This is the layout of the published version of the following document, deposited on this repository with permission of the artist and galleries: Bick, Andrew M and Hessler, Stefanie and Thorp, David (2013). Andrew Bick. Documentation. Hales Gallery/Galerie von Bartha, London and Basel Disclaimer The University of Gloucestershire has obtained warranties from all depositors as to their title in the material deposited and as to their right to deposit such material. The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation or warranties of commercial utility, title, or fitness for a particular purpose or any other warranty, express or implied in respect of any material deposited. The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation that the use of the materials will not infringe any patent, copyright, trademark or other property or proprietary rights. The University of Gloucestershire accepts no liability for any infringement of intellectual property rights in any material deposited but will remove such material from public view pending investigation in the event of an allegation of any such infringement. PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR TEXT. Andrew Bick Andrew Bick “To learn the game of seeing, like any- from historical Constructivism and As T.J. Demos has noted, “(…) while him to follow, perforate or play with it. thing else in life, takes patient prac tice, Cubism; they criticised the movements the grid indicates the logic of scientific While his research into Construct ivism because, unfortunately, we generally for their “dangerous hypertrophy of rationality, the use of chance implies shows in his paintings, he breaks look without seeing. The rules are rationalism” 1. Rather than attempting its total rejection.” 2 Both chance in with the rules of both historical Con- inside each of us, and only experience to overcome these complications concrete poetry and the reliance on struct ivists and Systems artists. Rather can show how well you’re doing at it.” through Abstract Expressionism like mathe matical formula were responses than avoiding subjective aesthetic ( Willys de Castro, Folha da Noite, 1959 ) many of their European and North to the over-determined developments choices altogether, his method os- American counterparts, the Neo con- occurring in art at that point. The cillates between the system and added The paintings of Andrew Bick can per- cretists found remedy in chance, attempt to eliminate arbitrariness and ges tural brushstrokes that subvert it. haps best be described as contradic­­tory a method that had already been dis- sub jectivity of artistic choices and It is a practice that departs from constructivist. They overtly refer to­­ covered and applied by Dadaism. aesthetic decisions was also a reaction certainty, yet simultaneously problem- historical Constructivism and Con crete Whereas the prin cip les of chance are to the hierarchical political systems atises and contradicts it. It may be Art, while at the same time sub­­­ver ting highly rational and stoch astic, its of that time. British Construction artists for this reason that Bick has not exhib- the rigid divisions between the different results can never be foreseen. One im- ­­such as Victor Pasmore, Kenneth and ited his own work alongside British camps existing at the time, such as portant landmark of this movement Mary Martin or Anthony Hill continued Systems artists in his practice as a cur- construction vs. composition or the grid was the 1959 “Book-Poem” exhi­­­­bition, in to use mathematical permutations ­­ ator, because they are ultimately vs. gesture. Bick’s interest in the which works by Lygia Pape, Ferreira in their work, which permitted them to concerned with differ ent problems. British successors of Constructivism, Gullar, Willys de Castro, Reynaldo Jardim avoid dependency and to originate new Bick’s method thus dwells in Con- namely Construction and Systems and Theon Spanúdis were shown. and unexpected outcomes. Or as struction, yet comments on it from a Art, is not only mirrored in his works, On this occasion, Gullar, the author of the British Systems artist Peter Lowe ­­said metaperspective, and is in that sense but also in his activity as a curator. “Neoconcretist Manifesto” from the about syntactic art in an interview ­­from also deliberately contradictory. Curiously enough, the British Con - same year, introduced concrete poetry 2005, referring to a quote by William struc tivist artists are not as acknow- to Brazilian Constructivism. In the Blake: “I must create a system or be a In Brazil, the Neoconcretist movement ledged as their Russian, Swiss and exhibition, he presented the results of slave to another man’s.” 3 had a strong effect on subsequent Brazilian equivalents. Today, especially his experiments with poems and ­­their artistic production, an effect that lasts Brazilian Concretists and Neocon- visual and syntactic order. The artists The system Andrew Bick developed until today, whereas equivalent British cretists such as Hélio Oiticica, Lygia treated book pages as ready-mades for his painterly process takes its artists