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This paper proposes that practice-led research, rather than confirming existing assumptions about the relationship of art and its cultural context, is in a position to challenge those assumptions, which are based on concepts of sociality and culture-as-ground which are dominant within the humanities. My argument for a division between practice-led and humanities-based approaches, depends on a distinction between the mobilisation of context as artifice within fine art, and cultural foundationalism in the humanities. A work which keeps both of these elements in play is Martin Creed's neon light piece 'the whole world+the work=the whole world' of 2000, which is a key point of reference in this paper. I use Creed's piece as an exemplar of the possibility of including 'the whole world' within the work of investigation. This strategy can be used to counteract both the uncritical acceptance of 'the whole world' as the final ground of research practice, and reactions in favour of tightly defined fields of inquiry and micro-specialisms. I argue that neither of these extremes are appropriate to practice-led research in fine art. At doctoral level, we are used to telling artist/researchers that their research project 'can't take on the world', and referring them to 'fields of inquiry' and 'areas of research' as the proper alternative. I argue instead that we should be telling them that practice-led research must always take on 'the world', as a shibboleth that tends to skew or distort the direction of research undertaken by artists. Paradoxically, an emphasis on the artificiality of context may offer the best challenge to its mythic and sacred status, and may also help to ensure that sociality does not become 'the only game in town'. |
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