TC#5 LESSON RESOURCE: ART OF INSTRUCTION 

This is not a piece of poetry. Poetry to me is nouns or adjectives. This is verbs. And you have to do them. These are all instructions and when you just do it, then you start to understand it.
​YOKO ONO

ABOUT

This resource connects with Threshold Concept 5: 'Artists play - with materials, ideas and failure' and also TC#7: 'Art is not fixed in meaning; context is everything'. 

​Significantly, this 'instructions' themed resource is being written for home-learning during a COVID-19 Lockdown. Why 'instructions'? Well...
  • I've just completed a COVID-19 test. I was provided with instructions and 'performed' these instructions to complete and return the test. (Negative - thankfully). 
  • Teachers and students are rapidly adapting to online learning. Instructions abound: How to log in..., How to record lessons..., Complete these instructions now! And so on. Misunderstandings ant misinterpretations are inevitable.
  • There is great uncertainty surrounding the cancellation of GCSE and A level exams. School Leaders are waiting on instructions on how to act; students are anxious on what might happen and how they might be assessed or tested. Instructions are central to examination papers and processes.​

When is it essential for students, teachers - anyone - to follow instructions diligently? What happens when instructions are unclear? When, and for what reasons, might students (teachers, artists) divert from instructions?

THEMES

Artists have long relied on instructions (of one form or another) to produce artwork. This resource provides an introduction to:
  • Histories of Instruction based art
  • Ideas of ownership, actions and (mis and re)interpretations in art
  • ​Instruction based activities for both lockdown teaching and in-school learning.

FOR DISCUSSION

  • Can an idea be a work of art?
  • Why might artists ask others to make their art for them?
  • Why might someone agree to follow instructions from an artist?
  • If someone produces artwork in response to a set of artist instructions, are they also an artist?
  • Should instructions always be clear, step-by-step, or even make sense?
“As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other.” ― Marcel Duchamp
Click on the images above to view in full. Follow the links below to find out more about the artists and their works.

WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW?

The images in the grid above have been chosen to represent a range of art-instruction related ideas, approaches and actions. Mostly they have been ordered chronologically (top left to bottom right), to introduce the following considerations:
  • The role of the artist in society has changed over time. Traditionally, during the Renaissance, Artists were called ‘craftsmen’ and belonged to the same broad category as cobblers, bakers, carpenters, and blacksmiths. Works of art were often produced in large and busy workshops run by a successful master artist who instructed his team of assistants and apprentices.​
  • Today, aside from deploying instructions in conceptual ways (see below), artists regularly employ and instruct assistants or other parties to produce or contribute to their work. This can be for commercial reasons - a means of keeping up with client demand. Alternatively, an artist might simply choose to focus on ideas, or may not have the time, ability or resources to make the work themselves. Angela De la Cruz is an artist who suffered a stroke in 2004. She works with assistants through instructions - a method of practice she also used prior to illness.
Activity
What might it be like to directly instruct someone else to make your art? How might this differ if you were present and observing compared to via a phone call or written instructions? 
Follow the instructions below to do this activity (see what I did there?):
  1. Decide on an artwork you would like to create - 3 times, via 3 different collaborators. ​​Depending on resources available, this might simply be a drawing, or a collage with scrap paper, newspaper, tape etc. Alternatively, you could you make this a painting, video performance or something else that appeals.
  2. Directly instruct one person to make your art  - be present in the room; provide the materials but do not touch anything - you should only instruct.
  3. Instruct someone else to make the same work (without seeing an example). This time, do not watch, look elsewhere or explain over the phone.
  4. Write out a set of instructions only - for a third collaborator to make the same piece. Do not be present. Do not give any further information.
Consider the images above. The top row shows two images of artist Jeff Koons. The first is a photograph of Koons in his studio with his assistants working on his paintings, the second is a montage by art critic Kenny Schachter which depicts Koon's on a makeshift throne overseeing technicians wearing worn clothes and a blue ball and chain. (Why might Schachter have done this?).
The images below show: workers in a factory completing versions of the Mona Lisa, a photograph of Andy Warhol and his assistant in his 'Factory'.

