Final Dissertation

ART OUT OF (S)P(L)ACE: The Everyday & Spatiality in Martha Rosler’s Garage Sale By Douglas J. Drake Submitted in accordance with the requirements of the degree of: MA in Social History and Theory of Art University of Leeds School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies

Dissertation handed in

I handed in my dissertation on 1 September. It came out to be about 14,000 words, and about 39 pages total (with cover). I will post the final version online as soon as I find a computer that supports Microsoft Frontpage, in order to upload it to Villanova's server. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, my writing has come a long way since first term--it's gotten more crisp and clear in terms of writings, and more refined in it's content. After I post the final copy, there will more no more updates to this blog, it will be archived. I will, however, be starting up a general art blog, called art rhizome (borrowing Gilles Deleuze's term for the title). This new blog will be a continuation in my interest to keep blogging about art events, news, and so on; which I also did in the dissertation blog, as a sort of side interest. However, the dissertation blog was very useful in regards to helping me pinpoint where my interests in art are; which was a major problem for me during the course. But I think this blog helped with that, and in hindsight I can see what themes in art really seem to interest me. Here is something I wrote about the blog, albeit it was removed from the final version of the dissertation (it was originally a footnote): "The blog has its pragmatic advantages, a way for me to keep track of gallery websites, online articles, etc. It also allowed me to share this information in real-time with a wider audience, such as my fellow postgraduate students at Leeds. Furthermore, it has its theoretical assets, as documentation of the dissertation writing process; process itself being a significant theme in twentieth-century artistic practices. Also, the blog is quite rhizomatic (see Deleuze and Guattari); it illustrates a day-by-day account and the varied, seemingly random, angles one draws from throughout the research process. The blog was created using Blogger.com and is now closed (no more updates or entries) and is archived, as of September 2005, but can still be found at the website mentioned above. However, the purpose of the blog was my own personal prerogative and is not a necessary element of the final dissertation. By blogging my interests in art and my dissertation progress and resources, I began to become more conscious of where my interests in art lie."

Sue Wilks

*Feda: Between Pedagogy & Politicised Art Practice Artist-student: Sue Wilks, The University of Leeds 2001 - 2005 "This non-commercial website presents an online dossier of my work and tracks the progress of my PhD Research in Fine Art Practice (throughout its duration). The content is structured in a linear manner to provide coherence, but this linear structure can be ignored for a different kind of user encounter with my research. Both my research and this website are ongoing processes of personal and academic development."

Final abstract

In 1973, Martha Rosler held a garage sale in an art gallery, this installation/performance was entitled the Monumental Garage Sale. This artwork has also been reproduced numerous times, the most recent being in 2005 at the ICA (London). The purpose of this exploration is to situate Rosler’s gesture within two thematic overlapping areas: the everyday and spatiality, the writings of Henri Lefebvre as a conduit to explore these themes. I will be making parallels between the Garage Sale and other everyday gestures, such as those by artists Arman and Jannis Kounellis. In Rosler’s gesture, space is collapsing between a banal everyday event and the gallery, notions that are conventionally divided in Western analytical philosophies. Visitors to the gallery immediately become participants in an art performance, through their browsing and buying. The work oscillates between performance and installation, subject and object. Her gesture is in flux due to this interactive-ness of its visitors, who can browse, touch, and purchase the objects (and of course at low garage sale prices!). The Garage Sale is a potent stance for/on the ideological framework of gallery space. Although, it is staged in a highly contemplative space, i.e. the art gallery, it still encourages a close reading of such a banal quotidian event. Douglas Drake Leeds, August 2005