Antony Hudek has curated an exhibition, 'The Incidental Person' at apexart, NYC, which strikes a chord with the ideas we are dealing with within Nine Trades of Dundee (my bold):
The late British artist John Latham referred to the
'Incidental Person' as someone who invests a situation, observes it and responds to it in a specific, though not necessarily tangible or practical, way. For Latham and some of the other artists involved in Artist Placement Group (APG) between the 1960s and 1980s,
the Incidental Person allowed the emphasis to shift from the person's identity — 'artist', 'theorist', 'worker', 'politician' etc. — to her or his engagement in a given context. Hence APG's axiom
'Context is half the work.'
In recounting the origins of APG, Barbara Steveni has said that the initial incident occurred when Robert Filliou and Daniel Spoerri, who were staying with her and John Latham to prepare an exhibition in London, needed some found material. Despite the late hour, Steveni offered to collect whatever she could find at an industrial site beyond the city limits. Sifting through debris while the factory was in full activity, she experienced a “eureka” moment, as she put it: “
Why aren’t we here? Not to pick up buckets of plastic, but because
there’s a whole life that we don’t touch. This is what people go on about — academics, artists, politicians — but they go nowhere near it.” This exhibition includes projects by people who attempt precisely to “touch” what is “out there”, who, while meticulously attentive to the context at hand, refuse to hew to such distinctions as art/non-art, art/life or art/politics.
We welcomed Nine Trades of Dundee artists Ange Taggart and David Yu to Dundee yesterday. Both are working on finding host organisations and have meetings with different businesses this week. We had a good tour around a few of the town's pubs and bars to check out locations for David's project http://www.ninetrades.com/projects/DavidYu.htm and we heard some stories and saw some sights (and some unusual decor!). We are hoping something comes together for him soon so we can announce asap. There are some great bars in Dundee - here is a couple of pictures of The Speedwell / Mennies (Laura from the Nine Trades team used to work here!)
Images courtesy Speedwell-bar.co.uk
