room to FAIL

Looking at my bio and CV, I promote a narrative of triumph so you can string together a clear linear narrative of progress in my career. I spoke to Jesse Malmed about this on 14 September 2022. About how,

I remember, um, when I moved to Baltimore, I like moved away from Chicago. Didn't have a job, didn't have a place to stay, whatever. I ended up getting a place to stay, getting a job at Baltimore School for the Arts, like, that worked out for, you know, a year or whatever. Uh, and I remember talking to you and you saying that you had overheard somebody that was like, “Oh yeah, Kelly moved to Baltimore for this great job.” And then you laughed to yourself, and you were like, "Lols, no, no, she didn't.” You know, so, I mean, I guess that like...

  Malmed interjected, “But they just had the order wrong, you know…” I replied,

They did have the order wrong, but they also had the sort, you know, I think, um, yeah, I guess I'm not necessarily concerned with like the truth, but I am concerned with the kind of... honesty or a kind of memory that includes the difficult parts as well, or that, um, that includes the things that didn't work or includes like the attempts as well as just the, the triumphs. And I wonder how lo- um, how lore also records the, um, yeah, like the, the boring logistics, the, you know, um, the order of events, things like that, that do radically change the way that we understand what happened.

Malmed responded,

Mm-hmm, I thought maybe sometimes even more so than kind of more official, like, art histories, there's the, there's the part of why people are telling lore is because they, maybe there is like a, a different kind of failure built into it that it's like, there there's much less of people being like, "and then this painting, it had like this really interesting impasto" or whatever, right.

Like, the assumption that thing is in there. And so, like, you're more likely to hear somebody tell you slightly incorrectly about like, uh, you know, Chris Burden getting shot, as I like, was, have been told like 12 different versions of what happened with that. And that's, um, [LAUGHS] you know, like that's, which is much more likely to have sort of be, yeah.... something where, where something interesting can happen, um, in the telling of that. Even if it is- so then I think of that, and it has like built in failure inside of that potentially. Um, like people are more excited to talk about the thing where when the thing was not going well, when you saw the thing, when there was only 10 people at the show and it was freezing cold and like the, the thing broke is like a more likely story than sort of like, “Yeah, I went to see their triumphant retrospective.” And, or “I saw them at whatever festival and they like sure knew their songs at that point. So... yeah. They had like some guitar techs and sound was good”, you know?

Um, so maybe I, I mean, so maybe it's not the exact, like, I mean, that also is something where it's like, right. Like the ways that things worked and didn't work, there's still a level of maybe, like, heroism inside of some of those things that is different than some of the sort of more boring failure, parts of things.

Um, but I think it, it does, it does have the potential for more, more of what, more of the imperfections, more of the struggle to be a part of that.[i]

  Speaking with Jesse reminded me how memory along with lore offer an alternative art history that has the potential for more struggle, and more imperfections in contrast to more official art histories that privilege narratives of triumph. A narrative of triumph hides many things, including in my case the fact that I’m often driven by unethical working conditions to leave a situation/place/job and make the most out of the one opportunity I’ve gotten. It hides the privilege that allows me to remain mobile and flexible into my mid-thirties. It hides the sacrifices I’ve made in my personal life to remain mobile, and the constant ego death required to deal with a potentially unhealthy amount of rejection.

You can string together a narrative of triumph looking at Jessica Gaynelle Moss’ CV. In our interview I said, “I was looking at your CV and it seems like what? You've gotten five grants in 2021? Like what is, how, yeah, how did you do this? Can you teach me a class on this? Like I need to know this information.”[ii]

  Moss responded,

No, you already know it. Wow. You're right. I did. I've done well this year, um, with grant writing. But the thing about it, Kelly is once you do it right once, and you get a big one, then you just pull the language. It's so much easier. Once you get a big one. And once you get a big one too, it like legitimizes it to everyone else that you're worth investing in. This the philan- the, like philanthropy is just fucked. It really is. And it is like a popularity contest. And, um, whatever, we could talk about that later, your question was about, how do you get money?

