Peter Fillingham - The Last Eleven Years
On sunday (1st) we went to see Peter Fillingham's work in King Wood, as part of his ongoing collaboration with Stour Valley Arts. We enjoyed it immensely, the weather was spot on, the performance was both emotionally and spiritually fulfilling, and to top it all off, the refreshments were fantastic, fancy cakes, wine and tea in cups with saucers, in amongst the trees and the bluebells! class.
Anyway, here are some pics....
Mr. Pete Fillingham himself :
and the work...
A good afternoon had by all. (Especially this old wino called Jessica...)
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and the work was accompanied by a fantastic essay, written by Ian Hunt....
THE LAST ELEVEN YEARS, PETER FILLINGHAM 2005 - It is the hardest thing to make a work that avoids our ability to categorise. But The Last Eleven years, at King's Wood, manages to do this. What is at stake when we hold that a category has been prised open, even temporarily? For me it is the feeling that my brain is actively trying to understand something, or hold it in my imagination, but that I can't. The boy whom the psychologist asked 'what's bigger, milk or water?', smiled all over his face. But this work is not, at first, so obviously a fact out of place or a nonsense. Its type is a fence or rail, except it keeps nothing out and nothing in, connects to no lines of ownership or claim. As a fence it resembles one you might find at a racecourse, or on a ranch (or a suburban attempt at that status - its maker likes to mention Dallas, as a talisman against the idea that he might have made some Land Art). It is without usefulness, but it doesn't advertise its status as an artwork, or offer a clear view of what that might be in a forest. Neither does it impinge or annoy those who are not bothered by such problems. It would rather look like a leftover from a woodworking course than claim importance, and such decorum is important in a public place. But in its quiet way it makes absolutely no apologies for existing either. It partakes of idea, in that it has to be held in the mind: as you follow its course, you lose sight of the beginning and cannot see the end. It cannot be a path or a way, because it is difficult to follow in places, curving right between tree trunks that almost touch it. (From the photographs, I had wondered if it might go through trees and appear on the other side of them; it doesn't.) If it had a function we understood, there would be no doubt in our minds that trees would have been cut down to make way for it, but this line has been plotted through, and therefore inheres lightly in the place it is made for. It is still fresh softwood, not yet weathered, but it seems in some ways to be older than the trees, which grow around it. Though this does not make it part of science fiction histrionics exactly either, not Robert Smithson, or thoughts on lost civilisations; the material is too familiar for that. You go on applying categories and resemblances; but you only succeed a bit better in saying what this work is not, not what it is, and it remains therefore untethered, a new fact in the world.
The title - and you have to consider the weak bond of a title with a work, when it is in a wood - suggests that time has passed already. It has: the idea of a work was discussed with its commissioner that long ago. But equally the title needs to be thought of as a cast forwards. What will be here when that time has passed again, who will be here? The work is solid enough for now, but the lightly curving line it makes is already arrived at through the use of a material that twists out of true, like stretchers made by hand; as a combination of compromises and tolerances. You feel the varnished top rail, slap it to assess its soundness. No strong claim on permanence is made, but a claim is being made about passing, something like 'In time I am going to die, can you be there' (Denise Riley). But this stoic claim about dying or knowing how to die is awkward. Sawn softwood does not die into a forest without a protest. It will never quite fit in here, even at the end. This is some distance from the approach that in 'respecting' something it calls nature, stops its mouth. Nature speaks, rather, in awkwardness, pillow talk, in not quite knowing the right way to do or to say something.
So to the end. The terminations are discoverable without too much fuss, no serious commitment to a protestant walk ethic is required. There is all the same an idea of endlessness here. There is a moment, in the middle of your journey, that I want you to think about. You have lost sight of the beginning and cannot see the end. You know the path on the land rising above you is keeping pace, stays parallel. Below you, further away, you can see another more open track or forest road. You are not lost, but you have lost the horizon, your old locator, and you do not know for how long by following this rail you will have lost it. Edward Lear found this problem in noses: ‘There is a young lady whose nose/ Continually prospers and grows;/ When it grew out of sight she exclaimed in a fright/ ‘Oh! Farewell to the end of my nose!’ It may not be a frightening problem, as the nose was for the young lady; but it is a problem, and a strange kind of excitement also. Someone once expressed it to me with some urgency, describing her first significant journey from the city she had grown up in: ‘the horizon of expectation is a real metaphor!’ she pronounced, as though I was not taking the problem seriously enough.
