Experimental Art v Art Experiments

STUDIES IN MATERIAL THINKING http://www.materialthinking.org ISSN: 1177-6234 Auckland University of Technology First published in April 2007, Auckland, New Zealand. Copyright © Studies in Material Thinking and the author.

 

 

 

There is a school of thought that holds that art is, by definition, experimental. “In the relevant sense of ‘experimental’ (and using the relevant word ‘art’) there is no other sort”, says Donald Brook1.

 

Certainly, one of the few generalizations that may safely be advanced about contemporary art is that it experiments—and not just with its given materials; art is inclined to experiment with anything and everything: “with raw matter or time, relationships amongst people, things and tendencies” as Ross Gibson observes2. As such, art is apt to exceed any institutional designation, confounding expectations about what it is and where it belongs. At this level, its experimentality manifests as a disposition, a drive to question, transgress and reinvent that in turn inflects the particular exploratory processes or “methods” of art making. When we describe art as “experimental”, then, we are often referring not to a formal testing procedure but to the inclination to test social boundaries and conventions; in other words, to contemporary art’s roots in the history of the avant-garde.