ~ { THE SILENCE OF THINGS Ben Jeans Houghton's films are full of things. Things are noisy, cluttered and distracting. Things disturb the pure note which comes from emptiness. In Houghton's work there is silence. How does he achieve this silence of things? These carefully composed films balance their content, playing objects off against each other. Each object in Houghton's work can be said to have a frequency, and these frequencies are used to cancel each other out. Houghton's work is minimal, in a sense. It is composed and controlled, but unlike the formalised processes of Minimalism, it does not seek to tune out the world within which it is formed. This acceptance of the city he lives in, full of noise and clashing colours, runs parallel with his uncanny ability to compose a shot filled only with stillness. The fullness of the scenes he presents is not at odds with the quietness that fills his art. Untitled Animation is full of frenetic activity. Objects are arranged and re-arranged by the unseen artist; the quest for compositional perfection never fulfilled. This presentation of constant change is a zen-like answer to the question of artistic activity. The product is the process. The answer is the question. These films are snapshots of Houghton's artistic practice, which is fuelled by, and fuels, his life. All of the objects in Untitled Animation have been rescued from skips, salvaged from office refits or found in back streets. His magpie tendencies extend not only to objects, but to situations. Void and 1106 exploit specific circumstances that allow the artist to present familiar scenes, in this case the sky and a normally busy street, as other-worldly places. 1106 in particular, with it's empty streets and blinking traffic lights, makes us ask, How did he do that. I have worked collaboratively with Houghton; on a book that is to be released as part of this programme of films, and on the film that will be shown at the end of the programme. Both have been exercises in interpretation, we simply work in opposite ways. I have to translate his visual language in to words before I can begin the process of writing for him, and he has to translate my writing back in to a set of visual ideas before he can use it. He thinks only in images. 1106 was filmed by him, on his own, each perfectly composed shot done first time, and with only his approximate visual estimations to tell him where to stand. Every single photo in Perdu and every object in Untitled Animation was sourced and organised by him. Before the filming of Untitled Animation he ordered the objects according to colour, a mammoth task, but for Houghton, a necessary one. It is this exploitation of his own attention to minutiae that helps make Houghton's films so interesting. To watch him inventing hypothetical histories for the objects he finds is to watch a master story-teller at work. His stories are a visual exploration of the world in which he embeds himself. He does not position himself as an observer, though he does observe. He does not claim to be an outsider, though he is often separate. All the time he is within; operating, interpreting and repositioning both the environment and himself. |
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