Monitor, 2006

performance, ‘New British Art’: Tate Triennial 2006, Tate Britain, London, curated by Beatrix Ruf

Monitor reconstructed a documentary, titled Private View, from the television series of the same name, about four young artists living in London. Scenes of their everyday lives were interspersed with a narrator’s descriptions of the London art scene in 1960, when the programme was first broadcast. The tone in the original programme is that of an anthropologist whose voice is the very embodiment of authority, as he tells us what to think about the art world, while taking us around private views, studios, galleries, museums and into the four artists’ home environments.

The performance at Tate Britain in 2006 included a photographic slide show, a soundtrack with actors reconstructing the original script of the programme and a live jazz band to play the Monitor theme tune. The audience heard the artists’ voices describe the London sites of 1960, but it was the contemporary city depicted in the photographic slides – or rather London as it was in 2006, when the piece was made. A deliberate gap opened up, with the aim of creating confusion for the viewer as to what time period was actually being represented. Neighbourhoods such as Notting Hill and Kensington were shown, which are now inhabited by millionaires, but were in earlier decades considered bohemian quarters. In their individualistic self-portrayals, the artists represented themselves as society’s ‘outsiders’, however, it is clear with hindsight that lifestyles such as theirs later became a selling point, making the gentrification of a working-class area like Notting Hill possible. Today the programme has an added poignancy, as the young artists are framed as if they were poised on the verge of success, but their names are unfamiliar to most of us. By including images of the private view for the Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art, in the piece, the work also commented self-reflexively on how narratives of success are constructed.