Um, what my job has been for maybe the past five years is that every day I work on three grants. This doesn't mean that I'm applying to three new ones every day. This just means I'm dedicating three in the queue at all times. So as soon as one goes out, literally another one comes in. And so, if you imagine I do this every day. Um, I get more rejection letters than I think like a, a normal person should [LAUGHS] like have to be confronted with, like, it is constantly, um, letters of rejection in my inbox, up in my phone, like it is just a part of it. And it is not personal, right? It's not about me. It is maybe a superpower to be in that position and know that I'm not taking any of these personally. It's not about me. It's just that I'm not using the specific dialect that this person wants to hear me speak in. So really, it's about how can I figure out what your language is?[iii]

  Is a narrative of triumph one of the languages that people expect me to use in my CV and grant applications? Speaking of CVs and grant applications, my interview with 12ø Collective’s eva duerden and Lou Macnamara started off with a conversation about 12ø Collective’s CV. Going year by year we asked when things happened, why we did so much, and whose expectations were we trying to satisfy? We decided to stop working together in October 2022, and I spoke with them in November 2022 about, my concern that,

… the world is full of a pile of like defunct art projects and like forgotten art spaces. And, you know, I'm interested in archival work, like documentation. Like what- how can we make sure that people know that something existed? Um, and I don't know why that is so important to me, because like you said, right, the people that participated will know that they existed. And then they'll die and then, you know, time will move on.

So, like, this kind of pressure to make it like bigger, better, more efficient, more marketable, ongoing - what does that do to kind of the nature of how we understand like, artist-led projects, small arts organisations, and whether they have been successful or not after they've ended? Everything ends.[iv]

To which duerden responded,

I feel as though, when you were talking, like, yeah. What, what, what we're asking is sort of like, how do you measure success, right? I feel as though there's such a rigid idea of what looks successful. In the same way that like Lou was saying, you know, people are like, "Oh my God, it's ending? What??" Or like, it's not bigger, it doesn't have a permanent space. And these are sort of all the things that we had a problem with the whole time we were doing 12ø. These were the things that we were trying to undermine the whole time, like... that it wasn't a successful exhibition in New York just because we got all the works crated. Like, we could do a successful exhibition by putting everything in our hand luggage and being honest about it, and it would still be a valid show and the artists' work could still be cared for in a different way that was accessible and affordable. Yeah, I feel like I have a problem with the way that success is defined for these organisations. Because for me anyway, 12ø's success is probably in ways that isn't written down, isn't documented, um, probably isn't properly quotable, traceable. It'll be in like, you know, in the way that we worked with Bella [Milroy], and then Bella works with somebody else, and like Bella probably doesn't even remember why she feels a certain way about one thing, but it's, you know, one of you said something when she wrote her application and therefore, she said that to somebody else. And it's like, I feel like that is the sort of, I'd say that's the success, and it's not quantifiable.

Macnamara added,

Yeah. That's why it doesn't feel like it goes on the defunct pile for me, because it didn't ever have the intentions of trying to succeed by existing long enough to become institutionalised or be big enough. And therefore, we can't fail at that if that wasn't the intention in the first place. Even though other people might misread that as being your intention, cause they assume that's what arts organisations are doing. And the project's always changing, like maybe as part of that as well, like there not being longevity and repetitiveness. And 30/30 being the only one where that happens, and that then is continuing, it's being taken on.

Um, and it kind of made me wonder like, as well - 12ø never breached past being a side hustle in terms of income. Like, we did get to the stage where we paid ourselves on stuff. But like, even say when you were talking about getting paid for another month of doing 30/30, even though it was a very generous offer from Artquest, we were still on budgets where it was like, it was nice to have in a pandemic or, uh, better than nothing. But it was never like this could take over to be like a day-a-week job or two-day-a-week job that you could slot in around, you know, another part-time job and then like make it very sustainable. And we never even had a conversation to try and do that, I guess. I feel like we didn't consider it. Probably for those kind of reasons of not, like it not being of interest, but if we'd really wanted to figure out how to become an NPO and turn it into an organisation of the scale of Artquest or something, we probably do have the connections to find advisors or people who could have told us how you do that, you know? But we didn't even ask, so I guess we didn't want to. [LAUGHS][v]

duerden brings up a really important question of how success is measured, pointing out that getting bigger and having a permanent space, two markers of “successful” artist-led projects and small arts organizations, “… are sort of all the things that we had a problem with the whole time we were doing 12ø. These were the things that we were trying to undermine the whole time…”[vi] Macnamara hits the point home pointing out that because 12ø Collective chose to do something different, “… we can't fail at [existing long enough to become institutionalised or be big enough] if that wasn't the intention in the first place.”[vii]

So, failure in relationship to what exactly? What alternative measurements of success need to be developed? What is the place of supposed failure in distinguishing to yourself and others what your intention actually is?

