Quick
Draw Artist Interviews are a series of
interviews conducted by Otino Corsano using Facebook's IM Chat feature.
Spontaneous conversations with international artists are recorded and
documented specifically for publication on this blog.
Quick:
mystery. The power of art is a wonderful thing. Image image transporting us
from the cars cares and concerns of our workaday world into; we read about them
everyday in our newspapers; we see them every night on our television screens.
Surrounded by such misery and degradation, our sensitivity becomes coarsened
and our spirits desensitized. I promise you this. Draw: art about art.
Jonathan Scott (b.
Glasgow, UK) Jonathan Scott is a Scottish artist based in Toronto. He received
his Master of Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art in 2005 and subsequently
was granted a number of significant awards, including a Henry Moore Foundation
Grant. He has made a number of solo exhibitions in the UK, and has exhibited
internationally, including Australia, China, Mexico, Sweden, Germany. Recent
exhibitions include 'Face of an Angel, Voice of a Demon' (commissioned by
EmergeD as part of the Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual
Art); 'New Ruins' (EmergeD in the City Watch House, Melbourne); 'Re-escape'
(Transmission Gallery project in Hamburg); 'Exit Strategy' (CAFA, Beijing);
'Syncopations: Art from Great Britain Now' (Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm);
'Prospect Drawing Prize' (Tea Buildings, London). Scott lives and works in
Toronto, and is represented by Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects,
Toronto.
Jonny Scott
Chat Conversation Start
Friday
8:30pm
Jonny
Hey Otino,
You about tonight?
8:34pm
Otino
I am - yet exhausted.
I'm sorry.
I really want to find the time for the interview when I'm focused.
Please know I'm still very interested in the work and our dialogue. Let's stay
in communication this weekend.
8:35pm
Jonny
No problem, I know the feeling. Suits me. Will be in contact
soon.
###
I lost the opportunity to fully complete my interview with
Jonathan Scott.
I met him when I viewed his exhibition:
“Jonathan Scott, Burn Your
Neighbours”
|
September 27 - Oct 21, 2012
|
I used to thrive on consistency – not necessarily perfection –
yet the advantage of time ensured the completion of anything. I’m older and my
fails are nevertheless always surprising in a way where I’m impressed at how I
find difficulty in accurately tracing the causes.
###
8:39pm
Otino
Thanks for your understanding.
Sincerely Sorry its been a very busy week.
8:40pm
Jonny
Cool have a nice relaxing evening.
8:42pm
Otino
Thanks Jonny - much appreciated.
###
I would like the opportunity to explain
I’m not an art critic.
I like to say I’m a new genres artist not only because it
respectfully traces my practice back to my West Coast mentors; yet also I want
to make art in new areas. Art writing has been one of the arenas I have enjoyed
exploring.
These interviews are performative and to a degree constructed.
I have never been paid for writing any of my Quick Draw
Interviews and I’m fine with this since it enables me the freedom I seek as an
artist primarily.
It also helps ensure the content is never manipulated by
overarching controls.
I like to think this setup enables me to speak – as in both
content and form - in unrestricting ways
impossible in other setups.
###
Today
6:01pm
Otino
Tonight is good for the interview if you are free.
Give me a call to set a time.
If I happen not to hear the phone try several times as I'm home
tonight.
###
Jonathan Scott is a phenomenal artist. I can say this without
hesitation for many reasons and it is a nice feeling to have secured a creative
space where I do not immediately have to justify my sincere view under any
specific context.
My opinions are sometimes immediate and other times slowly meld
after research and struggle; I instantly perceived Jonathan’s work to be humble
yet rich in its divisions and even in an interview of this brevity, Scott
refused to lock his production into any single mode or read. So best of both
worlds. This unsettling imbalance is nice when paired with carefully thought
forms.
Like me Jonathan is a Dad and I imagine this very practical role
can render even the most radiant of art as distant similar to when feeling is
replaced by tiny bursting pins of numbness after rising from a folded posture.
###
7:03pm
Jonny
Hi Otino,
Unfortunately I'm on kid duty tonight, as Claire is working.
We can try as before, but I will definitely be free tomorrow
night.
sorry, speak soon.
Best Jonny
9:06pm
Otino
No worries. It will happen. :)
Tomorrow could work. Always give me a call beforehand.
what is your tel#?
Thanks,
Otino
###
I’m less a fraud and more a decoy.
Since I’m not a real critic I have the ability to leverage my alloyed status as
an undercover fly on a host’s wall and let me tell you I would never trade my
artist title for a critic’s stature of taste.
I’m sure artists find it hard to believe the horrors of life as an art
writer since it rare for anyone to even ask them for their opinion.
I’ve been fortunate to be accepted
by purer critics just long enough to learn of one simple and consistent
request: allow them the opportunity to be critical.
