The fair is also interesting fro ma sociological perspective. It is attracts a cross-section of the art world, from billionaire collectors, to 20-year-old art students: everyone that is needed to keep the art market ticking over. Despite one of the main themes this year being the financial crisis, Tracy Emin commented that the fair was “much lighter this year [and] not as dense”.

There were genuine moments of transcendence in the fair, pieces of work that allowed you to forget for a moment the commercial objective, and to capture a universal truth about the human condition.

The fair was not solely a mercantile affair, however. A series of artists exhibited non-commercial projects. From the surreal display by Spartacus Chetwynd to the faux archaeological dig by Simon Fujiwara to the set of multi coloured bicycles by Gavin Turk, these projects gave the fair integrity that maintained a more light-hearted atmosphere.

International Galleries

Andy Warhol, Dollar Sign, 1981, courtesy of The Paul Kasmin Gallery

New York
Paul Kazmin Gallery – Andy Warhol

The Paul Kasmin Gallery, situated in New York, represents artists with a very American aesthetic: kitsch, loud and sellable. It is an established fixture on the lucrative New York art scene. They represent painters such as the infamous Deborah Kass, who is holding a show in the New York Gallery currently.

The exciting exhibition of her new paintings is called “MORE feel good paintings for feel bad times”, and can be seen asan emotional barometer of our uncertain economic times. Her paintings are a development from abstract expressionism and quote other monolithic American artists, such as Ed Ruscha.

The sidelining of women in the art world is another theme she tackles. Her new sculpture titled “After Louise Bourgeois” references the Bourgeois quote, “there is no place for a woman in the art world unless she proves over and over again that she won’t be eliminated.” The financial crisis and women’s sidelining in the art world were two main themes running through the whole of Frieze Fair this year.

Frieze Art Fair 2010, courtesy of Linda Nylind for Frieze

Beijing
Long March Space – Madeln

The Long March Space is an enormous gallery situated in the abandoned Warehouse and Factory district of Beijing. It is eight years old, considered ancient in China because of the constant turnover of galleries. They represent international artists, and Li Danquing, the gallery’s representative, explains about contemporary art in China and their gallery: “contemporary art in Beijing has been going very well. It is very diversified and dynamic; there has been a lot of young artists and commercial artists as well, doing many exhibitions. Almost every week there are new exhibitions opening in Bejing, and there are hundreds and thousands of galleries.” At Frieze, the gallery was exhibiting Madeln, one of the leading conceptual artists in China. His work is mixed media, and according to Li Danquing, he alternates between “photography, video installation, and everything [else]. His themes reference American art, and also classical philosophy or history or literature, talking about something engaged with politics”.

Tokyo
The Nanzuka Underground – Keiichi Tanaami

Frieze Art Fair 2010, courtesy of Linda Nylind for Frieze

The Nanzuka Underground Gallery was started in 2005. It aims to represent young, unusual and eccentric artists that will develop to become successful in the international market. The artists represented often have striking originality, such as Keiichi Tanaami, the psychedelic manga artist exhibited at their Frieze stand. Tanaami was born in 1936, and lived through the Second World War. He is often credited as being the pioneer of pop art mixed with a psychedelic aesthetic, and was influenced by meeting Andy Warhol in 1960s on the New York art scene. The work on display at Frieze deals with expressing Nirvana through his own eyes. He suffered multiple traumas in his life; not only war-induced emotional issues, but also other life threatening illnesses which have led to a questioning of the value of art in his work. He has worked as a graphic designer, assisted fashion designers such as Sir Paul Smith, and was even the first editor of Japanese Playboy. All these elements are combined in his original eclectic work, making it one of the most fascinating collections on displays.

Rio
A Gentil Carioca – Jack Pound Financial Project

Jack Pound, A gentil carioca: Jack Pound Financial Art, courtesy of A Gentil Carioca Gallery

The show put on by A Gentil Carioca this year at Frieze was one of the Arts team’s favourites. It had a tongue-in-cheek edge to it and the work skillfully and humorously played on the Fair’s monetary undertones. Indeed, Jack Pound’s work has been named The Telegraph’s number one artist in their ‘things to watch’ category of reviews.

