I read pieces of this book 'Failure' - Documents of Contemporary Art, published by Whitechapel Gallery.
In the introduction it talks about how through failure one has the potential to stumble on the unexpected. This is something I try to embrace through my practice. Through the allowance for playfulness and experimentation, error can and will occur and to learn from this. The excitement in knowing that failure can be the one to take you down another path, away from what we thought we knew.
I am interested in turning my back on the knowledge that to achieve resolution is to achieve a masterpiece - a work, in the classic modernist formulation, where nothing can be improved, nothing added. Yet this enterprise, in which the artist is creator of the 'perfect' artwork, is doomed to fail from the start. Too much pressure is put on oneself, which generally I feel results in uptight, anxious work and the looseness and freedom gone. Of course this is easier said than done as at points we all put too much stress and pressure on ourselves to achieve. John Baldessari advises his students: 'Art comes out of failure. You have to try things out. You can't sit around terrified of being incorrect, saying 'I won't do anything until I do a masterpiece'. - Wise words!
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