"Get a Life" by Donald Brook: A Review

This review was originally published in Artlink Magazine Vol.34 No.3 here.

Get a life is a deceptive book, not because its author seeks to misdirect the reader, nor because he is in any way naive about the implications of his theories, but because the ideas it contains are so entertainingly and unthreateningly presented, yet on close examination they turn out to have teeth — sharp ones.

This new ebook by the British-Australian art theorist Donald Brook is a compendium of papers, articles and biographical recollections that trace Brook's developing thought from the mid 1960's to the present day. The various "perls" (a pun on the computer programming language), as he calls them, are strung together with chronological recollections of Brook's many involvements with the Australian artworld during the same period as well as several descriptions of other formative, informative, extraordinary, exasperating and sometimes poignant episodes and encounters.

For the last 50 years Brook has been weaving together various closely interrelated strands of conceptual analysis leading to the formulation of a body of theories with significant implications for our understanding of art, culture and perception — issues that are as relevant today as they ever were. Whether a modest ebook is the most appropriate or impactful means of disseminating these ideas remains to be seen, but it would be a mistake to conclude that the contents of this offering apply merely to the production, theory and consumption or artworks or even to the wider machinations of the artworld. Even a brief scan should be sufficient to persuade even the most skeptical reader that this book is packed with ideas, thought-provoking challenges to orthodoxy and even several powerful conceptual tools that could easily keep a diligent theorist employed for a very long time indeed.

Such glowing remarks beg a glaring question: if Brook has been a prominent and widely published member of the Australian artworld and his ‘perls’ have frequently been dispersed in international waters then why is he almost completely unknown outside Australia? It is tempting to jump to some scathing conclusions here about the narrow focus of the Anglo American outlook but whilst there is probably some truth in this conclusion I suspect that the factors involved are more complex than such a superficial response would suggest. 

The period of Brook's principal activity coincides with one in which Continental philosophy in general and Post-Structuralism in particular have held considerable attractions for many artists and art theorists. The clear reverberations of this cultural trend can still be discerned amongst much contemporary art and art criticism, yet throughout this period Brook's allegiances have remained firmly within the Analytic tradition, a tradition known more for its asceticism and restraint than its ability to enthral, entertain or even to mystify. The artworld isn't exactly renowned for its preoccupation with clarity, conceptual precision and disciplined enquiry and this presents a difficulty for any theorist aligned more with Wittgenstein, Ryle and J. L. Austin than Barthes, Derrida or Merleau-Ponty. This is not to say that Brook's writings are arid tracts with humble ambitions, quite the reverse, but what it does mean is that his rejection of much that is held sacred both within the Continental as well as the Analytic traditions of philosophy leaves him with few allies in the philosophy camp. Little wonder then that he continues to describe himself an artist and art theorist. But this also inevitably puts him into conflict with advocates of the transcendence of art or its intrinsic alterity and ineffability. Brook's claims are at once more substantial and more insightful and by diligent means he takes the careful reader on a journey that leads to some extraordinarily revealing realisations about the intimate and inextricable relations between representation, perception art and culture.

One of the most important additions to the toolkit of any bona fide pearl hunter is a implement for levering apart the two halves of shells that stubbornly conceal their contents. Over the years Brook has developed an uncanny knack of driving a critical wedge between what are commonly regarded as indivisible entities, of making distinctions where only ambiguity reigns. In the 1960’s he began to focus his attention on a curious division commonly encountered in commentaries on sculpture. In the paper "Perception and the Critical Appraisal of Sculpture" (1969) Brook describes how commentators often adopt one of two distinct forms of descriptive strategy that he defines as "Object Accounts" or "Picture Accounts". It turns out that these two approaches are the linguistic face of two radically different procedures of nonverbal representation, procedures that inform our everyday speech to a significant degree. Moreover, Picture Accounts are the result of cultural innovations of the kind exemplified by the 15h Century discovery of perspective and—incidentally—are centrally implicated in the perplexities of many optical illusions. Many such techniques that we now take for granted were completely unknown in ancient times, for example the knack of using blue pigments to depict aerial perspective. Only in recent years has it been confirmed — thus corroborating Brook's thesis — that colour perception for example is significantly informed by the cultural emergence of skills and materials capable of enhancing our genetically inherited capacities.

