Retrospective: Richard Bolam at 50 Note: This is a working document and will be updated throughout the project.
For most of my life Iʼve been a closet artist, too afraid to show my work to other people. Where I grew up, I was not exposed (much) to art other than through the TV and books. I chose to do sciences at school and so did not end up mixing with “arty” people. Consequently, as an adult I felt very isolated, and spending the 80s and 90s living in Rotherham didnʼt help. Most of the people I mixed with were indifferent and some downright hostile towards art. So I kept my guilty secret to myself, and as a result I accumulated a lot of material that has never been seen. Years passed [citation needed] and I ended up working for Lovebytes Digital Arts Festival, based in The Workstation, in Sheffieldʼs Cultural Industries Quarter. Suddenly I was working and mixing with artists and creative types who did not consider being artistic a fault to be ridiculed. A major influence from the 1980s was seeing “EP Sculptor” (198x) on TV, a documentary about Eduardo Paolozzi. I videotaped the program and watched it over and over. Other influential documentaries I saw at that time included the famous film of Picasso working [reference missing] and a doc about Joseph Beuys [reference missing].
Years passed [citation needed] and in 2004 The Dean Gallery in Edinburgh hosted a major retrospective of Paolozziʼs work, entitled “Paolozzi at 80”. I went to Edinburgh specially to see it. Part of the exhibition was a reconstruction of the artistʼs studio. I love all that behind the scenes stuff and I really enjoyed the show. Upstairs was a gallery of “early work” including some juvenilia as well as a drawing of himself aged 11. The drawing is listed in the catalogue as “Self-portrait c.1935, Pencil and blue crayon on paper.” Paolozzi has signed it but the title has been added by a curator at some time later once he had become an established artist. I couldʼt help feeling this is slightly ridiculous, itʼs just a childʼs drawing, but it led me to reassess my own work as the output of a whole life rather than suppressing the early doodles, the naive cul-de-sacs and the embarrassing failures, and only concentrating on the more successful and mature “serious” stuff. As a result, I have decided to catalogue and publish my entire lifeʼs output (so far), warts and all. Well, not absolutely everything, but a representative catalogue from childhood through to maturity. I have been very productive (on and off) although most of my work has never been seen. I will be 50 in 2014 and there is a lot to do, so I am starting now (August 2012).
According to my notebooks, I first had the idea in October 2004 and also came up with an “ironic and post-modern” take on it, proposing to make only the branded memorabilia with the show being nothing but a gift shot. However, I tired of that one-liner idea and decided “I donʼt do that kind of art”. Well, I do and I donʼt. I still like the idea but the one joke artwork seems a bit puerile. There will be branded memorabilia, and this is part of the work, but the cataloguing is real. It is a joke, but itʼs not a piss-take, and whatʼs more, itʼs serious too.
Above is the earliest reference to the idea from my notebooks. I took to dating all my entries after having seen photos of the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland始s (1869 - 1943) sketches whilst on a family holiday to Norway in 1980. I haven始t done it continuously, but I have done it pretty religiously for a number of years and it始s very useful to be able to review ideas and see how they develop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Vigeland http://www.vigeland.museum.no/ This project is a platform to show unseen work and ill also act as an impetus to finish the many partially complete works that I have begun. The project will happen primarily online, but there will be a gallery show and some screenings and events (or parties) over the period 24th April 2014 to 23rd April 2015. I am making a series of promotional flyers which will be available as PDFs and printed too. The PDFs are online along with the ongoing catalogue entries. http://issuu.com/richardbolam Richard Bolam, September 2012. http://richardbolamat50.wordpress.com