From Sean Clancy, PhD student at Birmingham Conservatoire. Currently writing a piece inspired by the Epstein Archive.

Spending a few hours in the Epstein archive gave me a valuable insight into what my musical response to this project might be. I am very attracted to Bob and Roberta Smith’s interpretation of the archive, as it asks a many interesting questions pertaining to the concept of archiving, and the concept of the gallery more generally. What interests me most, is not the biographical information that can be obtained from the archive, or the specific biographical content that Bob has focused on (such as letters from Theo Garman to his mother), but to the overarching concept that Bob has honed in on itself – (What happens to art when…).

Bob’s exhibition itself could be considered quite dangerous (in a sense that doesn’t really convey ‘ real’ danger), precisely because he is an artist ‘commenting’ on someone else’s art. The fact that he is an artist, gives his response to the archive slightly more currency that someone else’s, in today’s society at least (a contentious statement, I know!), as people are more inclined to take what an artist says more seriously than their own opinions, simply because they are an artist. (This obviously relates to Duchamp’s ready-made – Its art because the artist says its art etc.) Therefore if Bob suggests that when an artist dies people are more concerned about their parenting than their art, people will actually say to themselves ‘…well maybe I should think about their parenting because an artist has said so.’ I know this is meant tongue in cheek; however, an artists intention is not always apparent, and then again maybe it shouldn’t be apparent!

This idea has resonance with something Epstein himself has said on on the archive footage: where he says something along the lines that the public are so blinded by the critics that they may as well come into the exhibition blindfolded. It seems that the opposite is true today, that the public is so blinded by the artist, that they need not come to the exhibition at all!

Another thing that interests me is the fact that Bob’s response is to Epstein’s collection, and Epstein is of course dead. This creates a situation where everything in the collection is fair game for comment (as of course all things should be) however, it creates a one sided dialogue (if this is the correct word to use here) where Epstein is powerless to defend his work, or Bobs critique of it (or indeed the collection more generally) what I find more interesting is the fact that I can critique Bob’s work (or critique Bob’s critique of the collection [meta, meta art!]) He is of course free to defend his work from this critique, thus creating a critique of a critique of a critique, or as some would have it, a dialogue.

For this reason, I am interested in subverting some of the texts he has employed. This could be done my means of electronic processing.

The two pieces in the collection that I would be most interested in using would be The ‘chart of influence’ documenting Epstein’s influence on British sculpture (My own research deals with the anxiety of influence), and also ‘one man’s fight against the establishment’ which I found to  be very interesting.

My piece will ideally be performed in the room that houses Bob’s work and will be performed by myself, ideally on a continuous basis. the plan at the moment is to have a looped recording of the manipulated text coming from loudspeakers (or a ghetto blaster!) whilst I drone slow chords from a melodica in realtime (which could be interjected with my own utterances).

My working title at this time is ‘What Happens to Bob and Roberta Smith’s Art, when he’s not looking’