I spoke with both Shannon Stratton and Ruth Lie about the opportunity parties afford to test the boundaries of success and failure inside of larger institutions. I attended the first iteration of Shannon Stratton’s Party as Form at Ox-bow School of the Arts in 2012 and was lucky enough to teach it this past Summer. I asked Stratton to tell me about, “… an example of a thing that [she has] done where [she was] like, ‘That's it. That's the thing.’”[viii]

Stratton responded,

Well, Party as Form [LAUGHS] I mean, I think... a situation that has got multiple points of prompt, tool, physicality, timestamp. I think it's, like, situations where it's like, something happens, something changes over time. Something is put into motion. There are, you know, chapters to that motion maybe, or there's, like, footnotes to it, or something that there's, like, different registers of, like, what might be a static experience, you know, like that kind of thing. Um, so I mean, the reason that I said Party as Form is that it's like, the point of that class was, like, to, at a moment in Chicago when there was so many people doing social practice work to be like, "Why don't you think about it through this lens so that you can, like, really determine whether or not, like, so you can learn, like, think about critically what it means to be inviting people, to do something with you."

And it made a lot of sense to me to have it here [at Ox-bow School of Art], which is a place that seems to have a lot of, like, kind of, rules in place that are about, like, play and, um, uh, and performance, you know. That, so it's, like, already a site that you can sort of exercise that, like, you can test that theory out on or whatever. And so, for me, that felt like a very perfect thing. Cause it's like, here is, like, let's critique something that's going on in, in our field, let's say, but trickles out beyond it. Like, let's critique a thing with a bunch of texts. Let's put it in a site that's, like, specific to do that work and, like, feel the thing that we're critiquing while we're doing it. And then, like, try to act on it in some way, in a way that feels like very immediate, like, not a lot of chance to, like, fuss over it. And I think cause- and that to me comes more from a place of being somebody that, like, gets lost in, like, "Well, I can't really make this thing, so I guess I won't make anything at all.” But, like, if you’re short on time, short on materials, you're just like thrown into this thing, like, you'll do a thing and it'll turn out however it is, and then it'll be brilliant, and you'll accept it. And so, I... that's like a constraints-based making, um, that I think is, like, a really like powerful way to learn about something.

… I think like in, in, like, curatorial settings, I try doing that with exhibitions, like, often. And you know, I think some of them worked and some of them failed, you know. And that feels, like, awkward to admit. It's like, “Oh, maybe that cost a lot of money, and maybe that wasn't what I thought it was gonna be. Or maybe that's not what I wanted it to be, and maybe it would be easier if I just had put some things on a pedestal and put like a didactic on the wall and, like, moved on”, you know? But that is, to me that- the times I had to curate shows that looked like that those were the biggest failures to me. And then the things that were more experimental that maybe weren't... were maybe the ones that resonated with me the most, you know?[ix]

  If failure is a consequence of experimentation, and experimentation is a necessity for resonance, then how do we champion the necessity of failure? Even in large institutions with large budgets?

Ruth Lie has led multiple late-night programmes at cultural institutions in London including the Nocturnal Creatures Festival in 2022 at Whitechapel Gallery, and the Friday Late programme at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Coming from an Architecture background into her M.A. in Curating at the Royal College of Art, Lie,

…wanted to study curating, because what I was interested about was that, um, connection to space and how like you can use space in a temporary way, whereas with architecture, you know, it's a never ending, "Will this even get built?" [LAUGHS] question. Um, like you never really see the things that you design come to fruition, like not at that stage anyway. And like, it excited me that you, that there was this, this world in which like you could put on an event or test out an exhibition and it to be really site specific and to be really kind of catered towards a certain place and space.[x]

Working for the V&A she told me about how,

… one of my favourite was being like seven/eight months pregnant and like running a Boiler Room night at the V&A, which was, like, mad, and it was... it was packed and there were queues outside. I was trying to stop people coming in, but like, people would, people who had never been to the museum before were like dancing in the middle of the main entrance. And like, that was like awesome, right? [LAUGHS] That's a way of kind of stir things up a bit. And I think there's a real nervousness, especially within institutions, probably back then especially, to, like, do that kind of programming.

