BasementArtsProject | DECADE: A Conversation with Kimbal Bumstead #3
Kimbal Quist Bumstead performing at SPEAKEASY: art in age of prohibition. BasementArtsProject group exhibition September 2011
After taking the decision to find a way of marking the end of our first decade as an arts organisation, the first job was to decide how we should do this. As far as decision making goes for me, this was probably the quickest decision ever made. Sometimes, just sometimes, it can be a case of first idea / best idea. In this case the idea was to contact the first artist to ever exhibit with us here at BasementArtsProject; Kimbal Quist Bumstead.
As you will have gathered over the course of the last three posts in this particular thread on our Studio Journal, we have decided that we will be designing the nature of our tenth anniversary project in a very public manner. Every couple of weeks I have had a Zoom meeting with Kimbal and we have discussed what forces have brought us to this point and how we are going to design something that celebrates two particular things in tandem; Kimbal’s practice as an artist and BasementArtsProject’s longevity.
As with our previous Zoom conversations we began with the somewhat rambling chit chat that typifies old friends catching up when separated by time and/or distance, in this case both. In a text the next day Kim alerted me to the fact that we have known each other for fifteen years. Art is of course always high on the agenda, as you would imagine, and we somehow got to talking about Michael Landy’s ‘Break Down’ and how that sits within both the discourse of conceptual art projects and any rigorous analysis of late-era Capitalism. It was strange for it to come up as I had only just been reading a recent article on the subject, which actually happened in 2001. I have to admit Landy’s was a concept that I had always had a problem with, even when I first heard about it. It made me think of another conceptual art project by musicians and art pranksters Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond of the KLF, who famously quit the music industry by fleeing mainland Britain to the Isle of Jura where they burnt their earnings -a million quid- back in 1994!
Whilst I also find this action extremely problematic, I do feel that, in terms of what it sets out to address, it is the antithesis of Landy’s project which is, for me, a conceptual conceit that falls far short of its intended mark. In the process of destroying all of his belongings, Landy fails to address any issues external to his personal feelings at that point such as wealth vs poverty, need vs want, have vs have-not; far from the existential question that the project is framed as by the artist. At the end of the day what Landy does do is create an environmental catastrophe by sending all of his possessions to landfill, including an expensive car, at the expense of making a fairly hollow point about consumerist society. Presumably Capitalism won out in the end as the artist has had to rejoin the rat race and is now, once again living a, presumably, comfortable existence with belongings.
A fairly basic point made by Drummond and Cauty’s action is that, in the words of Drummond “Us burning that money doesn’t mean there is any less loaves of bread in the world, any less apples . . . “ . In this he is correct, the only thing that has ceased to exist is the system of exchange -the money. Money is no more than a conceptual framework for bartering and placing value on human life. Conceptually, the more of it you have the more your life is worth. And yet, money was unlinked from the gold standard in 1931, meaning that in the 21st century the figure on our bank statements at the end of each month bears no relation to any physical object such as gold bullion as it once did. Now it relates to nothing but itself.
At the end of the day Drummond and Cauty’s actions left behind many questions about the significance of money in our financial system and how the manipulation of that system allows poverty to flourish, whilst Landy’s project left behind a scrap pile of belongings. Objects, deliberately destroyed, yet whose very existence was from the owed to slavery and environmental and capitalist corruption. The heaviest price to pay is never the one stated on the price tag in the shop.
This is one of the problems inherent in human existence. We cannot undo or eradicate the environmental damage caused by humans on the environment at this stage, but we must find a way to mitigate for the future. Part of this includes our treatment of each other and our belongings. Our belongings must mean something to us. In ancient cultures objects were valued, it is a modern day phenomenon that we can toss things aside as though they are worthless, ignoring the impact on people and environment that brought it into existence in the first place.
Kimbal Bumstead en route to meet BasementArtsProject and the SCI artists at the Stockholm Independent Art Fair back in 2012
After metaphorically wandering around the houses for some time we finally got around to talking about the project and some of the ideas that Kim had come up with since our last conversation a fortnight ago. Possibly influenced by our conversation we got to talk about the materiality of art, how this show might address the physical aspect of BasementArtsProject, which has always been central to our remit, and the necessity for a virtual aspect brought about by the global pandemic.