The emphasis on cultural innovation in Brook's thought is crucial and leads to several other important insights, perhaps the most prominent of which is a theory of what art actually is: an old canard perhaps but one that finds new life under Brook's discriminating lens. Brook argues that the artworld has a vested interest in claiming that art is a unique commodity that inheres only in works of art, whereas art is in fact the emergence of previously unexpected skills of human ingenuity that, once discovered, can subsequently be repeated and refined. Computer games, perspective, nicotine patches, photographs, particle accelerators, sculptures and even new forms of crime are all products of art. Whether these artefacts of art will be accepted by the artworld as works of art is, of course, a question that actually has very little to do with art. Furthermore, what follows, as Brook is quick to clarify, is the realisation that there is no such thing as art history, only the "construction of a rag-bag of stories about the ways in which certain loosely related cultural kinds have emerged, have changed, and have eventually been superseded."

Inevitably the arguments are more subtly nuanced than a brief summary can possibly elucidate but it should be apparent that this ebook has a lot to offer anyone interested in getting to grips with issues that have stymied philosophers and art theorists for centuries. Theories of all kinds should be measured by their ability to enable insights and to explain puzzles that have so far eluded our best efforts. Ideally they should also be clear and the examples they provide, vividly accessible. Get a Life succeeds admirably in doing so and into the bargain we also get several other gems including one of the most ludicrously funny yet shockingly chilling recollections ever to have graced the pages of a book of theory. "Depravity in Wharfdale" is a masterpiece of storytelling that will leave you breathless with its laughable grotesquery.

Brook can certainly spin a yarn, but even though Get a Life is frequently entertaining his intention is clearly not to regale us nor to showcase his linguistic or critical prowess but to provide an opportunity for close scrutiny of radical ideas that are in genuine need of serious critical attention. Inevitably there are times where the measured discussion betrays a hint of irritation at the paucity of critical reception of his work but it is clear that Brook has more pressing repercussions to explore than to become embroiled in petty bickering or bitterness.

Get a Life is an immensely intelligent book. It is witty but never cocky, eloquent but never showy, insightful but never boastful, and challenging but never laboured. Of course, you will want to draw your own conclusions. I can only recommend that you get a copy (here).

Recognition

Language has to be learned, but what of images?

In recent decades, research using functional brain imaging techniques has shown conclusively what many people already suspected; namely, that when we re-encounter something, our brain activity corresponds closely to that of earlier encounters of the same kind. There really couldn't be a better word to describe this than "recognition". We also know from related studies that representations also trigger corresponding recognition networks to the things represented, and even linguistic representations—nouns for instance—which bear nothing in common with the things they nominate, activate many portions of the brain associated with the things named, as well as others involved with language processing and conceptual understanding. Image recognition on the other hand, although it may trigger language associations, is not reliant upon language. Pictures, photorealistic pictures especially, are recognised because in certain respects and in certain circumstances they share much in common with the things they depict.

Last week, in a BBC programme devoted to the work of artist Michael Craig-Martin, the artist' final words are:

If you go back to the books that children are taught words in, you will have a picture of a ball and then there's the word "ball". And the reason for the book is to teach the child to know the word ball. But it's based on the idea that they already know what the picture is, because there isn't a ball there. There's a picture of a ball. So the child already has learned how to read pictures of things as though they were the things. Now, we do that so early, we are probably doing that at about two or three months. That's the foundation of language, not the words - it's the pictures of things that are the basis of our understanding.