We talked to a gallery representative at the fair about its ethos. She explained that “the gallery is owned and run by three artists – basically young emerging artists from Brazil. We seek new talents and we take care of them.” She continued that there has been a surge of interest in contemporary art in Brazil. “There has been a huge boom due to the growth in the economy, then also a strong growth in interest, not just because of the economy but from recognition as well.”

The Telegraph also marked A Gentil Carioca as their number one gallery to watch in their Frieze review. They focused on the witty piece by Latin American artist Lourival Cuquinha. It was created in London between 2008 and 2009. The piece ‘How much will you invest in a fragment of the art market’s future?’ was a conceptual piece inspired by an article in The Sun claiming that 80% of Britons would not notice if £1,000 went missing from their bank account. He decided to make a piece commenting on the art market’s price speculation by sewing together £1,000 bills to reproduce the St George’s cross on the British flag.

Dan Graham, 'Split Level' & 'Ground Level', 'Two Home Homes', 1966, courtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna

Vienna
Meyer Kainer Galerie – Renate Kainer

Vienna is an important landmark on Europe’s contemporary art map. The gallery opened in 1999 is situated in the first district of Vienna, Palais Eschenbach. The co-director of the gallery, Renate Kainer, commented, “the most important piece we have is Franz West’s table from 1982. It’s important because it’s the largest piece of this period which exists anymore. It says something about the Viennese way of thinking as it’s charming and elegant, whilst maintaining a strong concept. It also says something about our gallery; he lives in Vienna and we are a Viennese Gallery.” As well as established artists, they also show young talent. “We have made a group show with her, and the interesting thing is that although these sculptures are very tiny, and in the main gallery, which is very big, they are very strong.”

Art in Eastern Europe

From Tolstoy to Chekhov, Repen to Chagall; for centuries the West has been fascinated with the exoticism of the states constituting the former Eastern Bloc. Fantastical and grizzly myths and legends are worked into the very fabric of Eastern European folk culture. Here we look at Eastern Europe’s most interesting contemporary artistic exports.

One thing that has always fascinated me about traditional Eastern folk art is its complexity. The Regina Gallery in Moscow specialises in representing Slavic artists whose work operates on multiple levels; both highly decorative and, sometimes controversially, highly politicised. In his series ‘Chanson Art,’ Ukrainian artist Stas Volyazlovsky juxtaposes elaborate patterns and traditional detailing with contemporary social commentary to trace an often bloody local history.

Thomas Chapman and Nik Nowak from Nukes, Sun and Carrots, 2010, courtesy of Regina Gallery

Described as ‘psychedelic trash legends based on the most urgent topics of today,’ Volyazlovsky’s canvases are bedsheets, pillow-cases and towels stained with “chifir”, an extremely strong tea and then decorated with drawings in violent ink. From a distance, they appear like works of embroidery or ancient tapestries. His preferred characters include the infamous Russian Lolita, traditional faun and, most recently, Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia, slaying a dragon.

Also represented by Regina are Nik Nowak and Thomas Chapman, an artistic duo whose show ‘NUKES, SUN AND CARROTS’ is currently showing at the gallery in Artberloga. Nowak and Chapman concern themselves with the subjects of time, imaginary places, machines, religion and politics; following the themes of energy and conflict. Their abstract collages on wooden boards are reminiscent of the iconographical artwork common to Russian Orthodoxy.

Representing Slovenia at Frieze was Galerija Gregor Podnar, based in Ljubljana, with Ukrainian performance artist and painter Yuri Leiderman making the strongest impression. Leiderman was raised in the backwaters of Odessa and graduated from the Institute of Chemical Technology in 1987.

Of particular interest is an installation entitled ‘From The Best and The Very Dubious’ inspired by Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’. The series of pastel works and paintings first shown in 1992, now act as a springboard for Leiderman’s latest exhibition ‘Visions of Hans Castorp’ (a reference to the dreams of Mann’s protagonist and illustrated in Leiderman’s drawings) at Gregor Posner’s gallery in Berlin.