Initially we talked about designing two shows in tandem; with the situation as it currently stands in terms of pandemic guidelines, it has become apparent that our 2nd April deadline for the show will not be able to be met physically with the Real-World tantalisingly just beyond our grasp, so we have taken the decision that the show will be virtual. But, it will also be participatory and will reference the nature of the BasementArtsProject venue very specifically in its online presence. In a way, the virtual nature of this event will be quite a neat way marker in relation to the original exhibition ten years ago. Whilst ‘This Is Our House’ was an exhibition with objects and a very physical presence that was all about gathering people in one place, one important aspect involved an audio work; its volumetric presence giving density to the dematerialised artwork. BasementArtsProject and the artists with whom we have worked over the last ten years have always had to take very creative solutions regarding issues around presentation and this exhibition by Kimbal will be no exception.
In our next post we will be presenting some of the ideas that we have discussed as part of this weeks conversation, but for now we will continue with some of the conversation that has been occurring between us online . . . until then, here is our next instalment of my interview with Kim.
Bruce Davies | March 2021
To read part two CLICK HERE
To read part one CLICK HERE
Screenshot. In conversation with KQB
I recently saw that you are moving out of the studio that you were renting in London. I was intrigued by the photographs of you sanding back the marks from the studio floor, and it made me think of the images that you had sent me previously of the remix process that you subjected one of your old paintings to. It brought to mind your comments in the last post about creation emerging in the act of destruction. Do you see that there may be some kind of direct action between elements of what you have already done with BasementArtsProject in the past and what may happen this year?
Friday 5th March
It’s funny you mention this, about my studio. I’m actually still there. I did not leave yet. It was one of those decisions that I made with great anticipation but since then many things have got in the way, and well, I guess these days are not the best to be making plans about anything since everything changes so much day to day. But yes, there is something really fascinating about revisiting, reworking and stripping back. Sanding down the floor of the studio, peeling back layers of varnish and paint that had become caked on the floor was both an incredibly satisfying feeling - like cleaning a dirty kitchen and then seeing it sparkle - but also a bit of a trip down memory lane in a way. Scraping off bits of paint, and trying to remember where it came from, like ‘what was I doing when this splash came about?’, or ‘what was I working on when I had the table on this side of the room…?’. It’s like a bit of personal archaeology if you like.
I find a lot of solace and satisfaction in exploring traces and layers, and particularly thinking about what new things can be created from them. In fact, as I (and my girlfriend who helped me do it, as I had damaged my shoulder the week before) sanded back the paint to the bare wood, sometimes I caught myself not actually stripping it all back to the wood, but rather enjoying the new shapes and patterns that emerged from being half sanded. Little flecks or fragments appeared on the wood, as if the sander was unearthing traces. Scratches in the wood that were filled with paint, and thicker splodges of paint stood out among the now cleanly sanded wood. I began to see the floor as a painting in progress, or a landscape in its own right, bearing traces of everything that had happened on it.
Recently I have got into the practice of re-working as well as destroying old work. I have quite a few paintings that I may have started 5 or 6 years ago that I add finishing touches to. In some ways I think that a painting is never truly finished, just that at some point you have to decide when to stop. Re-looking at a work that you have not seen for many years and then seeing it’s flaws, or seeing it through different eyes makes you reflect on it in different ways. In some ways its good to just leave things as they are, since they mark a moment in time, but there is no reason why a painting cannot mark various moments in time. Just as a landscape bears traces of moments in time through the constructions on it, (buildings, excavations..) and through the remnants of natural occurrences (landslide, flood..). Reworking a painting is a risky business however. You risk that you will completely ruin what you have done, but if it feels right to do it, then it may be worth the risk. Some paintings will just be failures, and will ultimately end up in the bin, others may become something else. Sometimes it may be a cover-up of something that was not quite there yet, other times it may be a finishing touch, or even a complete overhaul.
In any case , the process of re-visiting is useful, I think, to understand how you got here.
How did I get here? where am I going? These are the kind of questions I find myself asking myself. In a time in which everyday feels like groundhog day, I feel like there needs to be some kind of activity to break out of the rhythm, something to see the same things in a different light. How many times I have walked down the same streets, and seen the same things, to the point that I no longer even notice them. But if I take a couple of weeks break from walking down one street and will I then notice something different next time? or if I walk at a different speed, or on the other side of the road, or in the opposite direction? likewise, if I look at an older painting, or an old sketchbook, perhaps I will notice something I had not seen before, perhaps a detail or a point of connection, or even some kind of unintentional representation of something… Re visiting a painting is also a chance to understand the process, looking at the aesthetic decisions I made, and to decipher why I might have made those decisions, and whether I have learned from them in the future (present). ,
Kimbal Bumstead
To Be Continued . . .