Michael Asher vs. Daniel Buren

In the same way that Broodthaers’ press release stripped back the layers of the art world, so too did Michael Asher’s work inside the gallery, and Daniel Buren’s work outside the gallery. Both were site-specific, but worked in different ways. Asher worked towards ‘institutional critique’ from inside the gallery, by forcing the viewer to confront how they viewed art and ignored the setting the work was in. Buren’s work took art out onto the streets and deconstructed the power relationships that exist within traditional gallery space, by not allowing them to build up in his work. Both their works defy the art market due to their site-specific nature.

Asher’s work for his 2008 exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art consists of aluminium and wooden studwork that show where the walls had been for previous SMMOA shows (pictured above). By layering the stud walls so you can scarcely see through them he breaks down the layers of illusion set up by the gallery that say that shows are independent of one another. His installation shows that exhibitions are not separate from previous ones in that space, and now that his piece has been there, anyone that saw it will not be able to forget the experience of his work in that space when they come for another show.

In 1986 Buren created an installation for the great courtyard of the Palais Royal, Paris, called Les Deux Plateaux. It consisted of striped pillars of varying heights. Buren used stripes throughout his artistic career, notably when he put up hundreds of striped posters throughout Paris, and when he decorated the escalators in 2006 for Art Unlimited. His posters and other stripes weren’t saleable, and could be seen by everyone, which challenged the idea of art as elitist.

I think Asher’s work for the SMMOA is more successful than Buren’s, although Buren does manage to get his ideas across to more people, through sheer volume of subliminal images and scattered sculptures. I like Asher’s installation because of the way it makes the viewer appreciate that the gallery is not a blank space without ideologies, but really a space filled with them.

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The Art Press Release

The press release has become boring. It’s rare now for anyone to do something with an art show press release that isn’t just telling, in 3^rd person, the details of the event. They read more like reports than how press releases can be. There are even articles on the Internet on how to write the perfect press release, even down to which font to use (http://www.ehow.com/how_4579632_write-artist-press-release.html), but none encourage the artist to have fun with it, and be experimental.

Marcel Broodthaers’ press release of 1964 was completely different to those now, and of his time as well:

“I, too, wondered whether I could not sell something and succeed in life. For some time I had been no good at anything. I am forty years old… Finally the idea of inventing something insincere finally crossed my mind and I set to work straightaway. At the end of three months I showed what I has produced to Philippe Edouard Toussaint, the owner of the Galerie St Laurant. ‘But it is art,’ he said, ‘and I will willingly exhibit all of it.’ ‘Agreed,’ I replied. If I sell something, he takes 30%. It seems these are the usual conditions, some galleries take 75%. What is it? In fact it is objects.” Broodthaers, 1964

Broodthaers’ work often contained text, which indicates that he saw his 1964 press release as a piece of art, contributing to the work for his exhibition and setting the tone for the rest of the work. His work frequently addressed the ideology of the gallery space, and was a big contributor to what O’Doherty called ‘institutional critique’. His press release can be seen as fitting in with this side of his work, creating a comment on the traditional press release, the gallery space, and the art market, by stripping back the layers to reveal the ‘truth’. The press release he wrote seems very honest. He writes about being ‘insincere’, but in a sincere way. It seems he is not just stripping back the layers of the art market and the gallery, but also his own work, and work of others. The inclusion of humour separates it from other, more staid, press releases, as does the personal nature. It feels more like we are reading Broodthaers’ diary entry than what is essentially an advert for his work. I think more press releases now should read along these lines, particularly if the exhibition is about institutional critique, as it will add another layer to the artist’s work.