ART » OBSTRUCTIONS
we had this silly idea one day.
why don't we put a call out for artists,
see who responds,
choose a group of them,
let 'em make art and get to know them.
we give them tasks to respond to,
but most importantly we listen to them
and the beauty is this slow reveal of a personality.
The search for artists who would act as 'guinea pigs' in The Cad Factory's venture into conceptual art, the Obstructions project began in early 2007 with an ad in Arts Hub and bulletins placed from our myspace account. This extended to postering flyers at art schools and along King St, Newtown. We had many varied responses, some very interesting, some very funny, and some showing no idea of what The Cad Factory is about. It took us a while to decide on our group of artists, but finally we settled on four:
Mat
Isabelle
Zen
David
The official start date for The Obstructions Project was 25 June 2007, when we arrived at The Cad Factory as complete strangers to one another.
In setting up the Obstructions, we believed that rather than hindering creation we were allowing it by shaping its parameters. Limitations are what shape the world, and individuals: even chaos has identifiable patterns.
To discover what might be hidden in our artists' creative minds we imposed conditions and set up boundaries for their works. Constraints bred new forms of interpretation, action and result.
Practically, an Obstruction is something in your way: an obstacle or hindrance preventing you from doing what you want, but nevertheless creating an unavoidable system within which you must work. Then there's the notion of surrendering; where you have to deal with what you're given; having to embrace the situation and work with it. Surrendering to an Obstruction doesn't mean giving in, it means making those limitations work for you, and taking power over them.
Combine these two thoughts and you will be somewhere close to how the Obstruction artists have been feeling. The works that have been created represent an internal struggle to allow individual creativity to blossom under a regime. The results will be shown for the first time at The Cad Factory party of Saturday, 28 July. But there is no escape for the Obstruction artists yet - we will find new and varied ways to limit - and thus explore! - their creativity.
this exhibition is the first stage of this process.
we haven't finished yet.
there is more to come.
our artists are lovely,
and the process is one which takes time.
currently we have given the artists a task with an undisclosed time period.
who knows when they will get back to us. . . .
who knows when this project will ever really be over!
