Publication
April 1-30, 2015
Offsite
Six final year photography students at the Michaelis School of Fine Art address the work of Neville Dubow. The research takes place over three sessions.
The workshop explores the practice of the late Neville Dubow (Director of the Michaelis School of Fine Art from 1971 to 1988) in the lead up to the Dubow retrospective at the Irma Stern Museum curated by Marilyn Martin and Paul Weinberg.
The process is driven by two impulses. The first – to mine themes (be it aesthetic, strategic or other) from Dubow's photographic oeuvre. To scratch around for resonances in the practices of other artists working at a similar time elsewhere in the world, and pursue traces in the work of the participating students. While the emphasis is placed upon Dubow's photographic work, an attempt is made to pursue the process in the spirit of his wider practice, where performance, discussion and teaching hold equitable status.
The second impulse is to perform a book; to treat a book as a space to ‘exhibit’ in which one can share widely and preserve practically. Elements are swiftly collected and combinations assembled stemming from conversations, collisions, accidents and associations whether direct or oblique. An open-ended and reflexive attitude is the goal. No argument or single claim accounts for the composition of the pages in this book, or for the order in which they appear.
Michaelis becomes an important character throughout the process. The spaces and studios of the school were backdrops for many of Dubow’s performance orientated experiments. This brings the rooms and hallways into view. The ‘school’ as a legacy of thinking comes into question. To what extent are we products and forms of thinking nurtured by generations past? To what extent are we agents of thinking pertinent to our time? Are we a product of the school or part of its evolution?
The workshop explores the practice of the late Neville Dubow (Director of the Michaelis School of Fine Art from 1971 to 1988) in the lead up to the Dubow retrospective at the Irma Stern Museum curated by Marilyn Martin and Paul Weinberg.
The process is driven by two impulses. The first – to mine themes (be it aesthetic, strategic or other) from Dubow's photographic oeuvre. To scratch around for resonances in the practices of other artists working at a similar time elsewhere in the world, and pursue traces in the work of the participating students. While the emphasis is placed upon Dubow's photographic work, an attempt is made to pursue the process in the spirit of his wider practice, where performance, discussion and teaching hold equitable status.
The second impulse is to perform a book; to treat a book as a space to ‘exhibit’ in which one can share widely and preserve practically. Elements are swiftly collected and combinations assembled stemming from conversations, collisions, accidents and associations whether direct or oblique. An open-ended and reflexive attitude is the goal. No argument or single claim accounts for the composition of the pages in this book, or for the order in which they appear.
Michaelis becomes an important character throughout the process. The spaces and studios of the school were backdrops for many of Dubow’s performance orientated experiments. This brings the rooms and hallways into view. The ‘school’ as a legacy of thinking comes into question. To what extent are we products and forms of thinking nurtured by generations past? To what extent are we agents of thinking pertinent to our time? Are we a product of the school or part of its evolution?