THE ALTEREGO PROJECT.
DATE: 28TH JUNE-12TH JULY 2011.
VENUE: SCRIP-J, BUILDING 1, FERNANDE'S
INDUSTRIAL CENTRE, LAVENTILLE,
PORT OF SPAIN,
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO.
TIME: 6:30PM - 9:00PM.
THE ALTEREGO PROJECT,
IS THE PRESENTATION OF 15 DESIGN- BUILT PIECES OF FURNITURE.
BUILT HERE IN COLLABORATION WITH CERTAIN CRAFT PERSONS AND INDUSTRY PERSONALITIES.
THE PHOTOS BELOW SHOW A CERTAIN PROCESS FROM MODEL TO THE FINAL PRODUCT.
ISSUES THAT CAME UP:
- TIME DELAY- OTHER JOBS TOOK PRECEDENT OVER MY TASK. ONE SOLUTION WAS TO BRING IN A TROUBLESHOOTER CRAFTSMAN, BETWEEN BOTH OF US WE COMPLETED THE REMAINING TASK.
- MISUNDERSTANDING- THERE WAS A MIX UP IN WHAT WAS THE OVERALL AMBITION OF THE DESIGN, WHICH WAS PRESENTED.
WHICH CAN AFFECT ECONOMICS AND QUALITY OF MATERIALS TO BE USED IN THE DESIGN, WHEN YOU'RE INTO PRODUCTION.
THAT AIN'T COOL, AS YOU HAVE TO ALTER DESIGNS FROM BOTH PARTIES, MANAGEMENT AND ARTIST.
THE DESIGN-LAB
THIS IS WHY I BELIEVE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DESIGN-LAB,. WHERE ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS CAN BE ABLE TO WORK IN A SPACE THAT WILL ALLOW FOR DELIBERATE EXPLORATION OF ART AND DESIGN PROJECTS THAT CAN CHALLENGE MATERIALITY, ECONOMIC AND TECHNICAL MODELS IN OUR POSTCOLONIAL STATE.
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| TITLE: TALL AND SQUARE AIN'T BAD. MATERIALS: MAHOGANY, CEDAR, APAMAT. DIMENSIONS: H51,3/4"xW15,1/2"x |
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| THE MODEL. |
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| A LOOK INTO THE WORKSHOP. |
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| HERE WE GET A GLIMPSE OF THE WORKSHOP. WHEN I SPEAK OF THE DESIGN-LAB. FROM HERE ARTISTS AND DESIGN CAN EXPLORE THEIR DESIGNS. THERE IS AN ECONOMICALLY REALITY TO BUILD ALL THIS. WHICH KEEPS MOST OF US TO THE CONCEPTUAL TABLE |
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| TALL AND SQUARE AIN'T BAD. MATERIALS: MAHOGANY, CEDAR, APAMAT. DIMENSION: H51,3/4"xW15,1/2" ART IS DEAD, LONG LIVE ART. When I started this project several years ago it was with the understanding that “ART” is dead in Trinidad and Tobago. It was my view, that except for a few artists – the New Contemporaries or the Generationists – our art space is relatively repetitive and uninspired. My thinking since then has been informed by conversations in alternative spaces and artists’ studios around Port of Spain and the East-West corridor with a generation of my contemporaries who are willing to challenge the status quo. I was part of the Crossover Design experience of the early 1990s that merged art and design, and then studied art installation at Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto- I was influenced by the philosophy that artists must be competent in the construction of a concept and articulate in their understanding and explanation of their concepts. The Alter Ego Project, of which this exhibition is a part, was a natural progression for this artist. As you can see, this furniture is sculptural in form – in its lines and design – and arbitrary in its presentation. I have always had a desire to design, build and present. The idea of the assemblage was one of the first experiences I explored in the late 80’s and early 90’s with pieces such as – *“Dr. Gachet” and ”** “Cable T.V and the Wall.” In 2002, I explored the idea of architecture in “Mi Casa Yo Casa,” and dealt with the concept of art and the element of reproduction in the Cape Town Chronicles 2006, installed at the Museum of the City of Port of Spain, Fort San Andreas. The concept of the assemblage is a strong cultural and indigenous form, which can be found in our local architecture and design. If we think of informal settlements like Datsunville, Bangladesh, and other squatter settlements, we will see the tapestry of art and design in these assembled spaces made from materials discarded by industry and society and held together by sheer commitment to function - “it go work” or “Ah go make it work.” Beauty wasn’t necessarily a part of the equation. That came later. The art of the assemblage can also be found within the middle class community, a little less in the upper class. But the assemblage is the closest link to a philosophical understanding of Caribbean sculpture, architecture and design. This arbitrariness is reflected in the design of the houses we find in our squatter communities. This sculptural presentation is a continuation of an urban dialogue that insists that artists must re-think their relationship to the studio. We must fashion a vocabulary and retool our dialogue to address the political ghettoization of our modern urban spaces. We must re-enter the discussion, articulating an indigenous vocabulary: an approach that artists in Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, India and parts of Asia have been exploring in order to come to terms with their own urban expansion and engagement with modernity. These explorations challenge theoretical art thinking and have forced curators, galleries, museums, cultural theorists and sociologists to readjust their own understanding of how art functions, and how it can be presented in this new social arena. Postcolonial artists have challenged how people view these works and the impact on their lives. They raise questions about its belonging and its functioning in their living spaces. Projects like the Project Rowe House 1994, by African American artist Rick Lowe, USA and Mejor Vida Corporation 1997, by artist Minerva Cuevas, Mexico, The Phoenix Solid Waste Management Facility, by designers