The fear of losing your legacy is devastatingly acute. In 21st century Britain, where art collecting, and conservation are on the decline, and museum collections are tightening their purse strings for new acquisitions, there is a genuine risk of art being lost to landfill, and creative ideas being confined just to living memory.
In that context, The Vessel, an autobiographical documentary covering Terry Duffy’s career, serves as a preservative, not only for his work, but his ideas.
And Terry’s driving force, at least for the last decade has been preserving the ideas of others, driving the British Art and Design Association towards conservation and collection, to ensure the work of others isn’t lost too.
Whether or not you’re interested in the art historical context of this book, as a piece of era-specific experience of an artist working through varying ages of national funding structures, artistic ideals and creative communities (particularly in Merseyside), it’s worth reading.
For artists working in Liverpool, there’s important context about the world we work in. For non-artists reading it, there’s an openness to how the art world works, and a simple broken-down reasoning behind the creation of new works.
I think both are useful, in that Terry, in his uniquely dry spoken form, which translates just as clearly on the page as it does in life, conveys something of himself. But that doesn’t just contextualise him. It creates a narrative that would fit most artists working through the 70’s up to today – including constant re-evaluations of ideas as well as ideals, and the personal revelations that come with it.
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The Vessel by Terry Duffy is available to buy from the BADA website at www.badaprojects.com/shop
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith