Uni Summer Holidays = Art crisis

The summer holidays are a a time of mixed emotions for Art LAD, why? well because of several things. First; no studio, the university closes the studios and doesn't allow you to use them until about one week into term. Second; Where has all the decent art gone? Art LAD feels as though this summer has been relativly     poor on the art front. There have been several good shows, Hirst, Invisible, Deptford X; however, most of London hasn't quite cut it for me! I wanted more. This I suppose is a question of taste and thus I shall say no more.

Back to the studio problem though, where can one have a space to do work without having to pay asecond rent effectively? For students who are already paying £3500 to have the use of studios it seems a little ridiculous to have to pay over the summer, but yet still be expected to carry on working and thinking about work. This is another area where the Unis let down the students. Virtually all artists like to have a separate area to do their work, they like to have some  type of separation.

While this studio down time has been an inconvenience to me and my work (having to complete work for two shows in my bedroom was, excuse my French, a ball ache), there is the added benefit of being able to do an internship with ALISN at their gallery Lubomirov-Easton and write for Artfinder (check out my profile). In all I felt a slight art crisis this summer, by way of lack of quality art in London and from myself!

Invigilating delight

Many gallery interns and workers alike spend many hours every week invigilating various shows and works throughout the various galleries in our fair town. Many of these interns also find themselves doing this without previous knowledge of the entailment of a gallery interns duties. While invigilating is an essential role within a gallery as one serves to protect the artwork as some kind of art bouncer (although in reality there isn't much one could do as the chances are that the intern is scrawny and arty), and also there to provide a Q and A type service for customer who assume that because you spend all day sitting there in the same room the work, that you know every last thing about it.  While I might have had some of the easier invigilating jobs, working in smaller galleries hence being allowed to sit and use a computer, I feel that there is a certain sense of duty as an art student and art lover to start at the bottom and to quote a great man, Mr. Bean, "And my job is to sit and look at paintings". In this fast paced social media world, a few hours of contemplation breathing in the aura of the art (haha) can't be all that bad. I still maintain that it isn't the most enthralling job; however, the corniness of the aura of the artwork, being around the physical object itself rather than viewing it on a screen, can really help in the understanding of works, and can possibly really help draw out some useful criticality for young artists and critics.

Are art students losing out to art conversion students?

 I have noticed recently an increasing amount of people involved in the arts how have either taken a secondary degree in the arts or who have had some kind of conversion/postgrad qualification. Now there is nothing wrong with this, but perhaps it would be prudent of Arts based educational establishments to further prepare thier students for life beyond university with more applied skills. Now of course there are many creative entrepreneurial students from arts backgrounds; however it remains that there is still a low employability rate from this area post graduation. 

In order to solve this universites, colleges etc must provide at least some lessons in some form of business related areas, this would give all students a better founding when they are released into the real world, whether they go on to be artists, gallerists or waiters. Even though there are great career services at many of these establishments, not enough of the students regular see or visit these services. 

Because of this I propose the introduction of some kind of compolsaory careers lecture for arts students to attend once a term in order to give them a better chance of getting a job within the arts to ensure the developement of the field upon them graduating. 

try this one out IdeasTap

Yoko Ono- #smilesfilm

Im afraid I'm in a synicle mood so this is a synicle piece inspired by these words;

Send a smile to your friend so he/she can smile, too.
Think of a way to do it.
You could send a photo that says ‘smile’,
or a picture, a story, or a piece of pie,
but specify that it’s a smile you’re passing on.
Ask him/her to do the same:
to pass on the ‘smile’ in his/her own way.
Love,

Yoko Ono

What does it mean to smile? well its some form of facial expression characterized by turning up the corners of the mouth, this often to signal pleasure. What if we are broadcasting that pleasure to everyone at the will of one person? Does it not remind you of some kind of quasi Kim Jong-Ill brainwashing. While there remains some nice gesture in getting everyone to smile and send it around the world, to "brighten" our live ands days etc. I find it somewhat more sinister in terms of our kneeling to a celebrity artist. Smile like your happy, then submit it via social media to an online database, to me that seems like keeping up appearances as it were; however, i think i have taken this too far, smiles are infectious, and this is a cute way of perhaps extending alot of Ono's other works that imply a universality between us all. A smile is a simple thing that transcends boundaries of all kinds.