Michael Singer and Linnea Glatt, USA and the Galvanize Project 2006 by artists Mario Lewis, Trinidad and Tobago. Are examples of artists distorting or challenging how they the artists function within the urban cultural economy. At this point in the country’s history, our impact as artists has been minimal. We have not engaged with the society and its ongoing developmental challenges. Our structures lack substance and there is no form of art criticism or activism. Our art systems are not equipped to handle provocative thoughts. They are based on shopping the old tired, repetitive wording over and over. We are a country of “shop keepers” (Lloyd Best), buying and selling off the shelf -Have we as artists challenged this “shop keeping of the arts”? Maybe not effectively enough. Despite the work of Aquarella Galleries, Gayelle Television, Language of Vision Environment, Crossover Designs, Caribbean Contemporary Arts Ltd. (CCA7), Studio 66, the Circle of Poets, Ten Sisters, Alice Yard, Song Shine, Jazz Artists on the Greens, The Caribbean Sound Basin, the Activism of the Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago, ACTT and a whole host of blogs and websites we are still not where we should be. We have not been able to impact the wider society, to re-educate our people, bureaucrats, technocrats and industry about the significance of contemporary cultural politics and thought. DArlen Designs/DA.DA+PROJECTS. Is the Alter Ego project of artist Dean Arlen. It is about the amplification of this urban dialogue, an investigative performance of another aspect of the artist’s work . It will develop projects involving artists in serious urban dialectical explorations with the hope of adding to Trinbagonian spatial aesthetics, form and content. It presumes that there is a philosophy underlying what we do and that it is time for the beginning of a new cultural politics that will and should drive art conceptualization and re-evolution into a new era. The Alter Ego project evolved out of my ongoing art interventions, such as the UWI Sculptural Project, the Sculptural Playground Project, the Tanktotem Proposal, and the Re-Designing the Mile Post Project. Each of these had its own characteristics, challenges and uncertainties embedded in the effort to bring them to reality. But they evolved out of my own studio-based practice, emerging out of a painter’s experience of the canvass, acrylic, paper, graphite, glue etc., work which was always addressing three-dimensionality in some way or the other. The furniture presented here was built by young crafts persons of the National Centre for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) in San Fernando and David Blake’s workshop in Arima. In this journey I have gained some insight into local production, which seems to have been traumatized by the socio-political influences and upheavals that have affected this country since the 1950s, and more recently by neo-liberal globalisation in the 1980s and 1990s, which destroyed much indigenous craft and production. This is most evident in the loss of confidence in labour, not in its skill, but in the lack of personal investment in their work or their craft. Unreliability in workers, craftspeople’s inability to stay the course and troubleshoot problems creatively and poetically came up in the discussions I had with industry leaders and individual artisans with whom I was trying to partner in accomplishing the Alter Ego project. Communication is important; how we present our thoughts to craftspeople, funders, technocrats and bureaucrats must be clear. Instructions, plan drawings must be double-checked. But as our space become more technological, sterile and plagiarized it seems that the ability to translate concepts and to read the other is becoming more difficult. The ability to listen, communicate, comprehend and translate, which could be found in an earlier generation of wire benders and craftspeople, is becoming extinct. The indigenous crafts are losing their nobility and becoming an appendage that we discard or hide in back rooms, only to be seen when visitors drop by. Our externally-propelled capitalist country normalizes and valorises the importation of culture to the detriment of our local cultural production. We are losing the ingredients, the physical strength, and the intellectual capabilities to develop an indigenous cultural industry. The designs presented here are utilitarian and simple. They fuse the sensibility of old craft with new ideas of transparency and stability. The naturalness of the wood and the rusted industrialized metal, bolted together speak of our ambivalence in dealing with our economic and social development in a mature manner that reflects an understanding of the politics of design, form and function. These are sculptural constructions, weighty in their own words, telling their own story. This process brought me somewhat closer to the indigenous craft industry. The old school concepts were challenged and I hope enhanced by the contemporary. The project was a challenge to old approaches, attitudes, ‘behaviourisms’ and creative conservatisms. It challenged the religiosity that supports this and the patriarchal authority that holds to both beliefs so tightly. Finding room for the new only becomes possible when we join those that have marred our cultural landscape with the gyrations that have made our people angry, ambivalent to their past, hostile, ‘copycat-ish’ and distrustful of the indigenous and the local. The studio artist must collaborate with and be willing to listen and share with craftspeople. This relationship