We could quibble over the finer logic of Craig-Martin's thinking here but the general point is correct: we recognise representations as representations long before we learn to speak or read. What is less clear though, and what research has yet to confirm, is at which developmental period infants and animals become capable of responding differentially to representations as opposed to the things they represent. In other words: we don't yet know at what point infants learn that representations are representations, i.e. when their brain activity switches from the simple recognition of things in depictions to a recognition of depictions as depictions—as tools. It seems likely that this emergence is gradual, as gradual as the emergence of consciousness itself. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the ability to discriminate between a representation and whatever is represented lies at the very heart of consciousness.

In Direct Realism

An indirect portrait

An oil painting of the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid looks down from the wall of the room at Glasgow University that carries his name. Ask any member of the philosophy staff, as I did a couple of weeks ago, whether the painting is the original and you may well get the same answer: “I’m not sure… I think so”.  

Thomas Reid held the title of Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University from 1764 – 81 and is renowned for his disagreement with David Hume over the question of whether we experience reality directly or only as ideas in the mind, as Hume claimed.

By 1940 the British Analytic philosopher J. L. Austin outlined several significant misgivings with the linguistic snake in the grass known to philosophers as "indirect” perception.  He remarks: "The expression can cover too many rather different cases to be just what is wanted in any particular case."

When viewing a painted portrait, nobody would ever seriously argue that we see the sitter directly. But if Reid's stuffed head hung on the wall of Glasgow University, like a trophy stag in a Scottish baronial house, there would be little doubt (excepting the Hume’s of this world) about whether we saw the philosopher (or at least his remains) directly.

To receive something directly is usually for it to be available without delay or mediation. Face to face communication is direct in a way that letters and emails are not. But what about video phone technologies? Are Skype or FaceTime more direct than a letter? Austin would probably be quick to warn that individual cases are unlikely to help us in elucidating the broader question.

Perhaps the most important factor in any evaluation of directness is the degree to which something is mediated. The more mediation involved, the more opportunity there is for uncertainty about the nature of the mediation. Mediation opens the door to influence and this enables distortion and - most notably where human agency is involved - the possibility of manipulation and deceit.

Perhaps one of the principal reasons anyone might be interested in an original object as opposed its reproduction is because originals are valued for their directness, for their irreducible proximity to their point of origin. All forms of human intervention or technical reproduction are thought to contaminate or dilute this directness and to devalue the result. It should be noted though that this ‘sense’ of directness is in many ways a notional one. Without doubt there are numerous objects in the world that are believed to be originals but which are in fact copies, replicas or fakes. No doubt there are also originals in circulation that are believed to be of uncertain origin. Directness is something we attribute to artefacts and is not always – or even often - something that is borne upon their face, as the portrait hanging in the Reid room of Glasgow University clearly attests.

Sir Henry Raeburn's original

What better place for a portrait of a well known and respected philosopher than a university philosophy department? But then again, if the staff and students are unconcerned about its provenance then perhaps a reproduction is a perfect substitute. When I saw the painting hanging in the Reid room it just didn’t seem likely that it could be the original. The lack of security or attribution, the poor lighting, tatty décor and my vague suspicion that the original had been painted by one of Scotland’s most venerated painters, Sir Henry Raeburn, all suggested that this must be a copy. A little online detective work confirmed my suspicions. The painting hanging in the Reid room is a skilful copy attributed to the English painter James Cranke Jr. Even more interesting is the fact that the ‘original’, held by the Hunterian Art Gallery (part of Glasgow University), was painted in the year of Reid’s death from a preparatory portrait that is now in the ownership of the National Trust for Scotland, Fyvie Castle, Aberdeenshire.  Some would say, this preparatory study, also created by Raeburn, is the much better - and certainly the more direct - of the three portraits.