So in light of this don't miss the Yoko Ono show To The Light at the Serpentine Gallery

Escaping South London

Don't get me wrong, I love south London, especially South East London where i have been based for 2 years now; however, after putting on a show this week in Peckham at the Last Refuge, and inviting everyone under the sun, including bosses dads, mums, uncles, aunties, various contacts etc, south of the river just seems to far for anyone with the dollar or the interest to come. Traditionally arty types have moved to wherever is cheap and infested and overrun that area until it is expensive. They then migrate with the new generation to a new area and do the same again. It seems as though South East is where this is happening again with areas like Deptford seeing a large number of galleries etc popping up; however, while the art types in terms of the practicing artist are in great number, the buyers are not, and this leaves me with the sneaky suspicion that perhaps crossing the river South was a bad idea.

Now while I am aware that while being a Goldsmiths student Deptford seems like the perfect area to get work shown as it is just up the road, I do worry that I will get stuck here and never escape, I can already feel that worry of crossing the river to go North to visit friends and family, the classic North/South divide has hit me and I'm worried that it might soon be too late...Despite this I am glad to have such a fantastic art community around me, I just hope that we can move our work North of the river, to the business side of things when the time comes. 

Art Lad of the Month- Nick Horton

So it has come, the Art Lad of the Month or alotm. anyone who foloows the twitter account will already know, but for those who don't, this month the inaugural month into this award has gone to an inspiration of mine, a recently fellow student, who has combined LADy behavior with an art degree of a high standard. That man is Nick Horton. I think Nick is a fine example of an Art Lad, why? well because he may not convey the stereotype LADy behavior, apart from going to the gym; however, he is a fine considered man, a gentleman (gentleLAD) who took me under his wing, showed me the ropes and and passed on the great wisdom of the grandfather of Art Lads (this a man to be revealed at a later date), plus he has also just finished his degree show.

His work utilises "lo-fi" elements of popular culture, through technique (spray paint) and text, to create atmospheric space like images. He is certainly a painter interested in the act of painting, in the gesture of a mark made when plunged into historically referenced theories on perspective and form. There is also some nod towards a containment of the universe, an ever expanding object, placed into an oblong which is very measured and precise. Have a look at his cargo page or his page in the Goldsmiths Undergraduate catalog  

Invisible-Hayward Gallery

Well the South Bank Center really has pulled out all the stops for the Festival of the World, and it has made a real blockbuster of a show with Invisible: Art About the Unseen 1957-2012. The show starts with some of the most influential artists of all time with works such as Yves Klein, famously known for his Klein Blue, and looks further with work by Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. 

The Utopian ideals of the invisible art, the invisible architecture, whereby mankind had forgone secrecy and developed into a free forming world. The first room seems to take an almost chronological step through from 1957 where Klein presented an empty space (The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void) as an art work which up to 3000 people queued to view; however, I am not hear to give you a history lesson. What I will tell you is that this is possibly the best exhibition of the year so far in my opinion, each room and stage holds a genuine interest. My personal favorite is Lai Chih-Sheng's Life Size Drawing. This is a tracing of every line in the room, so the work is literally the largest possible work that could fit in the room, without having any real physical material presence. This work kind of goes under the radar until you see the label on the wall, and then you begin to notice, you begin to realise you are standing in the middle of a huge drawing, a piece of work that is so big, yet it has no imposing influence on us. 

In all i would definitely recommend this one, a few tips though; first, if you have attended the Wide Open School (if you haven't you should!!) take your ticket along for reduced entry to the show; and second, if you can get the show handbook, its really good, a great read.

In Short:- 5/5 Best show of the year so far, a great variety of work ranging over the past 55 years of invisible art.