Chelsea
Salon is a peer-to-peer network of artists working in fluctuating institutional
settings. Chelsea Salon is a collaborative effort with multiple platforms
through which students, alumni, and professional artists have had the
opportunity to meet in a variety of spaces, exchange ideas and forge productive
relationships with artists and art institutions.
One of the
features of the Chelsea Salon programme
is the series of talks organised by Laura Carew of Chelsea Salon. The
talks are an example of the aims of Chelsea Salon to create a community of
practice between current students at Chelsea College of Arts and its alumni.
This forum is intended as an opportunity for artists to receive feedback on
their practice and to experiment with ideas arising from their research. It is
intended to expand the professional practice development of the artists involved.
Although centred around CCA, it is intended to be inclusive and open.
We have probably all giggled at her images whether it
be Elton John having an enema or Tony
Blair looking down Cherie’s bikini. All by the way situations that are credible
but which we also know are a set up. The humour is powerful but there is
serious intent here.
At a time when the photographic image has become ubiquitous
as has our obsession with celebrity, Alison Jackson poses some important
questions about authenticity and voyeurism.
Theoretically we all know that the camera can lie but we are
inclined to believe and want to believe what we see. What is authentic anyway?
As Warhol said “Who wants the truth? That’s what show business is for, to prove
that its not what you are that counts, its what they think you are” .This
encapsulates the postmodern concept of truth as a subjective value.
The photograph is more seductive than the reality. We
project our fantasies on images of celebrities who conveniently cannot answer
back. We feel we know them but of course we don’t. We seek our identity in
public figures.
No public figure was more subjected to this treatment than
Princess Diana. Voyeurism reached its zenith. We can only begin to imagine what
Warhol would have made of it all.
Following the death of Princess Diana, the almost
pornographic detailing of her death and the outpouring of grief that engulfed
the country, Jackson made her name with a series of disturbing works
culminating in an image which still resonates. This is her notorious photograph
of 1999 which depicts Princess Diana, Dodi Al-Fayed with their imaginary mixed
race love child. There was an uproar and this uproar only served to underline
the implicit racism in the vi.
Jackson turns the tables on us. WE are implicated in the
voyeurism. Photography she has said is “a slimy deceitful medium” which “tells
only a partial truth”.
The in conversation between Alison Jackson and Simon Baker
presented by Chelsea Salon is being held
on the 28th of Oct 2015 at the Chelsea College of Arts lecture
theatre. Chelsea Salon is the subject of a PhD study into self-institutional
art practice and institutional critique of the art school as is an overlooked site of critique neglected for
art’s institutions of display, galleries and museums. The PhD aims to explore new approaches to institutional critique by
analysing the manoeuvrable practices of Chelsea Salon and will contribute to knowledge by generating
a theory of interstitial pedagogy that shifts between institutions.
Laura Carew &
Joshua Y’Barbo
Chelsea Salon