Sir Henry Raeburn's "summary" portrait, 1796

Sawdust Breeding

A Puzzled Question and a Thoughtful Reply

A friend, poet Thomas A Clark, is currently involved in a curatorial project (blog) with art historian Alistair Rider of the School of Art History at St Andrews University, called ‘The Single Road’ – after Mondrian’s famous assertion that ‘True art like true life takes a single road’. They are examining a wide range of artists from the mid 1960s onwards who have dedicated their careers to one ongoing project, such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, Daniel Buren, Alan Charlton, Hamish Fulton, On Kawara, Roman Opalka and Ad Reinhardt.

I've followed their progress along The Single Road for some time and the other day I sent Tom and Alistair a few thoughts and questions. You can find these along with Tom's thoughtful response here.

Experimentation and Discovery (art and science)

©/Hamlyn/ Punton, SCA Sydney 2011

The Swiss artist Roman Signer is renowned for the quirky and inventive “events” he stages using a diversity of familiar objects (suitcases, canoes, bicycles, umbrellas etc.) transformed through explosions and other dynamic forces of change. Constantly varying the conditions and combinations of materials and setting, Signer has compiled a vast compendium of varied and thought provoking works that span more than 35 years of continual practice.

Much of the work is modest in scale, resisting the temptation toward grand gesture so common amongst established artists, and whilst the work often refers to the idea of the spectacle it rarely reduces (or exceeds) to the merely spectacular, preferring rather to explore the more familiar and personable scale of everyday experience. This contrast becomes all the more provocative due to his careful balancing of proportions processes and materials.

Commentators upon Signer’s work frequently make reference the terms “experimental”, “experiment” and “experimentation”. These terms are clearly intended to suggest the testing of volatile substances, the combination of unpredictable circumstances and the uncertainty of the result. In this sense the word “experiment” is used loosely to refer to the idea of trying something out to experience a process and result.

Scientific experiments, on the other hand, are more rigidly defined:

“experiment
noun |ɪkˈspɛrɪm(ə)nt| |ɛk-| a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact”

It would seem unfair to apply a scientific expectation to Signer’s practice, after all, it was never intended to prove or disprove a hypothesis, nor to demonstrate a fact nor even make a discovery (though many would disagree with me in this last instance). I would contend that the “discoveries” have already largely been made in the initial imaginative visualization/conceptualization of the ideas and in the more speculative testing of methods and materials. For example, we rarely, if ever, see the many failures that inevitably occur in preparation for the work we do see. This is not to say that beautiful incidents and accidents are absent from Signer’s work but, due to the often hazardous materials and circumstances involved, there is perhaps less room for improvisation than might otherwise be the case.

AS Do you have any expectations when you’re working on something?

RS Never, but I imagine certain scenarios. The ideal-case scenario is the one I had imagined: for instance, there’s a puff of smoke and a helicopter disappears into it and then emerges again. But when I do an action it might turn out completely different. That’s the adventure. I’m actually looking for small adventures in art. Otherwise art gets boring.

This process of allowing the work to lead to unforeseen conclusions – of courting the unpredictable - is a major compulsion for many, perhaps all, artists. In so many instances of creative production there is such a demand for control of materials, of skill in manufacture and realisation that little room is left for surprise and serendipity (or failure for that matter). Too much expertise too rigidly applied often results in the most stilted, preconceived and lifeless work. No doubt this is why Signer is so fascinated with the explosive moment. It is a dangerous game and one in which a great deal of care must be taken to ensure that even the desire for unpredictability remains within certain given tolerances. In many ways it is this implicit threat, this frisson, that fuels the underlying appeal of Signer’s work.

In a scientific experiment the outcome is paramount and is intended to either prove or disprove a theory. Once again, as with Signer, the result of the experiment is less a discovery than the realisation (or in the case of science – possibly the contradiction) of what has already been imagined. For Karl Popper this potential for confirmatory or dis-confirmatory outcome (testability and falsifiability) exactly differentiates science from pseudo science.