One of Leiderman’s most intriguing pieces is an installation in which eight plaster cylinders are seated at a table and taking part in a séance.

Gabriel Lister

An apocalyptic vision of the future or an optimistic depiction of the cycle of life? Those are the options put forward to viewers of Gabriel Lester’s installation at Frieze this year on behalf of the Fons Welter Gallery.

Gabriel Lester, The Past Catching up with the Present, 2009, mixed material, courtesy of Galerie Fons Welters

‘The Past Catching Up with the Present’ is a multi-media piece consisting of a rotating convey belt dotted with miniature animated figurines and model trees, capturing something of the childlike playfulness of a Michael Gondry feature film. Around the darkened room, stark shadows are cast.

The piece traces an ongoing adventure, while one scene plays out on top, another continues underneath, creating two parallel worlds; two modes of existence, the real and the imaginary. Last weekend, the piece was listed as one of the 10 most interesting works at Frieze by the Deutsche Bank (the fair’s main sponsor) due to its dark social commentary. “They named it the end of the world,” explains Fons Welter.

Director Marta Gynp continues, “for me, it’s a cycle, illustrating something universal. Here we have nature, building, shooting, relaxing and animals, so there is a coming and going. Everyone has their own interpretation.”

When I stepped into the cramped confines of the performance space, I felt like I was inside the workings of an old movie camera, perhaps even on a film set. Lester’s artistic practise involves an intimate exploration of the medium of cinema. As Deutsche Bank Director Gynp explains, “his is a very simple idea – his works are about creating an atmosphere.”

Francesca Woodman: Victoria Miro

The Victoria Miro Gallery, situated in the commercial district of London just off Old Street Station, has become a strong fixture on England’s contemporary art gallery scene. In a high ceilinged cavernous space, strong, poignant and current contemporary art is systematically displayed.

Their stand at Frieze included paintings by Peter Doig, whose subdued and disorientating paintings invite one to meander through his past, showing memories of his childhood in Canada whilst dealing with scenes of filmatic and theatrical detail. Also on show were a stunning set of prints by the photographer Francesca Woodman, who is due to have a solo exhibition.

Francesca Woodman, Self deceit, 1978, courtesy of Victoria Miro

I first came across her work two years ago, and remember being transfixed by a book of her melancholy and emotional autobiographical photographs. She took around 800 pictures in the late 1970s and early 1980s before her untimely death from suicide at the age of 22 in 1981. One of the first photographs is a self portrait taken at the age of 13, face obscured by her hair and twisted torso wrapped in an oversized knitted jumper, the front of the image a blur of her hand clasping the camera cable. This early print anticipates many of the themes that dominate her work; the “transformation, deformation, alteration and effacement” of the body. Her photographs are beautiful, and they transpose a clear sighted and profound awareness of the power of her form. She is both the object of gaze and the acting subject behind the camera. Photographs are taken in decaying unnamed interiors; flaking paint, peeling wallpaper and cracked plaster provide the background for her crouching figure. Her influence is indisputable, and the themes that she dealt with have affected the work of female artists like Cindy Sherman, who obscures her identity with a series of masks.

In her short career, she produced work that has been international acclaimed for its unique style and innovative use of technique. Woodman studied at Rhode Island School of Design from 1975 – 1979 and afterwards she won a grant to continue her studies in Rome. These small photographs provided a transcendent moment of calm and escape in the hectic overwhelming environment that is Frieze.

Francesca Woodman is showing at the Victoria Miro Gallery from November 17 – January 22. For more information visit www.victoriamiro.com

Zoe Walker of Pippy Houldsworth, London

In 1989, Pippy Houldsworth began representing up-and-coming artists, firstly from the comfort of her own London flat, and then later from a disused warehouse where she remained for over ten years. She is renound for promoting early and midcareer artists who make work of serious critical interest.

Since then, she has gone on to represent arguably some of the world’s greatest emerging artists to date, and is now in the process of relocating her West End Gallery again. Forced to operate once again from her own home in Hammersmith, this Frieze weekend Pippy held a special champagne brunch, where I met up with one of her current artists, Zoe Walker, to have a chat about her latest video installation shown on a loop in Pippy’s Kitchen.