have neither re ceived the same Pape and Lygia Clark have gained and by relying on chance, new poems departure from his own recent work. attention nor wielded the same in- widespread recognition. Whereas the were created and sub sequently integ- He digital ises grids that consist of fluence. This has many reasons, one of influence of artists like Max Bill and rated in their works, one important mainly triangular outlines from his paint- which may have to do with the impact Richard Lohse on these movements is example of which are Willys de Castro’s ings, and uses them as base for new of Abstract Ex pressionism and the well known and docu ment ed, British “Cartazes-poemas” (Poster-Poems) works. While projecting the grid on the so-called Britart of the 1990s. However, Constructivist artists have seldom from 1959. undercoat of a new painting, he copies it seems important to re consider Con- exhibited along side them. This essay the lines onto its surface. Subsequently, struc tivist and Systems Art today and will look at some convergences At the time, Constructivists were he paints over a number of them and to re­­-think their posi tioning within art between historical Constructivism and also experimenting with mathematical creates new fields within the grid, history. For instance, one can draw more recent artistic productions, systems. Starting from a set of rules, some of which are translucent, others an imme diate connec tion between the connecting these to British Construc- they allowed for coincidence to create opaque. The rigid method of the grid beginnings of socially and politically tion and Systems Art and to Bick’s new configurations that they would configures a system that hence allows engaged Russian and European Con- sustained interest in this field. not have conceived themselves, structivism that aimed at merging art and and that were to be free of style and 2 T. J. Demos (2005), Zurich Dada: The Aesthetics of Exile, life, to Neoconcrete and British­­ Systems in eds. Leah Dickerman & Matthew S. Witkovsky, The Dada In the 1950s, the Neoconcrete move- the artist’s personal handwriting. Seminars, Washington: National Gallery of Art, p. 22. Art that­­ forthrightly engage the viewer. ment in Brazil and the British Systems 3 Peter Lowe interviewed by Alan Fowler, PhD research This thought shall be further developed 1 Ferreira Gullar (1959), Neoconcretist Manifesto, October 69 student, Southampton University (2005). Retrieved from artists were distancing themselves (Summer 1994), p. 91 – 95. www.peterllowe.plus.com/pages/page1.html, 23 March 2013. in the follow ing passages of this text. Both Brazilian Neoconcretists and surface, and which can be seen through separation of a performer from ­­­[ the ] to accomplish, was still on the Neo- British Constructivists considered art the sometimes more, sometimes less audience, or creator and spectator, concretist agenda. Perhaps most to be in a crisis during Modernism. translucent layers of material. For that of life and art (…).” 5 strikingly, the relation between painting, Artists were increasingly exploring the reason, the timely dimension of ex- sculpture and poetry that British possibilities of making art outside periencing art is pivotal for his work. Only five years later, Hélio Oiticica would Construction artists are interested in, of traditional media and categories. The different layers of paint, marker pen introduce his concept of the “supra- and the dissolution of the object in Process art and the “Theory of the and wax create a depth that can never sensorial” as “an attempt to generate process art, performance or con- Non-Object” from Gullar 4 were be perceived sim ultaneously, but only creative exercises through increas- temporary relational art were already in fluential during that time. As much as in a timely successive pro gression, ingly open propositions, dispensing being addressed then. Neoconcretists relied on chance ­­ thus requiring a different agency on with even the object as it has come to and concrete poetry to affect artistic behalf of the spectator. be categorized. These are not painting- As has been shown, besides the inter- production and to eliminate all sculpture-poem fusions, palpable sections of mathematical systems personal handwriting, they were also Departing from Construction, ­­a con- works, though they may exhibit this and chance in Neoconcrete, Construc- aiming at activating the viewers by nection can even be established aspect; they are directed at the senses tion and Systems Art, the spectatorial releasing them from their con templative to so cially engaged art and practices in order that, through them, through agency is a crucial connecting link passive position. De Castro’s “Objetos that require the participation of ‘total perception’, they may lead the between them. Andrew Bick’s work as ativos” (Active objects ) are spe cific- the audience today. At the time of individual to a ‘suprasensation’, to the an artist and as a curator brings ally interesting in this context: he de Castro’s “Objetos ativos” and expansion of his usual sensory capa- these strands together.