Scientific discoveries then, are the result of a two part process, first of theory formation followed by proof through experiment. If a test fails, either the experiment was poorly conceived, poorly conducted or else the theory was flawed. For this reason science attempts, wherever possible, to limit the number of variables in any given experiment in order to avoid rogue results. Art, on the other hand, often multiplies the variables in order to do the very reverse. Unexpected results in art, when they are not detrimental to the result, are often perceived and presented as discoveries since anything that contradicts expectation is likely to provoke curiosity and may even have instructive value, if only on a technical level. Discoveries, thus encountered, are valued but rarely, if ever, become part of a systematic inquiry since the object of art is less about illustrating facts and securing knowledge than producing meaning and experience (and that’s a subject for another blog post).

Legend

Security panel at the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo, which houses Piero Della Francesca’s famous Legend of the True Cross. ©Jim Hamlyn

David Bellingham – Elected Works

The following is a text written to accompany the current exhibition of works by David Bellingham at Cairn gallery (details below).

IDEAS LEAVE OBJECTS STANDING
David Bellingham, 2010. Image by Laurie Clark.

Do they? Is this true? Do ideas really transcend objects? Or is the reverse the case - as is also suggested by this text piece - are ideas outlived by objects? And there’s yet another dimension to this relationship: ideas are also formed by objects - as William Carlos Williams famously repeated: “No ideas but in things.”

It's at once an aphorism, a manifesto, a short poem, a collection of traces upon a surface and a proposition in two contradictory phrases. But the power of this statement lies entirely in the duality between one interpretation and its near opposite, in the oscillation between the two, neither of which can be accommodated by the other. It is, in fact, two aphorisms, two manifestoes, two short poems combined in a single black and white configuration of concrete language.

In many ways we do indeed believe that ideas, and the thoughts from which they arise, transcend objects and the limited forms from which they, in turn, are composed. Ideas lead to deeds (sometimes to creations even) and it’s through these that both objects and people are judged. But ideas are also easily forgotten, as are the deeds which come as a consequence. Only objects endure. The difference is equivalent to that between text and spoken word. One endures and the other disperses the moment it is uttered. But the immediacy and transience of the second is often valued over the permanence and impersonal nature of the first. Speech has an object - it goes directly in search of an enemy, or a friend, and it's this immanence, this more personal intention which lends the spoken word it's significance.

IDEAS LEAVE OBJECTS STANDING, 2004

This text piece has found various forms in David's practice from canvas, to wall text to ceramic mugs. I own two such mugs - one of which I use at home and the other I use at work at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen. For several years it has followed me to tutorials and critiques making its quiet statement and keeping me refreshed and therefore better able to do my job. Rarely does anyone comment on or question my mug, which I assume to be either a suggestion that it's accepted as reflective of my general philosophical attitude, or perhaps because it's a little daunting or even the reverse: simply another superficial remark or branding attached to one of many mass produced objects which we use on a daily basis.

At one time the mug I use in Aberdeen was frequently borrowed by a colleague on the regular days that I wasn't around. I'd frequently return to work to find the dried dregs of coffee in it or occasionally it would be absent from my desk and I’d only find it some time later unwashed and abandoned in one of the studios. Despite not wishing to seem possessive about something as trivial as a mug, I finally I gave in to my irritation and decided to request that my colleague stop using it. This was immediately accepted but I've subsequently noticed that there's a hairline crack across the shoulder of the handle which has presumably been caused by a fall whilst washing it up in one of the porcelain studio sinks. It's impossible to know for certain whether I did it myself or not but it barely matters because the mug still functions perfectly well and has, in some ways, gained more character because of this unique flaw. I’ve come to like it. It seems, in its own way, to say something about David’s text. It’s a counterpoint to the authority of the opposition set up between objects and ideas. It’s a statement about the role of imperfection itself as both a thing and an idea but also as a property which we have a strangely ambivalent attitude towards.