Since graduating from art school, Zoe Walker has been actively working as an artist to critical acclaim, and now forms one half of artistic duo Walker and Bromwich, along with her partner Neil.

Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich, Love Cannon 2007, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London

“I’ve always been an artist,” claims Zoe. “I have tried to do something else, but I’m not good at anything else!” she laughs. “One of the first performances I did was the Love Cannon, involving a big inflatable cannon,” which is now part of the duo’s Friendly Frontier Peace Campaign. “It was designed to be an act of peace action. We fire balloons out of the Love Cannon as an antidote to war.”

Zoe teamed up with her partner and fellow artist Neil Bromwich on a permanent basis after she claims that their sporadic collaborating became “too complicated” for the art world to deal with. “Our collaborating was quite an organic process, mainly because I was performing in my work and Neil was filming.

“Obviously the person filming has an input in the work. Working on each other’s projects, we just began to think of things jointly. Now we do everything together and if we don’t, we just say we have!”

“The piece we have here is called dancing borders, in which we look at turning battle movements into dance. It’s a choreographed development of the Love Cannon. The films were made in Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Scottish border. Berwick has a bloody history. I may be exaggerating, but I think it has changed countries around 20 times. The work is really about the psychology of place; in Berwick you still feel that embattled mentality.”

Both Walker and Bromwich thrive on working with a diverse cross section of society. “For this we worked with a dance company, but we also conscripted some of the local population.We do lots of work out in the public realm, like inflatable sculptures.”

The pair also have a radio station on a boat, currently stored in a farmer’s shed, although they hope to take it abroad again later this year. “It started off in Essex, then moved around the coast to Kent, then Thessaloniki in Greece. We may even take it to Venice”.

The new Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is set to open later this year. For more information, please see www.houldsworth.co.uk

Pippy’s other artists

Laura Ford, Weeping Girl 5 2009, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London

Laura Ford is a Welsh artist working predominantly within the medium of sculpture. Laura spent her childhood travelling with her family around different fairgrounds. The majority of her sculptures are done in fabric, the latest of which is a series of surreal yet endearing mutant creatures.

Rineke Dijkstra, Self Portrait, Marnixbad, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London

Rineke Dijkstra is a Dutch photographer of international repute known for her personal style of portraiture in which she photographs her subjects face-on and up close. Her works are held in numerous collections and institutions around the world, including the Tate and the Museum of Modern Art.

Rachel Godyear, Back Room, 2010, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London

Rachel Goodyear is a young artist hailing from Manchester. Through her sinister and often subversive drawings, Goodyear picks up on centuries’ old cautionary tales which she claims “have all been censored out over the years”. Her illustrations reference the grizzly tales of the Brothers Grimm.

O Zhang, Daddy & I No. 16 2005, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London

O Zhang is a Chinese multimedia artist. Her most recent project ‘Daddy and I’ is a series of images of mixed race daughters and their Caucasian fathers. While on the one hand these are perfectly innocent images, O Zhang’s suggestive compositions recollect the mail order bride phenomenon.

Hannah Barry: Marcus Kleinfeld

Marcus Kleinfeld’s Empire is the current exhibition showing at the Hannah Barry Gallery. At the newly renovated Copeland Roadwarehouse space in Peckham, there are eight large scale sculptures crafted from “readymade objects from the worlds of factory farming and prisons”.

With titles such as ‘Urge’, ‘Dereliction’, ‘Totem’ and ‘Dialects’, he presents his own subjective view of reality within the distorted framework of our modern day world.

Marcus Kleinfeld, Nets/Deraliction by Damian Griffiths for The Hannah Barry Gallery

By lifting readymade objects and reforming them into sculpture, the artist offers us time to stand and stare. We can contemplate the themes of power, hierarchy, wealth, greed, oppression, domination and conquest that are so strongly associated with the objects.

In the new Bond Street gallery hangs a set of accompanying paintings and drawings. They have a stripped back aesthetic; the canvas is bare in large sections. Along the bottom of the pictures is a chalkboard, upon which is inscribed the names of the works. These paintings deal with concepts tightly intertwined with the exhibition’s name, ‘Empire’.

