Peter Liversidge is a British contemporary artist notable for his diverse artistic practice and us or proposals. Rather than exhibit a finished piece in galleries, Peter exhibits proposals of work he would like to do. He creates the proposals in his kitchen on a typewriter. The proposals are usually typed onto white paper, whilst coloured paper indicates a piece that has been realised within the space. Process is still key to the proposal. How important is the realisation of a proposal? It doesn’t matter to Peter whether a proposal is realised or not, he wanted to make work that didn’t really exist.
As part of the Edinburgh festival he created several flags about the city which said “Hello”. Whilst putting the idea together he realised that there were a lot of empty flag poles about the city that weren’t being used and flags signify an event or a welcome he thought it suitable to use this as his piece. Much of his work also involves using postal services to post manufactured or made objects. He once posted pieces of wood to his friend, who once Peter had seen them all together as a collection, his friend burnt them as he was cold! Some of his works also involve exhibiting polaroids as a diptych. He exhibits the polaroid that comes out from the film and then the master copy to show the passage of time.
Music has been a big influence in Peter’s life, he said “You are influenced by your surroundings and how they sound, only at the point of it playing can you hear it in you surroundings”. Peter spent a life changing year in Montana where he was tutored by David Lynch.
Another piece of his work involved collecting and curating all of the FREE signs he could find. The type that people put out on the street next to something that they would like you to take for free. Instead of taking the free object he took the signs and replaced them with a facsimile. Peter said he doesn’t mind if things don’t work or not (when talking about a back drop he created for a music gig) it’s about the things taking place.
Creating winter scenes in the summer - psychosomatic. People put their coats on even though it is still warm but they get a sense of being cold because of what their surroundings present to them. Peter collected the elastic bands that he received through the letterbox as he received no post, only elastic bands! Peter collects things not knowing what he might do with them, but eventually finds a purpose for them.
One show consisted of 60 cd’s burnt by Peter and 60 burnt by another artist. The audience were invited to play the cd’s. Peter was interested in the difference in interaction between the different generations. Older generations would put a cd on and listen to the whole thing beefier deciding if they liked it or not, whereas the younger generation would put a cd on for 20 seconds, decide they didn’t like it and move onto another cd. The piece changed depending on who interacted with it.
Some of his influences are Joseph Beuys, Joseph Cornell (Peter said that Cornell lived with his mother and used to invite the local kids around to take some of his boxes away to play with and they would be brought back in a different arrangement), Dukes of Hazard (from which when he was younger he would make model cars from the show), John Peel, Dan Flavin, Fischilli Weiss, Elizabeth Cotton (Freight Train song), The Fall, Neil Young (Old man take a look at my life), The Monks, The Day Today (Chris Morris), Film The repo man. From this film Peter and his brother would take phrases and replace them whenever they wanted to use a swear word when they were younger in front of their parents, they used to say melon farmer instead of fuck (I think this was the right swear word!)
Peter spoke about Ray Johnson and how he was suspicious of systems that show work and so instead he believed that by posting objects, the act of them being posted and being received was perhaps “the show” rather than exhibiting the actual pieces that were posted. What is the purpose of a gallery? Is the postal system a gallery space?
He also referenced an artist who drew dollar bills and tried to pay his way through life by using the drawings, using them as a piece of art that may or may not be worth more than the actual dollar bill itself. One lady refused to have him pay with his art (he also need change n real currency) and her reason being was that she liked art with flowers on!
Peter showed us a video clip of RL Burnside sat outside with a guitar and an amp, after the clip ended he remarked that you don’t need all of the fancy things you are made to think you need to produce good stuff like music and art.
