Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, mounted on board
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/keith-arnatt-666" aria-label="More by Keith Arnatt" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Keith Arnatt</a>
Rejected Proposal Peter Stuyvesant City Sculpture Project Cardiff City
Transferred from Tate Archive 2010

abstraction
architecture
Arnatt, Keith, billboard
billboard
car
car park
Cardiff
Cardiff
education, science and learning
emotions, concepts and ideas
fine art and design, named works
fine arts and music
formal qualities
inscriptions
language
logic
non-representational
objects
photograph
photographic
places
printed text
quotation
society
symbols and personifications
text
townscapes / man-made features
transport: land
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
universal concepts
Wales
<p><span>Rejected Proposal for the Peter Stuyvesant ‘City Sculpture Project’ (For Cardiff City)</span> 1972 is a small, single panel work split horizontally into two halves; the upper half contains text and the lower half a photographic image of two billboards in a car park in Cardiff. The billboard on the left states ‘keith arnatt is an artist’ while the one of the right declares ‘keith arnatt is not an artist’. The text in the top half is taken from the philosopher Wesley C. Salmon’s (1825–2001) book <span>Logic</span> (first published in 1963) which aimed to show how contradiction may be defined, that even if we do not know which of two contradictory statements may be true or false, it is certain that one is true and the other false. <span>Trouser–Word Piece</span> 1972 (Tate T07649), to which this work directly relates, acted out the notion that one can only consider something to be real by knowing what is posited as not real. For this work, Arnatt joined a text drawn from the British philosopher John Langshaw Austin’s (1911–1960) <span>Sense and Sensibilia</span> (first published in 1962) with a photographic self-portrait in which he holds a sandwich board declaring ‘I’M A REAL ARTIST’. The <span>Rejected Proposal for the Peter Stuyvesant ‘City Sculpture Project’ (For Cardiff City)</span> exchanges the photographic self-portrait of the earlier work for text, and the declarative emphasis of the upper-case text used in <span>Trouser-Word Piece </span>for the quieter lower case. This work was, as the title indicates, a proposal for the 1972 <span>City Sculpture Project</span>. Funded by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, this sited sculptures in cities around Britain for a minimum period of six months. The projects chosen for Cardiff were by Garth Evans (born 1934) and William Pye (born 1938).</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver mounted board
26 February 2015 – 3 May 2015
2015-05-03
26 February 2015 – 3 May 2015
2015-05-03
2015-02-26
Raven Row (London, UK)
http://www.ravenrow.org
2015-02-26
Five Issues of Studio International
Loan-out
24 November 2016 – 19 February 2017
2017-02-19
24 November 2016 – 19 February 2017
2017-02-19
2016-11-24
Henry Moore Institute (Leeds, UK)
http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk
2016-11-24
City Sculpture Projects 1972
Loan-out
Rejected Proposal for the Peter Stuyvesant ‘City Sculpture Project’ (For Cardiff City)
image: 610 × 530 mm
frame: 624 × 526 × 37 mm
Transferred from Tate Archive 2010

<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Rejected Proposal for the Peter Stuyvesant ‘City Sculpture Project’ (For Cardiff City)</i> 1972 is a small, single panel work split horizontally into two halves; the upper half contains text and the lower half a photographic image of two billboards in a car park in Cardiff. The billboard on the left states ‘keith arnatt is an artist’ while the one of the right declares ‘keith arnatt is not an artist’. The text in the top half is taken from the philosopher Wesley C. Salmon’s (1825–2001) book <i>Logic</i> (first published in 1963) which aimed to show how contradiction may be defined, that even if we do not know which of two contradictory statements may be true or false, it is certain that one is true and the other false. <i>Trouser–Word Piece</i> 1972 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-trouser-word-piece-t07649" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T07649</span></a>), to which this work directly relates, acted out the notion that one can only consider something to be real by knowing what is posited as not real. For this work, Arnatt joined a text drawn from the British philosopher John Langshaw Austin’s (1911–1960) <i>Sense and Sensibilia</i> (first published in 1962) with a photographic self-portrait in which he holds a sandwich board declaring ‘I’M A REAL ARTIST’. The <i>Rejected Proposal for the Peter Stuyvesant ‘City Sculpture Project’ (For Cardiff City)</i> exchanges the photographic self-portrait of the earlier work for text, and the declarative emphasis of the upper-case text used in <i>Trouser-Word Piece </i>for the quieter lower case. This work was, as the title indicates, a proposal for the 1972 <i>City Sculpture Project</i>. Funded by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, this sited sculptures in cities around Britain for a minimum period of six months. The projects chosen for Cardiff were by Garth Evans (born 1934) and William Pye (born 1938).</p>
<p>
<i>Rejected Proposal for the Peter Stuyvesant 'City Sculpture Project' (For Cardiff City)</i> is one of a group of existing materials that were proposed by Keith Arnatt at the time of his participation in <i>Seven Exhibitions</i> at the Tate Gallery, London in 1972. Other works that were exhibited alongside it included <i>Invisible Hole Revealed by the Shadow of the Artist </i>1968 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-invisible-hole-revealed-by-the-shadow-of-the-artist-p13145" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13145</span></a>), <i>Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self </i>1969–72 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-shadow-of-his-former-self-p13143" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13143</span></a>), <i>Art as an Act of Retraction </i>1971 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-art-as-an-act-of-retraction-p13140" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13140</span></a>), <i>Art as an Act of Omission </i>1971 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-art-as-an-act-of-omission-p13144" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13144</span></a>), <i>I Have Decided to Go to the Tate Gallery next Friday </i>1971 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-i-have-decided-to-go-to-the-tate-gallery-next-friday-p13142" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13142</span></a>), <i>Self-Burial (Television Interference Project)</i> 1969 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-self-burial-television-interference-project-t01747" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T01747</span></a>, exhibited with the title <i>The Disappearance of the Artist</i>), <i>2448000–0000000</i> 1969/1972 (described as ‘an “exhibition” of the duration of the exhibition by the following means: a digital count-down system will count down the duration of the exhibition in seconds’), <i>Type-Token </i>1970, <i>Art and Egocentricity – a perlocutionary act? </i>1971 and <i>Tate Gallery Staff Exhibition</i> 1972. The content of the exhibition changed during its run. Because of widespread power-cuts at the start of the exhibition, <i>2448000–0000000</i> was initially replaced by <i>Tate Gallery Staff Exhibition</i>, though this – a presentation of the staff cards of all employees of the gallery – was removed after three days and it is thought that <i>2448000–0000000</i> was activated on the seventh day of the exhibition. In their range, the works brought together as Arnatt’s presentation for <i>Seven Exhibitions</i> illustrate the move in his work from the making of situational sculptures to a documentation of actions that question – through a linking of philosophical text with image – the status of art and the role and identity of the artist, whom Arnatt shows to be in different states of disappearance. This work was transferred from the Tate Gallery Archive in 2010.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>
<i>Seven Exhibitions</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1972.<br/>
<i>The New Art</i>, exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London 1972.<br/>
<i>I’m a Real Photographer: Keith Arnatt Photographs 1974–2002</i>, exhibition catalogue, Photographer’s Gallery, London 2007.</p>
<p>Andrew Wilson<br/>May 2010, revised December 2020</p>
</div>

Summary
2021-06-14T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
abstraction architecture Arnatt, Keith, billboard billboard car Cardiff Cardiff car park education, science and learning emotions, concepts and ideas fine art and design, named works fine arts and music formal qualities inscriptions language logic non-representational objects photograph photographic places printed text quotation society symbols and personifications text townscapes / man-made features transport: land UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions universal concepts Wales