In ‘World Trade’, simplistic colours show the sign of trade, and in ‘Beef Chart’ we are forced to contemplate the habitualised cruelty of the meat we freely consume on a daily basis.

On October 27, Oxenhope will open. It shows a series of paintings by Tom Barnett, who trained at Chelsea College of Art & Design, and held his first solo show at the Hannah Barry Gallery in 2008, which included a performance piece where he dressed up as an astronaut and rang a bell from his primary school in Oxenthorpe, the village in Yorkshire where he grew up. Ted Hughes was also born in the village; Yorkshire has been a key piece of inspiration for generations of artists.

The abstract works, with an accompanying portfolio of drawings, were created in January 2010 when Barnett returned to his old stomping ground.

They deal with concepts of place and reawakened childhood experience, and the resulting works reverberate with the muted purple colours richly ingrained in the craggy moors.

Oxenhope is showing at Hannah Barry Gallery Oct 27 – Nov 24.

The works are inspired by what Sarah describes as ‘granny shopper’ bags – the kind of plastic plaid patterned holdalls found in laundrettes up and down the country. Sarah’s practice involves painstakingly copying this pattern onto canvases of all sizes in oil and ink, mimicking the tacky material.

“This series followed quite a long obsession with drawing Tesco Value, Bettabuy and Smart Price goods. I tend to pick my source material from markets, pound shops and charity shops and found the pattern and texture of the granny shopper bags very alluring. In particular, I liked the association of the bags’ function with laundrettes, markets (particularly Whitechapel market), migrants and students. A few years ago Louis Vuitton made a range of bags based on these granny shoppers which I found hilarious.”

Mimesis is a significant aspect of Sarah’s work. “I have always been a realist painter; I find the discourse surrounding abstract art painfully esoteric and academic, and it is natural to me to paint from everyday life. Realist painting can be as critically engaging as other art forms,” she explains.

“A primary motivation (of mine is) to look at the relationship between repetition, labour and work, certainly in relation to, say, someone who works in a factory, which I did as a student, and then someone choosing to undertake something so arduous and repetitive in my spare time.”

But as with any object mass produced by hand, each new piece is unique and just as significant as the mimesis are the idiosyncrasies. Each canvas is produced using ball point pens and oil and then coated with a thick gloss often taking years to dry perfectly. Every fingerprint and smudge is visible on the surface of the canvas and as all Sarah’s paintings remain unframed, such mark become unavoidable.

“In this series of work, the anomalies are important traces of slippages, of concentration and celebratory of mans’ effort, however imperfect, over the machine. In ‘The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Walter Benjamin states, “even with the most perfect reproduction, one thing stands out: the here and now of the work of art – its unique existence in the place where it is at this moment.” It is this ‘aura’ that is most pertinent in this series of works; the study of the traces of time and effort within the work.”

Such deliberate ‘slippages’ in the work echo the imperfectly screen printed works of Warhol in which difference and individuality surface within the seemingly identical prints. Yet the geometric patterns in her work perhaps remind me most of work by Agnes Martin. I ask her if she considers that a fair parallel to draw.

“Certainly on reflection I can see the similarities. Her pencil grids with colour washes are exquisite and remind me of Bridget Riley’s studies on square paper, where she produces colour washes and works out the composition before producing them on large scale on canvas.

She often makes colour paper cut outs which she arranges to work out her composition and hands pencil drawings with pencil annotations to show her assistants where the colours should go.

“I think I like Riley’s studies more than the final works themselves. Bridget Riley is perhaps one of the earliest influences visually on my work.

“In my painting, it is the gaps where painting and representation blur that provide the most interesting points of reflection,” explains Sarah.

“Why do artists feel the need to represent that which we can see with our own eyes? For me, it is a mixture of fetishising things that I like or make up my sense of identity, and specifically to this series a way of engaging with the idea of the artist as a worker.”