Activity
What might it be like to have your work mass-produced (and to ask others to do this)? How willing might others be (or not) to assist - would they expect something in return, or refuse to collaborate? Follow the instructions below:
  1. Devise and make a small artwork of your choosing (A7 size, for example).
  2. Send a photograph of this to as many people as possible with instructions on how to recreate the work.  Ask them to return a photograph of their version.
  3. Compile all their responses into one collective artwork - this might include further questions, refusals or the work produced.
From left: Marcel Duchamp, Unhappy Readymade, 1919; John Cage, notes/graphic score for Water Music, 1952; Yoko Ono, Instructions, 1964
  • Instruction based art as a creative concept (where the devising of instructions is seen as an artistic act in itself) can be traced back to the radical thinking of Marcel Duchamp who set out to challenge existing conventions and perceptions of art and art ownership. Notoriously, he did this with his 'Readymade' sculpture 'Fountain' where he claimed choosing the object was in itself a creative act - cancelling out its original function and declaring it 'Art'. This move from artist-as-maker to artist-as-chooser - or even instructor and instigator (of others, actions,events...) - is often seen as the beginning of  conceptual art. Other artists, including poets, musicians and dancers too, embraced conceptual approaches including chance and instruction as a means for experimenting. These include John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Yoko Ono. The histories of these artists and instruction based art (as a concept) weave between a variety of diverse art movements and interests, from Dada and Surrealism, to Fluxus, Process Art and Minimalism.  Robert Rauschenberg, Sol LeWitt and John Baldessari are also (at least in dominant Western Art histories) well known for their instruction based experimenting.
When an artist devises a set of instructions to make art (for someone else to complete), where lies the 'art'? Is the art the idea or the instructions themselves - written instructions akin to a drawing, for example. Or, is the art the physical act of the participant making, doing, following the instructions? What of the art completed by instructions? Is this of more or less 'value' than the idea or instructions? How might 'value' be measured here? Which artist is most significant- the one who conceives the idea and instructs, or the one who labours and makes?

Activity
Yoko Ono's instructions often read as if poems (although she says they are not). The sentences are clear and concise, yet the instructions themselves can range from surreal and profound to provocative and alarming. With this in mind, write out a set of instructions that might be considered as art in its own right - crafted and valued for the choice and arrangements of words, the lettering and design, the surface chosen, or the space within which they are encountered. You might choose to write or pin-up (and photograph) your instructions in a public space; alternatively, you might choose to carefully paint, print, carve or perform these instructions as a work of art. Consider how your response might be shared wider for others to encounter.
  • Contemporary artists such as Erwin Wurm and recent graduate, Will Nicholls continue to extend on instruction based art in playful and innovative ways.  Both have utilised illustrations as instructions, provoking works that lead to actions, interactions, sculpture and performance.

    The video work, left, by Will Nicholls shows 'Rules of the Game' a captivating collaboration with fellow artist, Yannik Eilers and Billy Leach, a student of Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.  Nicholls delivered a sequence of obscure instructions to Yannik Eilers in the form of illustrations taken from a book called Rules of the Game (1974), "the authoritative digest of the official laws and rules of the major sports of the world". Significant to now, the work was produced during England's initial 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. You can read more about this wonderful project here.
Activity
Inspired by Erwin Wurm's 'One Minute Sculpture' illustrated instructions, and Will Nicholls' 'Rules of the Game', complete on (or more) of the following activities:
  • Draw your own set of instructions for making art. This might be a human sculpture or performance, or a graphic sequence that results in a drawing, sculpture, photograph or something else. Challenge someone else to respond to these instructions whilst you document their actions and results.
  • Collect/print out (or draw/copy from) a range of illustrated instructions or graphics. This might include IKEA or DIY-style assembly instructions, a COVID test sequence, a flight safety manual, a series of road signs... Cut out, re-organise and re-arrange these to inspire your own absurd sequence of instructions. What happens when you or someone else then attempts to follow these? How might this be documented - for example, in an imaginative and experimental way, or alternatively, a clinical and objective format as if a scientific experiment?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
​
This slideshow of 'Rapid Test Instructions' has been devised by Year 12 students in lockdown for their peers to respond to within one hour only.

To download a PDF of this set click below:
student_devised_instructions8.pdf
File Size: 71 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File
If you or any of your students use these as prompts, please do consider sharing your results. You can do this on Instagram by tagging @artpedagogy.

​
​Conceived by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, "Do it" is an exhibition of artists' instructions, that began in Paris in 1993 with a discussion between Obrist and artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier, who were curious to see how an exhibition may never stop. It has become the longest-running and most far-reaching exhibition ever, giving new meaning to the concept of the "exhibition in progress." In 2013, ICI and Obrist partnered to create the 20th anniversary version of do it, with new artists' contributions and a compendium of over 250 instructions. Watch the video, left, for insights.
Further links
@artpedagogy
​[email protected]