Author: Geoff Bateson

For the purposes of this piece of writing, art will be restricted very largely to painting and performance art of Europe and the US. Some references will be made to art from elsewhere, particularly when considering the broadened art world of contemporary art practices. Identity will follow the lines of modern sociology (in which identity is taken as being created at the meeting place of subjective processes inscribed within the way people live, and the social narratives that position us towards particular ways of being). Within this line of thought, the individual is shaped by genetics, environment, upbringing and life-choices but in conditions that are largely socially prescribed at the time.

This exploration of Art and War will take an overview of the various connections between war and art; then look at the work of some artists who were, officially or incidentally, portrayers of war activity between 1914 and the present day. It is not intended as a comprehensive list of artists who have made works relating to war. Nor is it a history of war art. One theme will be how and why war-related art has been made, and who the audiences may have been.

In and around times of war, art can be made for a number of purposes. The artistic urge to record or comment may be driven by motivations around celebration, memorialisation, propaganda, information, and moral stances that can be pro- or anti-war. The work of the artist throughout various wars has been to describe events. This has, at times, been extended to call into question the purpose of war, the nature of society and to reflect on the human condition.

Abstraction as an approach has had a major impact in developments within art. An exploration into abstraction in art is faced with an almost irresistible urge to collapse back into lists of artists who have used abstraction; schools of abstract art; and well-recognised works of abstract art ie an art history approach to abstraction. Instead, this exploration will attempt to get at some understanding of the nature of abstraction; the thinking behind any approach that can support the use of abstraction, in varying ways; the use that has been made of it by artists over the last two hundred years; and the role or function that abstraction may have in art today, and what future, if any, abstract art may have.

This short exploration of art and cities will begin with an overview of some thinking on cities as social entities; then look at how certain cities have been key sites for the production and consumption of art; and finally look at how artists have variously responded to the changing natures of cities, finishing with an overview of an exhibition ‘Metropolis’ as an example of how a wide range of international contemporary artists have approached the subject.

Making any artwork involves issues of relationships of various parts to the final object. The finished whole is determined by issues of composition, colour, emphasis, flow, light and shadow, perspective, and so on. These are artist decisions and skills brought variously into play as the work progresses. A number of art works will be considered, via this perspective of fragments and wholes.

Art can be viewed through the lens of change or through a lens of stability, in relation to a number of things:

• The purpose of art in society: its ability to reflect change or to support stability.
• The consistencies and variations within the work of a particular artist or a group of artists.
• The adoption of new techniques, styles and technologies, or the adherence to fixed canons.
• The extent to which art saw its purpose as celebrating progress and development, or regretting the passing of the established ways.
• The interplays between art and any wider social changes.
• The overt use of change and transformation as tools for the making of art works.

In current culture, a key role for art is being able to reflect on change, or to challenge change, or to push changes further, faster and deeper. Without this relationship to change there can, from this perspective, be no art of any consequence. Art simply becomes neutral landscapes, still lives and portraits or, worse, becomes a source of resistance to change, a carrier of nostalgia, an ideological proponent for stability in all things.

Moving from traditional to contemporary; and from improving to established

This exploration was partly driven by an interest in art and partly by an interest in learning. The art-interest was a desire to move from doing quite ‘traditional’ art – landscapes, still life, some simple portrait work – at a level that was beyond Beginners Group and still ‘Improving’ … and to get somewhere closer to being able to do more contemporary work at a level that I might consider ‘established/confident in my own activities’. The learning-interest was part of my exploration of ‘pulled-in’ learning ie not taking a structured course, with fixed timetables, over a defined timescale – but moving in whatever ways seem appropriate, along flexible pathways, pulling in resources/learning as and when needed, and speeding up/slowing down as the situations allow. What follows is some attempt to put this down as a set of intentions (rather than a fixed curriculum) that tie in with my existing interests. It starts with some ‘entry point ‘ descriptions of where I am now; and sketches out some possible lines I might follow … just for interest/fun and from a desire to learn rather than a need for a qualification.

In various European and North American cities visited in the last decade, housing has been a recurring theme, both as an everyday lived concern of residents and as a policy concern for city decision-makers.

Whilst there seem to be universal issues, generic across all such cities, each city has its own particular set of housing concerns shaped by that city’s culture, history and the interplay between local and national legislation. Although many of the observations are at city level, it is recognised that none of the cities mentioned are homogenous entities. Each city has its variety of neighbourhoods and its diversity of residents: its physical and social nooks and crannies.

This exploration has been based on looking at newspaper articles, journal articles and policy documents, as well as a degree of wandering and observing the day-to-day facets of a select number of similar cities. It is, therefore, by its nature only a partial view of the complexity of things. It certainly does not set itself out as a well-referenced academic study, nor try to represent every aspect or every city. Any errors, omissions or assertions are personal ones.

The housing concerns of cities looked at tended to centre around the same issues: affordability, renting, house-building rates, local renovations and redevelopments, levels of public/private investment, land ownership and land use, homelessness, who gets to make which decisions, how we define ‘home’, and local/national interplays.

Housing is seen as a key social and political issue for those cities. Declarations and proposals are made at various levels of city/regional/national government, with various ways forward being proposed. At the same time, despite strong commitments to change, the difficulties do not seem to go away in other than piecemeal ways.

What follows is a summary of some of the key points in those observations – not from the viewpoint of a housing expert but from the perspective of an interested bystander who puzzles why the same key issues continue to be revisited with, in many cases, few real permanent inroads being made to fix the problems