Plenary – Richard Demarco & Arthur Watson

Professor Richard Demarco in dialogue with Arthur Watson

The Artist as Explorer
Archiving the journey through print and photography:
From the Moor of Rannoch to the Venice Lagoon

Abstract

Richard Demarco and Arthur Watson have collaborated in many ways, as artists and curators, through print publications, exhibitions and shared journeys.  Both are committed to the importance of archiving these experiences within their artistic practice.  An AHRC-funded project led by Euan McArthur (with Elaine Shemilt and Watson) overviewed fifty years of Demarco’s ‘event photography’: hundreds of thousands of images distilled down to 10,000 key documents from which we will draw during our dialogue.  (www.demarco-archive.ac.uk)

From early commissions by Editions Alecto and collaborations with Ian Hamilton Finlay to the meticulous chronicles of his endless journeying on the metaphorical ‘Road to Meikle Seggie’, printmaking has remained central to Richard Demarco’s output as an artist.  Although Watson appears in Demarco’s photographs in 1975, a year after he established Peacock Printmakers, an artists’ print workshop in Aberdeen, it was not until 1987 that they worked together on the first of many print projects. This response to the Scottish section of William Daniell’s ‘Voyage Round Great Britain’ also reflected Demarco’s own circumnavigation of the British Isles in 1980 on the barque ‘Marques’, the culmination of his ‘Edinburgh Arts’ journeys.  Edinburgh Arts had started in 1972 as a relatively conventional summer school but rapidly grew into a pan-European peripatetic seminar with a faculty of artists, poets and philosophers. Described by Demarco in Lucy Lippard’s book “Overlay” as “a 7,500-mile journey into the origins of the European Culture, to the developing contemporary art language of the twentieth century”,  Lippard also acknowledges his primacy in identifying connections across the millennia and in prioritising direct experience over the conventions of Academia.

Demarco’s career as a gallery director had also changed dramatically after encountering Joseph Beuys at Documenta IV leading to the ground-breaking exhibition ‘Strategy: Get Arts’ in 1970. Beuys’ performance ‘Celtic Kinloch Rannoch : The Scottish Symphony’ dominated this survey of art from Dusseldorf and until his death  Beuys maintained a close dialogue with Demarco, coming to Scotland eight times in all.  There followed equally potent showings of the avant gardes of Romania, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Yugoslavia.  Demarco also used his developing network to introduce Scottish artists to mainland Europe, including Arthur Watson who exhibited in Sarajevo, Budapest, Dubrovnik and Sibiu at Demarco’s instigation and worked closely with him in preparing for his showing in Scotland’s first appearance at the Venice Biennale with David Mach and Kate Whiteford in 1990.

Biography in brief:

Richard Demarco established his eponymous gallery in Edinburgh in what was to become the key venue for international art in Scotland, particularly the contemporary arts of Eastern Europe; Poland, Romania and the former Yugoslavia. He built close personal relationships with Beuys, Abramovic, Abakanowicz, Neagu, Kantor and Uecker along with British artists Ian Hamilton Finlay, Alan Davie, John Latham and Alistair MacLennan. He also showcased leading poets, musicians and dramatists and between 1972 and 1980 led his ground breaking Edinburgh Arts Summer Schools through Britain and Europe. His quest continues for “the road to Meikle Seggie” – a metaphor for any journey which reveals to the traveller unexpected intellectual vistas and the chance of self-discovery and intellectual growth. Richard Demarco is a printmaker and water colourist of enviable fluency.

Arthur Watson is course Director for Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and President of the Royal Scottish Academy. In 1974 he established Peacock Printmakers (now Peacock Visual Arts), an open-access artists’ print workshop, publisher and gallery in Aberdeen. In 1990 he represented Scotland at the Venice Bienalle with Kate Whiteford and David Mach and has exhibited widely in Europe, USA and Japan. He has worked closely with Richard Demarco over the last thirty Years, most recently with Dr Euan McArthur on the exhibition and publication:’10 Dialogues: Richard Demarco, Scotland & the European Avant Garde’ at the Royal Scottish Academy. This was as a direct result of research carried out by McArthur, Watson and Elaine Shemilt which created the ‘Demarco Digital Archive’ of some 10,000 photographs and documents on a dedicated website.

Joseph Beuys on Rannoch moor in preparation for the exhibition “Strategy Get Arts” 1970
Photo: Richard Demarco, Demarco Digital Archive

L-R: Bruce McLean, Clare Henry, David Harding, Arthur Watson, unidentified restaurant owner & Kate Whiteford, planning the exhibition: ’3 Scottish Sculptors’, Venice 1989
Photo: Richard Demarco, Demarco Digital Archive

Richard Demarco on board The Marques’ Edinburgh Arts Journey, 1979
Demarco Digital Archive