I think this is fair since as
artists we ask for the right to both experimental concepts and production. Good
critics write ‘bad’ reviews and to receive one is the equivalent of your
closest friend freezing their own breathing to ensure future respiration. Let’s
give them this space and walk away without whiplash.
Scott is a good artist to help me
comprehend my failings as an artist/interviewer.
###
###
9:20pm
Jonny
Hi Otino,
My number is XXX XXX-XXXX.
My kid has just fallen asleep, so if you wanted to get started
we could try. Interruption may follow though....
###
I used to write a yearly post on my blog titled the “Underdog
Award of Distinction” and I have decided to retire the prize. A close friend
gently and graciously explained to me the dangers of celebrating an artist’s
lack of recognition as less counter culture genius as it reads more as a back-handed
compliment any way you serve it.
This was never my intention and so I'm grateful for her honesty.
###
9:24pm
Otino
I'll need a few minutes to prepare.
Can I call you in 15 - 20 minutes?
9:25pm
Jonny
yeah but call this number XXX XXX-XXXX.
i left my phone in the bedroom.
9:25pm
Otino
K. In any case I will call soon. Thanks for the extra prep time.
###
I began writing FB IM Chat interviews after a stint of finely
woven email dialogues left me feeling synthetic. Lately it’s been difficult not
to pre-type chunks of questions again and just paste them into the dialogue as
I find predictable and easy to anticipate.
I appreciate Scott’s practice denies anticipated interpretation.
Vertigo.
###
###
9:35pm
Jonny
ok. if i don't respond or stop typing its because i'm putting my
kid to sleep again.
###
I tell people I’m a visual thinker to mask the truth I’m finding
it more difficult to remember names as I age. The truth is I rarely forget a
face and growing up in a town like Toronto it is always disconcerting when
you know you know someone and yet can’t place a name to a face.
I turn to a guy in an art gallery and I think it is Scott. He
stares at me and then there is the awkward moment when even my visual memory
has failed me. “I’m sorry, I thought you were an artist” I shrink. “I’m a
musician.” He replies.
No Sound is ever the Same Twice.
###
9:42pm
Otino
Hi Jonny.
Thanks for taking the time to speak to me tonight
and thanks for your patience as it has taken a while for me to find the time for
this anticipated interview.
9:43pm
Jonny
Hi Otino, I'm pleased to finally get round to it.
9:46pm
Otino
I wonder if we can begin with an introduction to your practice
with an overview of an early work to set the framework for your approach.
"Face of an Angel, Voice of a Demon" 2006
displays characteristic graphics carried through to future works.
What was the source or starting point for what appears to be tracings in this early work?
displays characteristic graphics carried through to future works.
What was the source or starting point for what appears to be tracings in this early work?
9:49pm
Jonny
I have always collected newspaper cuttings and use a lot of the images
and content in my work.
These sources are often points of departure, and I usually
follow a sort of derive in assembling the work’s composite parts.
9:53pm
Otino
What was the guiding concept for this work?
9:56pm
Jonny
At the time I was interested in trauma, and the site for this
installation allowed for a relatively charged work.
9:57pm
Otino
Was this work included in the "Dead Planetarium" solo
show at Coleman Project space in London in 2007?
9:58pm
Jonny
No. The work was commissioned by Amy Sales for the Glasgow International
in 2006.
10:01pm
Otino
The "Research Notes" listed for the London solo show
take on a variety of perspectives colliding in a literally edited text merging
deleted entries with a semi-completed final text exploded and complex as the
"Face of an Angel, Voice of a Demon" 2006 work.
I'm wondering how this type of conceptual complexity has
transformed into new work - so pristine, crystal and polished - both formally
and theoretically?
Or are these new sculptures also still composite structures?
*Or are the new sculptures still evolving as composite
structures?
10:07pm
Jonny
The works share a lot of the same conceptual characters, they
just have slightly different energies.
10:09pm
Otino
I'm back. keep typing.
###
For a young artist such as Scott For Jonny Scott’s
generation In a post-Pop, post-Warhol
The new art is fresh, exciting and vibrant.
###
10:09pm
Jonny
This is partly to do with the context of when they were made and
also where they were exhibited.
10:10pm
Otino
Are there general links still remaining in the work now outside
of any site specific reads?
10:13pm
Jonny
Yes. I think that a certain appreciation for the antagonistic
drives that I'm interested in addressing.
10:14pm
Otino
Can we pick this up again tomorrow night Jonny?
10:15pm
Jonny
Sure no problem. I'm enjoying where it’s going. speak
tomorrow.
10:15pm
Otino
Great. Thanks.
###
Go and buy Jonathan Scott’s artwork. I can
say this. I’m allowed.
You will be happy if you do. I give
you my word.
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