We often think that it’s the quality of materials that makes things valuable. In addition we prize refinement, workmanship and the evidence of human investment and ingenuity. Such things confer value upon objects but it’s nonetheless the case that these material qualities are superseded by the associations carried by an object. In spite of even the most humble commonplace materials and mass production processes we’re highly susceptible to the aura of association, and this can come in a multitude of different guises. Advertising and design are predicated on this very inclination on our part. We’re impressionable consumers of value and our values shift according to constantly changing eddies in the climate of association, history and meaning. And this is why something as simple and unprepossessing as a cracked mug can seem all the more valuable and unique than its almost identical but more perfect twin.

Elected Works

Works by David Bellingham elected by:

John Bevis, Ross Birrell, Pavel Büchler, Laurie Clark, Thomas A Clark, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Simon Cutts, Francis Edeline, Adam Gibbons, Harry Gilonis, Jim Hamlyn, John Janssen, Julie Johnstone, Peter Manson, Jonathan Monk, Ken Neil, Lisa Otty, Roger Palmer, Dominic Paterson, Colin Sackett, John Shankie & David Shrigley

12 September – 16 October 2010, open by appointment

Cairn

28 Viewforth Place

Pittenweem, Fife

KY10 2PZ Scotland

www.cairneditions.blogspot.com

Prize Winners, Knights, Clones and Rejects

Yesterday I visited Martin Creed's exhibition, "Down Over Up", at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. I'll refrain from discussing the Ins and Outs of the work here other than to say that it's worth seeing if you're in the vicinity.

At the entrance to the gallery is an introductory text intended to give some context and background to the exhibition. It has become something of a cliché to introduce such solo exhibitions by listing the various prizes awarded to the artist during their career. How should we interpret this emphasis and what might it tell us about the values of such art galleries? Perhaps it's assumed that the ‘doubting public’ will be persuaded by this conventionalised claim to authority and recognition. I’m reminded of Madonna's 2001 prize-giving speech when Creed won the Turner Prize:

The figure who introduces Madonna in the video and stands to her side is Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate and chairman of the Turner Prize committee. In the book “Seven Days in the Art World”, Sarah Thornton describes an interview with “Sir Nick” in which they discuss his misgivings about the prize:

"Competition between artists is almost taboo in the art world, and Serota admitted that contests like the Turner Prize are “iniquitous in drawing distinctions between artists of very different kinds.” […] “Few artists enjoy direct competition,” said Serota. “Artists struggle to express themselves, and for that they need an inordinate amount of self-belief. In some circumstances that self-belief will shift into competitiveness, but it is rarely comfortable.”

Later in the essay Thornton catches up with Martin Creed at the 2006 Turner Prize awards ceremony:

"For Creed, no one is ever best in show. 'If the artists create artworks then the judges create a winner. Whoever they choose is a reflection of themselves.'"

It would be a mistake to think that this kind of situation is restricted only to the higher echelons of the art world. The process of moulding individuals in our own image is prevalent throughout society and academia is no exception:

“In describing the ideal we look for the impossible, and we begin at a point where we are looking for those who most closely match our desires and probably ourselves. These models are culturally loaded in favour of a constructed notion of the masculinist, unencumbered affluent individual. The ‘ideal student’ would demonstrate that they are ‘fit’ in a Darwinian way to take up the subject the minute they enter into the world of higher education. They would be highly motivated and as passionate about their subject as their tutors.” (Vaughan et al. 2008)

This has everything to do with the distorted logic of meritocracy and most especially the idea that we should reward people for their talents and abilities. (Achievement is it’s own reward and we’re in danger of creating complex problems when we create prizes to heap on the already fortunate - I’ll come back to this issue in a later post). The other problem with the idea of meritocracy is that it assumes that we’re ‘good’ at spotting - or agreeing on what constitutes - talent and ability in the first place. Consider for a moment the artist Susan Philipsz who applied, and was rejected, for a place at Glasgow School of Art in the late 80’s. Earlier this year Philipsz was nominated for the Turner Prize, but considering the ‘masculinist’ track record of the Turner Prize judges (3 female winners in a quarter of a century) she probably stands less chance than she did of getting into Glasgow School of Art.

