I validate therefore I am.

Well i said I'd get to this blog subject first but you beat me 2 posts ago....

So i was thinking about validation prior to and now definitely since our interview with Amanda Ravetz for: How artists operating primarily outside of the gallery system gain traction and visibility. The research is being led by MIRIAD - at manchester school of art on behalf of Axisweb. 

I found this cartoon and it made me laugh. Then i heard a radio interview with a woman who had just won journalist of the year or something for a report she did about Syria. She was talking about the new world of news and how people beyond the profession were writing, blogging tweeting etc. When asked if she thought it meant journalism was being lost, she responded - "well whats interesting is interesting". She meant to a audience and it made me think what i said in the interview with Amanda, in the new world order the boy from Brighton who posts up a great film and gets 234934810832023 hits or something is validated by his peers - you cant ignore the views... whats interesting is interesting..... Of course i think we need a range of outlets for journalism and like wise a range of meeting art... i want to hear what Jon Snow has to say, as well as a woman in a house in the middle of Syria. It comes back to the Harvest Festival analogy: a good mix of all sorts - tins, homemade cakes, some onions, and a couple of packets of jelly.

Anyway, about the same time, I was listening to the end or year financial reports for Sainsburys and what impact say Lidl had had on their figures. I was thinking about how supermarket places are having to reinvent themselves and how that's was a struggle. Again it was an example of how the different thing [Lidl in this case] had done things differently and a new way of being was happening - it was challenging old orders and perhaps for the best.

These things made me think about galleries and how they might have to look differently if they want to find something different out - something that doesn't look like whats gone before,,,,, but then perhaps they don't want something different because it works currently?  So then i thought well why do i care, if a gallery validates my work or not, because actually i have chosen to work in the way i do and so i validate it. More importantly though the people who take part, benefit, learn etc validate it. I am talking from a privileged position - i am being funded by ACE, I meet the current criteria for drawing down money. But somehow this in part doesn't make me critical enough for galleries or commercial enough or focused enough - i am diluting the practice. All of which led me to turn the whole validation by galleries thing around, take the power back and come up with the idea that: Our way of working invalidates the gallery. And if we really want to create opportunities for change then we need to not be concerned with the old world order and instead really create the NEW.