Artists notes : 2008
Some thoughts on Surfaceaction.

Also published in French, Spanish and Catalane in the exhibition cataloge 'Afinitats Electives' 2008. Centre d’Art la Panera, Ilieda, Spain.

‘Because it’s there’; first used in 1924 by mountaineer George Mallory in reply to the question; why climb Everest? Has become a standard if somewhat ironic response to anyone attempting to uncover the motivation behind absurd and apparently meaningless endeavour. Contemporary art is no stranger to such things and Surfaceaction, particularly when seen solely as a video work, can easily be described as such.

Why climb around the gallery walls? Is it enough as Mallory did to simply reply, “because they are there”. I sometimes think it is. But this dose not help the one who asks the question. They will only ask the question again. And if we are not to find ourselves in an exchange that resembles a cartoon cat chasing it’s own tail, we must find a more conventionally response; of which there could be several, all as valid as the next but none more validity than the first. This is an important point to remember as we attempt to apply our critical tools of understanding to actions that take place within Art. Absurd as it may seem, we make art “because it is there”.
This said, from a ‘critical’ point of view, it is easy to understand why a mountaineer should want to climb around the walls of a gallery. It is fun and good training for the ‘real’ thing! The problem arises when we take this activity out of its climbing context and place it within art. How do we make sense of this transition? Are the valid meanings it held within climbing still valid when translated into art? Climbing around the gallery walls is not, in itself, good training for art. So why do it? One answer may be found within metaphor and the superimposing of two activities that have a shared reflection upon life. Climbing causes one to reflect on life, art could be said to be a reflection of life, and visa-a-versa. Both undoubtedly are an expression and evidence of life.
The marks left in the gallery walls by ice axe and crampons describe a narrative passage in time and space that is both metaphorical and actual. They trace the merging of two worlds, art and climbing, into a coherent form around a central axis, the body, i.e. Life. This coherence is evidence of the capacity and elasticity of art to expand its frontiers and establish new relations.
But art cannot take all the credit. Mountaineers are natural explores. Who was first to climb around the gallery, the artist or the mountaineer? In my case the answer is simple, it was the artist but without the spirit of the mountaineer that went before, it is unlikely that Surfaceaction would ever have happened.

neal beggs. October 2008