Cushway, David (2015) A Model for the Interpretation of the Ceramic Object Located in the Museum Developed through Post-Disciplinary, Post-Studio Practice. Doctoral thesis, University of Sunderland. Downloaded from: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/5824/ Usage guidelines Please refer to the usage guidelines at http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/policies.html or alternatively contact [email protected]. A MODEL FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF THE CERAMIC OBJECT LOCATED IN THE MUSEUM DEVELOPED THROUGH POST- DISCIPLINARY, POST-STUDIO PRACTICE DAVID CUSHWAY A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Sunderland for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts, Design and Media, University of Sunderland October 2015 1 David Cushway: Abstract This research is initiated through an examination and mapping of the contemporary ceramics discourse within the United Kingdom and is situated from 1994 until the completion of my PhD study in 2014. This analysis of the practical and theoretical fields of ceramics practice provides a framework within which my own education and development as a practising artist can be measured and authenticated whilst providing a critical overview of the changing critical landscape of ceramics discourse over the last twenty years. Ceramics as an expanded field is evidenced through case studies of artist peers; and interviews with key critics, writers and curators. It introduces the positions of the post-studio and post-disciplinary practitioner as paradigms of practice that acknowledge an artists’ capacity to operate within the field of ceramics, utilising a multitude of approaches, media and mediums. The practical element of the research is developed outside of the studio within the context of the museum and its collection. This is embodied by employing a bricolage methodology that identifies the artist as an individual who ‘works between and within competing and overlapping perspectives and paradigms’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). The resulting practical outputs of Last Supper at the Glynn Vivian, 12 People 12 Objects and Teatime at the Museum created through the mediums of film and photography are presented as both completed works and constituent elements of contemporary ceramics practice. They offer an original contribution to knowledge by presenting an adjustable model of engagement with the ceramic object and collection implemented by the post-disciplinary, post-studio practitioner in collaboration with the institution and curator. ! 2 ! ! Author Declaration According to the regulations, I declare that during my registration I was not registered for any other degree. I have not used material in this thesis for any other academic award. 3 Abstract 2 Contents Page 4 0.1 Introduction 8 0.2 Research Questions 13 0.3 Aims of Research 13 0.4 Personal Rationale for Research 14 Chapter 1: Research Methodologies 19 1.1 Practice Based Research 19 1.2 Qualitative Research and Bricolage 22 1.3 Frames and Methods of Practice 25 1.4 Thinking with the Material 27 1.5 Reflexivity 28 1.6 Reflection-in-Action 32 1.7 Research Methodologies and Practice 33 Chapter 2: Towards an Expanded Field 36 2.1 Criticality 36 2.2 Makers Who Write 39 2.3.1 The New Theorists Part 1 41 2.4.2 The New Theorists Part 2 44 2.5 The Local and the Global 46 2.6 A Discourse Defined? 48 Chapter 3: The Artist and the Contemporary Museum 51 3.1 The Post Museum 51 3.2 Intervention or Collaboration 54 3.3 The Artist Curator 57 3.4 Material Absence 60 3.5 The Museum, Ceramics and the Artist 62 4 Chapter 4: The Post Studio, Post Disciplinary Artist 67 4.1 Clare Twomey and Keith Harrison 67 4.2 Clay Rocks 71 4.3 The Reflexive Institution 75 4.4 The Craft of Negotiation 76 4.5 The Post-Studio Artist and the Site of Production 77 4.6 Phoebe Cummings 79 4.7 Clare Twomey - Monument and Made In China 82 Chapter 5: Last Supper at the Glynn Vivian 86 5.1 Commission 87 5.2 The Repertoire and Tacit Knowledge 88 5.3 The Glynn Vivian Museum and Art Gallery 90 5.4 Method and Methodology 93 5.5 The Touch Taboo 94 5.6 The Participants 96 5.7 The Animated Object 103 Chapter 6: 12 People 12 Objects 107 6.1 Material Culture 108 6.2 12 People 12 Objects 109 6.3 The Participants 110 6.4 Artists Practice 117 6.5 The Photograph as an Object 119 6.6 Structure and Frame 121 6.7 Format 123 Chapter 7: Teatime at the Museum 125 7.1 Artists Questions 126 7.2 The Curator and the Object 128 7.3 Contemporary Practice as a Narrative Device 129 7.3.1 Fragments 131 7.4 Teatime at the Museum 135 5 7.5 Privileged Access 139 Chapter 8: Conclusion 144 8.1 Research Questions 145 8.2 Research Aims 148 8.3 Original Contribution to Knowledge 153 8.4 Further Research and Practice 157 Appendices: Transcriptions of recorded interviews 161 1. Keith Harrison, interview, Bath Spa University, 16th August 2013. 