“If there were any sense that someone was going to win because of his or her gender or ethnicity, then the prize would lose all credibility.” - Nicholas Serota

References:

THORNTON, S. 2008. Seven Days in the Art World. Granta, London.

VAUGHAN, S. et al. (2008) Mind the gap : expectations, ambiguity and pedagogy within art and design higher education. In: L. Drew ed. The Student Experience in Art and Design Higher Education : Drivers for Change. Jill Rogers Associates Limited, Cambridge, pp. 125-148.

Homage

Ceci n'est pas une skype

Robert Cumming

A few weeks ago I was sent a link to the work of Caleb Charland who produces black-and-white photographs of pseudo-experiments and strange Heath Robinsonesque constructions using light, magnets, water and various other objects and materials. I was immediately struck by the similarities between Charland's work and the work of Robert Cumming who was very active in the 1970s West Coast American conceptual art scene.

I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of Robert Cumming's work at MoMA in New York in 1996 and whilst there I also bought a copy of the exhibition catalogue. Unfortunately Cummings work is fairly poorly represented in history books and monographs on his work are very rare so I often find myself lending my catalogue to students.

Lending books to people is a risky business at the best of times but when it's a book that you're particularly fond of there's a real disincentive to let it out of your sight. I've lost numerous books and DVDs in this way over the years, so I'm now in the habit of looking artists up on the Internet and sending students web links rather than lending out my precious book collection. It's not an ideal situation because the materiality, structure and precision of books is inevitably lost when they're translated into a crude set of online images. However, when the choice is between a pale simulacrum or nothing at all, I think most of us would prefer the former.

When I looked up Robert Cumming online I was both surprised and disappointed to find that there's barely anything available at all. As a student I remember seeing several images of Cumming's work in different books and exhibitions and being really inspired by the inventive and quirky charm of his images. Hopefully the following may go some way to at least giving a vague impression of what a remarkable image maker Robert Cumming was in the prime of his engagement with photography.

Who Knowes Raymond Moore?

Raes Knowes, 1980

When I was an art foundation student at Trent Polytechnic I lodged in the house of an art teacher working at a nearby school. Ivan shared my interest in photography, and one evening he invited me to watch a television programme about the work of a British photographer called Raymond Moore. As with many of the artists I saw at this time, I tried to emulate Moore’s work as a method of understanding his approach and ideas and as a way to develop my own.

Untitled, 1987

The following year Raymond Moore visited the course (which I had subsequently joined) as a visiting lecturer. There were a total of 18 students on the course at the time and Ray was only employed for a single day, so I was lucky to have a tutorial with him. I can remember very little of what he said about the work I showed him. I had been making a lot of colour landscape images with a Diana camera at the time. I imagine he was rather unimpressed with the distortion and vignetting caused by the camera and I’m sure he felt that this was an unnecessary distraction.

Maryport, 1980

At this time Ray and Mary Moore Cooper used to run occasional photography workshops at their home in the Scottish borders, which were attended by serious amateurs and students. Quite soon after the events described above, my course was offered a free place on one of these workshops and it came down to the toss of a coin between myself and a rival student. Luckily for me I won the toss, but my good fortune was short-lived since, for reasons which I fail to remember, the workshop was called off. As compensation, I was offered a free place for the following year but before the year was out, Ray had died at the age of 67 from a heart attack.

Forrest Town, 1978

A year later, and in a completely different phase of my work, influenced, for the most part, by long discussions about Marxist aesthetics and the emancipation of the proletariat, I was asked by an exchange student what I thought of the work of Ray Moore. I replied cynically "Genteel nonsense!" or something to that effect. I remember the response very well, which was far more than my ungenerous reply deserved. The exchange student asked me whether I thought that such work might become meaningful to me later in life. I don't remember my response but since my tendency at the time was always to replace lack of opinion with dismissive cynicism I assume that it must have been in the negative.