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Anyway, here are some pics....
Mr. Pete Fillingham himself :
and the work...
A good afternoon had by all. (Especially this old wino called Jessica...)
----------------------------------------
and the work was accompanied by a fantastic essay, written by Ian Hunt....
THE LAST ELEVEN YEARS, PETER FILLINGHAM 2005 - It is the hardest thing to make a work that avoids our ability to categorise. But The Last Eleven years, at King's Wood, manages to do this. What is at stake when we hold that a category has been prised open, even temporarily? For me it is the feeling that my brain is actively trying to understand something, or hold it in my imagination, but that I can't. The boy whom the psychologist asked 'what's bigger, milk or water?', smiled all over his face. But this work is not, at first, so obviously a fact out of place or a nonsense. Its type is a fence or rail, except it keeps nothing out and nothing in, connects to no lines of ownership or claim. As a fence it resembles one you might find at a racecourse, or on a ranch (or a suburban attempt at that status - its maker likes to mention Dallas, as a talisman against the idea that he might have made some Land Art). It is without usefulness, but it doesn't advertise its status as an artwork, or offer a clear view of what that might be in a forest. Neither does it impinge or annoy those who are not bothered by such problems. It would rather look like a leftover from a woodworking course than claim importance, and such decorum is important in a public place. But in its quiet way it makes absolutely no apologies for existing either. It partakes of idea, in that it has to be held in the mind: as you follow its course, you lose sight of the beginning and cannot see the end. It cannot be a path or a way, because it is difficult to follow in places, curving right between tree trunks that almost touch it. (From the photographs, I had wondered if it might go through trees and appear on the other side of them; it doesn't.) If it had a function we understood, there would be no doubt in our minds that trees would have been cut down to make way for it, but this line has been plotted through, and therefore inheres lightly in the place it is made for. It is still fresh softwood, not yet weathered, but it seems in some ways to be older than the trees, which grow around it. Though this does not make it part of science fiction histrionics exactly either, not Robert Smithson, or thoughts on lost civilisations; the material is too familiar for that. You go on applying categories and resemblances; but you only succeed a bit better in saying what this work is not, not what it is, and it remains therefore untethered, a new fact in the world.
The title - and you have to consider the weak bond of a title with a work, when it is in a wood - suggests that time has passed already. It has: the idea of a work was discussed with its commissioner that long ago. But equally the title needs to be thought of as a cast forwards. What will be here when that time has passed again, who will be here? The work is solid enough for now, but the lightly curving line it makes is already arrived at through the use of a material that twists out of true, like stretchers made by hand; as a combination of compromises and tolerances. You feel the varnished top rail, slap it to assess its soundness. No strong claim on permanence is made, but a claim is being made about passing, something like 'In time I am going to die, can you be there' (Denise Riley). But this stoic claim about dying or knowing how to die is awkward. Sawn softwood does not die into a forest without a protest. It will never quite fit in here, even at the end. This is some distance from the approach that in 'respecting' something it calls nature, stops its mouth. Nature speaks, rather, in awkwardness, pillow talk, in not quite knowing the right way to do or to say something.
So to the end. The terminations are discoverable without too much fuss, no serious commitment to a protestant walk ethic is required. There is all the same an idea of endlessness here. There is a moment, in the middle of your journey, that I want you to think about. You have lost sight of the beginning and cannot see the end. You know the path on the land rising above you is keeping pace, stays parallel. Below you, further away, you can see another more open track or forest road. You are not lost, but you have lost the horizon, your old locator, and you do not know for how long by following this rail you will have lost it. Edward Lear found this problem in noses: ‘There is a young lady whose nose/ Continually prospers and grows;/ When it grew out of sight she exclaimed in a fright/ ‘Oh! Farewell to the end of my nose!’ It may not be a frightening problem, as the nose was for the young lady; but it is a problem, and a strange kind of excitement also. Someone once expressed it to me with some urgency, describing her first significant journey from the city she had grown up in: ‘the horizon of expectation is a real metaphor!’ she pronounced, as though I was not taking the problem seriously enough.
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posted by pickle at 9:26 AM
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