will prove both educational and profitable in developing the art industry but it should be built on trust and respect. The tradition of the craftspeople will be challenged, but they should understand that they will be engaging with different approaches to style, design, operations, technology, materials, and most importantly to the way they think. The artists’ arrogance is humbled by the artisans’ skills, knowledge’s, and realities. The designs were kept simple because of the practical need to translate concepts, to make it easy for the builders to take it and run with it. Marquettes ( models) were made to make the translation even easier. They were able to add their own personal interpretations in style and make adjustments based on their technical knowledge and experience. In that sense the furniture could morph without losing the integrity of the original design. The artist as a brand or the object as a brand In the act of production and reproduction i.e. the artists’ production of his ideas; what will this entail? In this performance, which will include several movements, each placing my impressions into diverse spaces using different media and creating my own relevant magic? The performance is thrown onto the stage in the artist’s angst, there is no timeline in the performance, just deliberate actions weary of the space in which the act is being made. In the “Act of The Macabre” (Peter Minshall), theatricality plays an important role in embedding the act into the psychic realm of the society, just for that “art moment”. Little “art moments” tell a story, weave a magical spell all based in semiotics and the poetics of theory. What is also part of this act of reproduction are the supporting acts of lawyers, registration fees, printing and negotiating for moments and spaces, where the act could take place. And where does the act take place in this age of technology, industry, complacency and bling which has re-defined how the brand operates? The act can take place anywhere, but here. What does that mean for us in this failed state? How is the artist’s’ brands understood and what kinds of machinery push this brand, in the act of reproduction? In my exploration of the Alter Ego Project I seek this type of understanding for myself. I see it as important in repositioning the artist’s’ studio and the re-funk-tion-ing of the lyrical content of the mobility and nobility of the artist’s’ product. In all of its magic, what does it all mean,? I have seen the magic in a child’s eye when her father validated her for her art; I know that well designed spaces enhance social interaction and harmony. All in all, this journey was one of collaboration among artisans, lawyers, designers and industry (although a different kind of industry) all coming together in this act of reproduction. It was wonderful to see how the shared and different understanding of concepts could lead to translation even if there is ambivalence between the two. It takes a bit of patience and a willingness to listen, really listen in order to understand the other. This idea of collaborating on equal terms is a socialist ideal. The notion of authority, at least in Trinidad and Tobago must be looked at, talked about in practice, and redefined. The brutality of authority which dictates its own authorship in this age of reproduction has resulted in work that is in many ways vague and useless as there will always be the selective creative impulse that generates concepts, makes us think and drives society forward. The idea of rational design has not been ignored by this artist and this is a discussion that must be undertaken by industry and the artists involved in production. The focus at this time however is the analysis of a certain system of design, art and the aesthetics reflected in the work of The AlterEgo Project of DArlen Design which speaks of production, our industry and the politics of the brand. Dean Arlen, (C)Riverside Drive, New York 16th July 2009 - January 22nd, 2011, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.  MATERIAL: GRAVEL SHIFTER, ASSORTED MATERIALS, ACRYLIC, OIL PASTELS DIMENSIONS:H30XW15XD4,1/2  DATE:1990 DIMESION: H15"XW15"X5,1/2" MATERIALS: BEER CANS, BOTTLE, WOOD, ACRYLIC, OIL PASTELLS.  DATE: 2002 MATERIAL: MATEL, 15 DRAWINGS, TAPE, TEXTS. DIMENSIONS: VARIABLE. The Future Objective. The Design Lab- The artists must control production or have access to spaces where production can exist. The artists must have access to space that will allow for intense exploration into the possibilities of art and design. A space that will allow the artists the freedom to explore language, philosophy, form and content with an intensity that will allow for sudden moments, which can inspire shifts into the aesthetic landscape and challenge the modern discourse of art and design. Here we can have access to the machinery the tools that can build on the conceptualization of artists. Location- Aripo. Dimensions- 32’x21’x36 varying. The Intent - The development of DA.DA+PROJECTS, will state to encourage projects that will push art and design performance within communities. From here we will be able to analyze the product and re-access its value to industry, community and state. Through projects and support the design lab will become a natural realization. Design Lab Conceptual Drawings 2010(C). Contact- C-1-868-722-6153 H-1-868-662-7076 Email- dean_arlen@yahoo.com Check me on Facebook. Look out for my website. Conceptual Furniture Designs for the Alter Ego Project 2010(C) |
Looking forward to the exhibition.
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