Bart Geerts: Text and Art Work in Artistic Research
Several times a year FAK organises a seminar in the working context/studio/exhibition space of our PhD candidates. This offers the seminar participants the opportunity to frame the PhD research in relation to a concrete environment, the creation processes and the work in development. The first seminar in the academic year 2011-2012 took place in the studio of Bart Geerts. The theme of this particular seminar was the relation between the PhD art work and the text. Geerts' double background, being a master both in Literature as well as in Fine Arts, offered an interesting starting point and viewing angle on the topic. Geerts explores the medium of painting in the context of the contemporary society and art world. He recently moved into his new studio, situated in an old school building in the city of Mechelen.
Why to paint?
Geerts started the seminar by explaining the trajectory of his research. In the beginning phase of his PhD research in 2005 he questioned the relevance of painting in relation to its tradition and current practices. The spatial aspects of painting were quite central to this question. Therefore in 2006 he started experimenting with XXL paintings – works that because of their size challenged the spatial context - next to asking more fundamental questions, like 'Why to paint?'. In this period he started questioning the relation between the text and the art work, inspired by his participation in ‘The Art Text: Writing In and Through the Arts’, a conference on the topic of the art text organised by Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts of the University of Gothenburg.
The first question that popped up in this exploration of the relation between art work and text, was whether a literary text can inspire a PhD text. Three authors were an important source of inspiration for Geerts. In Danielewski's House of Leaves different editors and narrators added footnotes to the ‘original’ text. Also Baker's The Mezzanine explores footnotes to shift people's viewpoint on the text. Finally, Perec's La Vie mode d'emploi conceives the text as a map where the reader can navigate through. These sources inspired Geerts to create an experimental structure for his PhD text.
In a first experiment he created three subframes within the text frame. One frame was reserved for an essay that focussed on the artistic work. The second frame aimed at providing space for footnotes. The last frame was created to allow references to other artists. Although this page set-up allowed a very different and interesting reading of the research trajectory, Geerts decided – together with his supervisors – to leave this track. They believed that the text would become too difficult to read, which might obscure the arguments it contained.
By consequence, in a second experiment, Geerts decided to follow a more classical reading structure. However, he still wanted to deviate from the traditional ways of writing a Phd thesis. He created five essays that could be read independently from each other, in which he addressed five themes, being the wall, the encyclopedia, framing, the undefined and the painterly. In each essay one of Geerts' works was the protagonist, next to a series of related own works and works from colleagues. The goal was not to produce an art critical text, but rather to ask the question: “What can the text offer me as an artist?” In other words, the text was written as a productive motor for the work. The essays also became the basis for the different parts of the exhibition.
The discussion about the relation between art work and text also touched upon the practice of the other Phd candidates that were present in the studio. Wendy Morris processed her text in 52 letters about her research that she has sent to peers. Ruth Loos worked with loose sheets of text and experimented with graphical footnotes. Apart from reflections around the individual research, a few questions popped up. Should people be able to read the text and the art work independently? Or is the strength of the artistic and design researcher rather situated in this dialogue between text and work? And how can we find new ways to create this dialogue? We are looking forward to the future explorations of these questions by our researchers.
Participants in the seminar were Ellen Bilterest, Mike Carremans, Sandy Claes, Paul Cruysberghs, Marc De Blieck, Bart Geerts, Liesbeth Huybrechts, Hannah Joris, Thomas Laureyssens, Ruth Loos, Wendy Morris, Jan Peeters, Ellen Schroven, Philippe Van Snick and Karen Wuytens.