Galloway, 1977

Three years later, while still studying (and my Marxist tendencies having been subtly mollified) I was offered the opportunity of work assisting Mary Moore Cooper with the Raymond Moore Archive in Dumfries. I spent several weeks camping in a nearby campsite and cycling into Gracefield Arts Centre to make contact prints of several thousand rolls of film which Ray had never contact-printed, believing as he did, that 35mm contact sheets were next-to-useless in determining the most successful image to be printed. Once I had served this initiation in the dim confines of a darkroom and the similarly cramped gloom of a tent, I was allowed to assist Mary more closely with the preparation of the archive. The following year I was invited back to Dumfriesshire to assist Mary with her own work. Throughout these times I was uniquely privileged with an opportunity to experience first-hand the images, paraphernalia and library which Ray and Mary had amassed and to hear many fascinating accounts of their life together from Mary and friends and visitors to the archive.

Maryport, 1982

The extraordinary thing about these priceless experiences was that I was actually being paid - I couldn't have afforded to do otherwise. The impact was therefore twofold - I was able to save money to enable my final studies and I was being exposed to the work and rich remnants of one of the most gifted British photographers of the 20th Century. You may feel that such a claim is overstating the point - for instance, how come Raymond Moore isn't a household name? Or why, at least, don't photography students know his work? Unfortunately the answer to this question is the most lamentable aspect of the whole Raymond Moore story and one which continues to shroud a body of work which represents such a profoundly important part of the legacy of British photographic history.

Dumfriesshire, 1985

Galloway, 1981

Ray was fascinated by the commonplace, by the quotidian and by the landscape of border towns and domesticated borderlands. Nobody has taught me more about the variety, depth and nuances of boundaries and boundedness than Raymond Moore. Whether through fields or walls; fences or frames; windows or verges or darkness and light, Moore was a visionary of the boundary.

Allonby, 1981

Unfortunately, too few people are interested in such subtleties in the UK, even though (and perhaps in spite of the fact that) Moore’s vision is archetypically British: its modesty, its reserve and its gentility – yes, I still believe it’s genteel, but it speaks with such a charm and quiet wit and such a sophisticated precision of form that, understated as it is, it vehemently questions why so many people, who should know better, are seduced by the mind-numbing superficiality of a Crewdson or La Chappelle.

Galloway, 1980

I have a Raymond Moore print on my wall at home (which Mary kindly gave me as a gift) and every time I look at it I'm filled with both admiration at it's achievement and sadness at the intractability and lack of vision of people more intent upon their own sense of something’s monetary value rather than its more ineffable and therefore difficult to quantify value as a product of human ingenuity and love – for certainly Ray loved what he did and wished to share this love through his work and his teaching. I can’t help thinking that the history of British photography is so much the worse off for the neglect of the deeply significant contribution of Raymond Moore. And I don’t mean history in the sense of something dead and gone but rather in the sense of something which still has the potential to change people’s lives - that is an experience which no pricetag can ever put a value on. It's depressing to know that this potential continues to be withheld at a time when the work's ability to resonate with people can still be felt in its immediate effect.

Or, as John Berger has written:

“...art is not timeless and eternal. Great works survive their period, but that is not to say that they do not die. After that period they live again by virtue of a sort of resurrection. This after-life, however, is never the same intense, committed thing as their original life... If this is true, one can better understand the horrific absurdity of artists consciously working for the future - ‘ I shall only be properly appreciated in 100 years’ time.’... We must recognise that there is such a thing as the natural death of a work of art. Nor is it morbidity that makes me say this is a recognition we should celebrate. Only if we recognise the mortality of art shall we cease to stand in such superstitious awe of it – only then shall we consider art expendable and so have the courage to risk using it for our own immediate, urgent, only important purposes.”

For more infomation about Raymond Moore visit here