| The Colosseum
Project is a London-based artists'initiative that is concerned
with creating events to expose, exhibit and experience live and
visual art outside of the mainstream. As a group, we are concerned
primarily with exploring exhibition alternatives for artists.
By using non-traditional environments, and techniques such as
merging gallery and performance art, we aim to create a new and
different experience for accessing and distributing art in the
region and abroad.
The Colosseum
Project was founded in summer 1997 by a collective of young artists
all working in radically different media to organise exhibitions
and performances in a derelict East End theatre, the Old Colosseum.
This was originally built for circus performances; subsequently
it was a theatre, then became one of London's first silent cinemas,
then in the 1950s it was a car yard and, finally, the rotting
hinterland of a techno nightclub.
None of the
artist/organisers had much background in organising, so the show
was put together in only a few weeks using local networking. We
recruited an assortment of performers, from trapeze artists to
Marisa Carr of the Dragon Ladies burlesque group, and well-known
cabaret artists The Tiger Lillies agreed to perform at the event.
Some months
later, the local council decided to purchase and destroy the historic
building to build a shopping centre. The Colosseum Project responded
by organising a gallery exhibition with 25 artists, exhibiting
mainly site-responsive works. We filled every part of the enormous
theatre with art, a celebration and a requiem for a piece of local
history that was about to fade away...
In October 1998
The Colosseum Project created an event in a disused bank in Shoreditch,
London. A derelict, empty area, it is nevertheless only moments
away from the vast shining temples of Mammon in the City of London,
a City that is steadily encroaching on the artists'strongholds
of Spitalfields, Shoreditch and Hackney. The art hanging on the
walls of offices and banks in the City of London is corporate
art: smooth, passionless, un-challenging. In a fitting reversal
of uses we transformed this bank space into a dark, underground,
exciting gallery of passionate and avant-garde art, combining
performers, striptease, poetry, music, and every form of visual
art.
In the course
of organising these events, which attracted hundreds of people,
the artist/organisers realised that our own artistic practice
was being transformed by the process of transforming the space
in which we were exhibiting. What was in essence an experiment,
turned out to be a radical moment for the artists.
Artistic practice
is at a crucial juncture as we enter the third millennium. For
over two thousand years the artist was the servant, in some sense,
of a patron. The practice of art was a process of training, craft
and patronage by the Church and the elite. In the 19th century
this state of affairs was being questioned by Romantic thinkers,
who saw in the figure of the artist the ultimate individual, set
apart from and indeed above the rest of common humanity. This
engendered the view of the artist as the misunderstood genius-
the weirdo at the next table who didn't wash but made beautiful
pictures!...
The socialist
response to this was to question the role of the "artist" in society.
In an early work, The German Ideology (a response
to the Romantics) Mark and Engels decried the "exclusive concentration
of artistic talent in particular individuals, and its suppression
in the broad mass" and claimed that in a communist society
there are no painters but at most people who engage in painting
among other activities.Marx never developed this idea further,
but much more importantly, it became one of the tenets of socialist
liberalism, and was brought to fruition in the 'community' art
of the 1970s, which is still with us today. This links in with
the idea of art as therapy; in both approaches, art is
seen to have a social role in the community and issues of art
excellence, technique, aesthetics and so on are not considered
relevant.
After the Russian
revolution, Lenin considered art's very important social role:
to further the ideals of the Revolution. In this he was influenced
by the painters of the French Revolution, such as David, who glorified
the heroes of the cause. Lenin's artists served his Revolution.
However, it can be said that all art sponsored by the institutions
of power will serve those institutions. If in the East, the heavily-politicised
art of Socialist Realism narrowed the outlook to one form of political
indoctrination, then in the West, movements such as Abstract Expressionism
effectively denied the political and celebrated the kind of freedom
of expressionthat was complacent in the pursuit of material
wealth. Artists, such as the Surrealists, who attempted to challenge
both views by exploring the unconscious and acknowledging the
centrality of the political, were always marginalised.
Now, however,
institutional art and community art, the two extremes of the officially-sanctioned
art are under attack. Many young artists are not content to toady
and wait for institutions to take them up and fete them. At the
same time, the individualistic striving for excellence means that
they are not satisfied with the uncritical environment of the
community. In this way both the gallery and the
community centre become places under suspicion.
In addition,
the definition of art has broadened and it can no longer, if it
ever was, be possible to cut out simple little categories to put
artists into. Today's painter may tomorrow turn to video. The
sculptor will produce a CD-ROM. Performance has been fully integrated
into the conception of contemporary art.
The Colosseum
Project is made up of artists who, like so many of others around
the world, are dealing exactly with this dilemma. What does it
mean, to be an artist? We reject the Romantic glorification of
the artist, yet we are not social idealists. We don't want to
make art to help people, but we want to make art! Creativity
has got its own positive energy. We are aware that we are working
in a society of the spectacle, and that the ravenous maw of the
spectacle will always seek to gobble up our work and our ideas!
We seek the space in between the heavenly heights of the cool
clean white gallery and the murky depths of the street. We question
the idea of the gallery, yet agree that it is necessary to establish
special environments to facilitate the experience of art.
In our practice,
we are seeking to consummate the union between gallery art and
performance, making art a more lively and accessible experience.
We need to reclaim our independence from an often too commercial
and censored gallery environment; this is an important step which
also enables us to reach new audiences.
The Colosseum
Project/Luna Nera (1998)
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