Conceptual vs. commercial

First, I am going to do a plug. Bear with me. On Saturday 25th April at 7pm, Salon is holding an exhibition of signed limited-edition prints at Nincomsoup in central London (www.salonart.org.uk).
The printed images – shot by Miles Thomas - depict works made by deaf and hard-of-hearing visual artists during Salon’s activities in 2006-8. Profits from the sales will be split between Salon for the benefit of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community and the artists who created the original pieces, except in cases where the artist has specifically asked for all profits to be reinvested in Salon.
This is not aiming to be a conceptual art exhibition, although we would naturally respect buyers’ wishes to learn of the theories behind the works featured. Instead, it is a selection of some of our best images collected over the years, printed on light-fast specialist art paper for the sheer pleasure of our buyers.
Why have we reached this point in time? Deaf visual art has explored themes of communication for over two decades, with the intention to promote and celebrate Deaf Culture. However, although some truly witty works of art have come out of that culture, it can still be a hit-and-miss affair.
The challenges lie not in visiting art collections, collecting images of inspirational paintings, or even meeting mainstream artists. That conforms to the basic principle of accessing visual art as a spectator.
Rather, it is developing the BSL equivalent of contemporary visual art theory - which can be rather arcane and deeply rooted in spoken language culture at - that is difficult. You need to know the rules before you can break them. Experience indicates that the deaf visual artists most likely to do that tend to be bilingual.
Moreover, the prevailing view - that art is what you make it - makes it even harder to pick creative gold from the flotsam, ensuring that artists such as Stella Vine continue to attract controversy.
Salon was formed in 2005 to address exactly this issue. We may have been too radical for some. While many of the deaf and hard-of-hearing visual artists who came to us recognised their exclusion from the mainstream contemporary art scene, it was hard to create an environment in which the full impact of a conceptual 2D or 3D piece, questioning the status quo from a deaf perspective, could be realised.
That’s not to say that our activities didn’t incur creativity in our artists - they did. The result was some scrumptious pieces of deaf innovation. Among those that took your breath away with their visual purity were Martin Glover’s Old Man’s Ear, Matt Jenkins’ Untitled (The City vs. Nature), and Colin Redwood’s Natural Satellite. Printed images of all three will now be exhibited next month in editions of 250 along with several others.
But let’s not harbour any illusions here. Being part of a minority group, the number of BSL-using deaf visual artists able to transcend the commercial/community art mould is far outweighed by that of their mainstream peers.
Commercial art is no bad thing though. An artists’ agent told me recently how hard it was to sell high-concept works of the sort endorsed by Tate Modern. Would a Yves Klein blue canvas be happy in an one-bedroom flat? Only if it was of the huge penthouse variety! Then again, it’s been said that the only difference between Stella Vine and other similar artists is marketing.
So instead, of aiming for the moon, let’s work on developing an eye for aesthetics and/or visual witticisms that buyers can treasure. And if you do get shortlisted for the Turner Prize? Kudos to you.

© Melissa Mostyn 2009