Production Site: The Artist's Studio Inside-Out at MCA

By Ben Schuman Stoler in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 15, 2010 7:00PM

In 1998, the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin got Francis Bacon’s studio. All 7,000 pieces of it. They meticulously marked the exact location of each tiny scrap—not daring to discriminate between what was artistically relevant and what was detritus—and precisely rebuilt the studio entirely in the museum. Is it really so surprising? Certainly our preoccupation with artists' studios is by no means a new thing.

Bacon’s studio is featured on the “Selected Visual History of the Artist’s Studio” wall in MCA’s newest exhibition, Production Site: The Artist’s Studio Inside-Out. Although the wordy introduction—with the stiff warning that “This timeline is presented in an informal manner”—definitely kills the joke of an otherwise charming wall that includes Rembrandt, Veneer, and Maude’s studio in The Big Lebowski, the point of the "Selected Visual History" wall is clear: The artist’s studio is more than the brick, wood, and eccentricity it’s made of. It’s a sanctuary, a factory, a womb.

In other words, the MCA and curator Dominic Molon chose a mercurial subject for this one. From the curator’s perspective, it must have been challenging—in a good way—to conjure the right angle. Should one focus on the creation that happens in the studio, or on the studio itself? Is the studio private or public? Despite the wealth of angles he could have taken, Molon settled on this question: What is the idea of the studio to artists today?

So the exhibition is split into 13 contemporary artists’ ideas of the studio. Each one gets his/her own space to express it. The layout works because it lets you experience each artist’s idea in his/her own space while easily situating it within the larger, more dynamic idea of the studio.

In a way, walking through this exhibition, you do your own curating. Not only because you decide what rooms and works deserve your time, but because by the end of the exhibition you will have your own understanding of whatever the studio means or stands for as an idea. It's that personal experience (reflecting the personal experience of the artists) that makes this one of MCA's better exhibitions in recent memory.

Last week, Indian artist Nikhil Chopra performed his idea of the studio for two days at the MCA. Changing costumes from Indian loincloth to feminine body suit to formalwear, ritually washing himself, and scribbling on the wall, his performance is meant to show—really show—the anxiety and perseverance of an artist in his/her studio. Although he only performed for two days, the charcoal wall drawing and whatever props he used during his performance will remain on display as his work.

Chopra essentially brought the emotions of the studio to the museum. Amanda Ross-Ho (above, via MCA) brought the walls, fully intact, complete with some of the posters and accoutrement.

The best works are those that combine the emotion in Chopra with the physicality of Ross-Ho. South African artist William Kentridge’s room of videos, for example, shows the studio from all angles. The videos show Kentridge sketching an idea that literally won’t sit still on the sheet, Kentridge climbing a ladder to work on a larger piece, and, hilariously, a video of insects moving towards and around each other. The videos are edited and manipulated playfully, but taken together you get a solid idea of all the impossibility and sheer labor that the studio represents.

Although the exhibition by no means provides an exhaustive understanding of the studio, that is sort of the point. After seeing one of MCA's most thoughtful exhibitions, you leave with an appreciation of the studio as a personal thing, and more, something that can—and should—be expressed.

Production Site: The Artist's Studio Inside-Out runs at MCA until May 30th.