Leeds 2023, who are putting together the bid for Leeds to become European Capital of Culture, are encouraging us to:
I recommend my new art concept, Man Brick, for their esteemed consideration…
532 naked men, arranged in the shape of a brick, laid out on waste land in Holbeck… This is Man Brick!
Drawing influences from Anthony Gormley, Carl Andre and Spencer Tunick, and working across multiple disciplines, my practice explores the nexus between presence, event and object and how their inter-connections can be paralleled in the relationship between agonistic realities or ontological states of manifestation. My work depicts The Real behind the actual, singularly focusing on the space between fields of existence, and how ulterior worlds may effloresce in the human sensorium and even determine how our reality constructs itself.
Live art installation has served as a primary means of research in my exploration of these themes. When the body is placed in a particular composition or within a certain context, different qualities of its existence, those usually missed by our reason, are illumined, we develop a more acute understanding of it. By elaborating original perspectives on presence, event and object, Man Brick has formed the foundation for my practice, and I have now chosen it as my collaborative submission. To serve, not as a means to any end, but as no mean end in itself. A noumenon subverting all phenomena…
Okay, okay, I can’t do this any longer even as a joke. We all know how utterly dreadful your standard art speak is. You want to spit a brick when you read this stuff. Nobody likes it. It puts people off. It makes people hate art and everything to do with the arts.
Can we stop it?
Can we use Leeds’ bid to become European City of Culture 2023 to finally put all talk like this to sleep?
It’s not a big idea, I know. It lacks boldness, imagination, ambition and all that, I agree… But it’s very Leeds.
One thing I love about this city is that we don’t do bullshit. We hate pretension. Hot air. And waffle. We can handle the truth. That’s the Leeds voice, isn’t it?
So, my little, quiet, simple idea for Leeds 2023 is… can we write and speak about culture and art like it’s a conversation any average person in the beer garden at The Malt Shovel would be able to join in with?
This might mean stopping some of the artists talking about their own work. That’s not their job, anyhow… but here’s an idea, Leeds is full of really good writers. I could shut my eyes and chuck a brick out of my window and brain at least three bloody good wordsmiths… ‘appen, well I don’t know, but maybe you could get some of them to write stuff? Seeing as they are in Leeds. Love the place. And know how to write… heck, that’s quite a bold and radical idea, I just realised.
I’ll estimate the cost and send the budget later.
Be vibrant!