And I'm not saying it's, it was particularly good or slick. It, it definitely wasn't it - but I liked the DIY and the slight anarchy of it all. Um, yeah, that's what I like, I really liked doing until I burnt out because it was just, like, mad and you were doing it every, the last Friday of every month and there was no break, and I was paid like pittance to do what I did.[xi]

Where is the place in institutions for moments that aren’t “particularly good or slick”? Where is the place for the D.I.Y., and the anarchy? And where are the places failure in institutions that fail us, that pay us pittance, and leave us burnt out? This is something I spoke to jina valentine about particularly in relationship to the work they did co-writing the Black Futures letter[xii], a letter written by Black faculty at and alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where,

… in 2020, in the midst of everything that was happening in the world, I got an email from another faculty member, and they were. It was an email to Black faculty, um, requesting a meeting to talk about ways to support all of the concerns and critique that had been lobbied at the administration by Black students. How do we support them? Um, and so it was myself, Martine Whitehead, SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, Andres Hernandez, and Leah Gipson who's in art therapy, and AJ McLennan. Um, and we met frequently to talk about what kind of letter we were going to write. So, we wrote a letter, which was the Black Futures Letter. I’m glad that happened, but I mean, our meetings were... [LAUGHS] were a lot of sharing space, primarily. And also, we made this thing happen. Um, but I think about that as an ethic, or as a way to build conversation consensus community, and also do the work, um, as it relates to Black Lunch Table. Um, that, the, you know, checking in and acknowledging the space that we're sharing and holding that space in advance of getting into whatever the work is, is as imp- or maybe more important than the work at hand.

It was also about having a place to... I dunno, just to share updates, to share gossip, to share information about the administration, to, um, vent [LAUGHS] to be heard, right? Um, and to know that, that place was also for that, right, I just, I dunno, I feel like I learned a lot from watching how other people create space and how other people hold space, and um and invite...a kind of participation that ensures that everyone feels they can be heard and feels that there are no dumb questions.

But yeah, I think, um, I'm also interested in how these spaces exist despite institutions, and for an institution to be held accountable or to be worth anything, it requires the existence of those spaces too. There has to be the collective of people that are somehow invested in the institution who continually hold the institution to account, right? And it's exhausting. [LAUGHS][xiii]

From the failure necessary to generate potentiality, to question measurements of success, to better understand our intentions, and to create spaces within institutions for experimentation, to stir things up a bit, and to hold the institution to account; when our institutions fail us, what opportunity is there for us to fail?

On 30 December 2022, Cecilia Wee spoke to me about how many interact with the failure of institutions. Wee told me how,

There's massive amounts of cognitive dissonance because people are just like, "No, that's not true. It's still happening. It's fine." And that everyone's in denial about the fact that it is just total collapse, um, because they've sunk so much energy into these things that they just can't get rid of the idea that it's not gonna work out for them.

And, and obviously that kind of, like, creates this whole- it reinforces this individualistic culture because people are just like, “In that case, if you didn't get it, then it's your fault.” Do you know what I mean? Like, “You are the person who failed and I'm fine. And I'm just gonna pull the ladder up after me. Goodbye. [LAUGHS] So, I think what's really interesting about the current times, particularly with like, um, all of the strikes. So, you know, in, in 2019, we've been striking since 2019, obviously, like in the higher education sector. And now obviously because of the cost-of-living crisis, then we see like so many other unions and sectors have come on board with strikes and striking has become, like, you know, there's this renewed energy around it. There's a new kind of, like, vigour and hope around it, which is really brilliant. Um, and we can see that change can be made through this, through collective, like, action and specifically withdrawal of labour.[xiv]

  Many people I spoke to this season spoke about how this neoliberal individualistic art world can be changed through cross-sector collective action, union organising, and withdrawal of labour. They also spoke about the importance of co-creating nourishing and just spaces to work towards collective action. Perhaps inside of those spaces there can be room to fail, and to learn from it.

Kelly Lloyd 

[i] Jesse Malmed, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 14 September 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/jesse-malmed.

[ii] Jessica Gaynelle Moss, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 15 September 2021, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/jessica-gaynelle-moss.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] 12ø Collective (eva duerden, Kelly Lloyd, Lou Macnamara), interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 1 November 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/12o-collective.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Shannon Stratton, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 4 August 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/shannon-stratton.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Ruth Lie, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 3 December 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/ruth-lie.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] “Black Futures Letter”, SAIC Moving Forward, Accessed 10 May 2023, https://saicmovingforward.github.io/letter/index.html.

[xiii] jina valentine, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 2 November 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/jina-valentine.

[xiv] Cecilia Wee, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 30 December 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/cecilia-wee.