161 2. Dr Jeffery Jones, interview, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, 16th February 2014. 170 3. 12 People 12 Objects 184 Bibliography 195 List of Illustrations Figure 1 David Cushway, Room, 1996 15 Figure 2 David Cushway, Earth, 2000 15 Figure 3 David Cushway, Sublimation, 2000 15 Figure 4 David Cushway, Snowdon, 2000, 15 Figure 5 David Cushway, Fragments- Teacup, 2005 16 Figure 6 David Cushway, Fragments-Teapot, 2005 17 Figure 7 Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, 1992 55 Figure 8 Suzanne Hangaard, Abstentia, 2010 60 Figure 9 Andrew Livingstone, Animated Plate, 2010 60 Figure 10 Clare Twomey, Trophy, 2006 72 Figure 11 Keith Harrison, London Orbital, 2006 72 Figure 12 Keith Harrison, Last Supper, 2006 73 Figure 13 Phoebe Cummings After the Death of the Bear, 2013 80 Figure 14 Clare Twomey, Monument, 2009 82 Figure 15 Clare Twomey, Made in China, 2013 82 6 Figure 16 David Cushway 91 Last Supper at the Glynn Vivian, 2011 Figure 17 David Cushway, Olive, 2011 97 Figure 18 David Cushway, Sandra, 2011 97 Figure 19 David Cushway, Francis, 2011 97 Figure 20 David Cushway, Josette, 2011 98 Figure 21 David Cushway, Sian, 2011 98 Figure 22 David Cushway, Anne, 2011 98 Figure 23 David Cushway, Barry, 2011 100 Figure 24 David Cushway, Tim, 2011 100 Figure 25 David Cushway, Sandra, 2011 100 Figure 26 David Cushway, Lynne, 2011 101 Figure 27 David Cushway, Vanessa, 2011 101 Figure 28 David Cushway, Esther, 2011 102 Figure 29 David Cushway, Peter, 2011 102 Figure 30 David Cushway, 12 People 12 Objects Janet, 2012 111 Figure 31 David Cushway, Sarah and Andy, 2012 111 Figure 32 David Cushway, Susan, 2012 111 Figure 33 David Cushway, Kevin, 2012 112 Figure 34 David Cushway, Judy, 2012 114 Figure 35 David Cushway, Sandra, 2012 114 Figure 36 David Cushway, Dennis, 2012 115 Figure 37 David Cushway, Rob, 2012 115 Figure 38 David Cushway, Colin, 2012 115 Figure 39 David Cushway, Rebecca, 2012 116 Figure 40 David Cushway, James, 2012 116 Figure 41 David Cushway, Jack, 2012 116 Figure 42 Huang Qingjun, Beijing Songzhuang, 2011 118 Figure 43 Joakim Blockstrom, Leatherman, 2013 118 Figure 44 Edmund de Waal, Arcanum, 2005 130 Figure 45 David Cushway, Fragments, 2005 133 Figure 46 David Cushway, Teatime at the Museum, 2012 137 7 0.1. Introduction This research has developed from my personal experience as a practicing artist. The process of education, through to making and exhibiting work, nationally and internationally over a period of 20 years has provided me with a number of research questions that needed to be explored through the rigour of a PhD thesis. This project has grown out of a conceptual need to understand the discourse within which my practice is embedded – that of ceramics - and as a method of contextualising where my practice is located within that field. My education and training has been located within the ceramics template: B.A (Hons) degree in Ceramics, Bath College of Higher Education (1986-89) and a Masters degree in Ceramics from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (1992-94). The nature of my artistic output since graduation from my Masters degree has included work in ceramic, installation, film, video, performance and photography. I have provided examples of key works, starting with my first mature work Room (1994), as a method of demonstrating the development of my practice over the 20 year period. The transition from large- scale installations and unfired clay works into the use of film and video charts a trajectory of conceptual growth and expansion. As my practice has found increasing acceptance within the discourse of ceramics, it provides a useful mirror image through which to view what is now considered to be the expanded field of ceramics and my personal contribution to that phenomenon. An adjunct to this reasoning is the personal desire to understand how I work and operate as an artist within what was once a clearly defined discipline, but is now a pluralistic multi-medium activity. It should be noted that the practical element of my PhD study deliberately sets out to test the boundaries of ceramics discourse through film and photography, with the absence of clay and the ceramic object being a fundamental motivation and consideration of the research. As an artist I 8 physically create nothing in clay and my experience of the ceramic object is reduced firstly, to the anecdotal stories of participants’ experiences in the works, Last Supper at The Glynn Vivian and 12 People 12 objects. And secondly by the action of taking tea using a Swansea Pottery tea service in the film work Teatime at the Museum.