Set up as a joint project between Deborah and partner artist Gavin Turk, ‘The House of Fairy Tales’ is a “child-centred artist led” organisation specialising in educational events and workshops, all of which take an unconventional and narrative approach to learning.

“I have been working on ideas to do with children and education since my eldest son was born. Before this project I was working with another registered charity looking to build a creative centre for families in East London,” explains Deborah. “‘The House of Fairytales’ evolved out of a something Gavin and I set up separately from our professional interests and it re-awoke the mission I was on before.”

It is the educational nature of the narratives in ‘Fairytales’ which gives the project its name. “Fairytales are endemic; I was listening on the radio to how in British culture there are more ghost stories and fairytales than in any other. It’s surprising given how we are known for our scepticism.”

But far from dictating the direction of the project, traditional fairytales are just a spring board for Deborah and her team from which to think about stories as a form of education, or rather the importance of stories to the learning process.

“Really the project is more about the narrative nature of learning than fairytales themselves, but they’re a platform for making things transformative and magical,” says Deborah. “They give us liberty to take young people on a leap of imagination even with a non-fiction project.”

“I have always been interested in a narrative approach to learning which links children into visual culture and thinking around the subject – something contemporary art does really well. Artists commonly go on a journey of discovery throughout a project, which takes them through different media and processes,” comments Deborah. She relates the experience of the artist to that of the child playing make believe. “‘The House of Fairytales’ is a non-institutional learning experience.”

Although the project is described as ‘child-centred’, the workshops and events are open to and benefit all ages, enjoying success amongst children and adults.

“Naturally, we believe in it being an all age thing. We set up to do something high quality. Everything in our programmes from signage right down to the materials is carefully thought through. On the whole, children’s things tend to be low grade – primary colours and wax crayons – so we aim to give them something that has the articulacy of the adult world.”

Likewise, Deborah explains how adults find the project’s ethos refreshing, describing how their events provide escape from increasingly cynical ‘adult culture’. “We get a cross range of ages interacting with us. The place we set up at Glastonbury was the other side of the valley to the children’s area, and so we got lots of young people stopping by and saying, “it’s so cool here”.

We work with lots of artists and visual performers, and what they love about ­working with us is the child centred space. It’s a kind of nest where irony is only to amuse the performers, not to appeal to adults, and it has a resonance with the adults in the audience. So much adult culture is ironic and cynical these days, particularly in the art world.”

The team are always looking for ways in which to interact with the wider community. “The project is a bridge between artists and creative people, and education,” says Deborah.

“We just did this project about waterwheels at the Thames festival. To all intents and purposes, it was a non-fiction subject about engineering and ecology, but within that there were magical narratives going on with people in costume which brought the subject to life, and helps encourage this idea of being in a parallel universe.”

“At the moment, we are working on a major project with artist Daniel Lobb, who builds worlds within vehicles. He created a double height caravan we have been touring with. Inside it is a staircase, an old fireplace and even a chandelier – it’s like walking into a stately home. Daniel plans to create a small fragment of Venice on the back of a caravan chassis, which will start life in Venice, appear at the Venice biennale and tour back through Europe and the UK. The subject matter will be ecology, climate change and world trade.”

‘The House of Fairytales’ project is funded solely by Deborah and Gavin, who collect what revenue they can from big events. So how does Deborah feel about the cuts being made to public arts funding?

“In many ways the current climate is an interesting one for creative projects as well as being a difficult one. It makes you more focused on project sustainability. It’s nice if you can get subsidised but it doesn’t always make for the best.”

If you’re lucky enough to be placed in old school university accommodation you may be surprised to learn that there are other benefits to living in the centre of campus besides the fact that you can literally roll out of bed and straight into a lecture. For one thing you need not even leave your bedroom in order to experience a bit of high class contemporary culture. It may not look like much, but believe it or not York’s concrete clad campus is a work of art in itself, its box like buildings and covered walkways a prime example of British Brutalist architecture. Pioneered by modernist architects Alison and Peter Smithson in the 1950s, Brutalist architecture derived its name from the French term for ‘raw concrete’ – coined by Swiss architectural giant Le Corbusier and not as some might think from the fact that it’s generally considered to be a bit of an eyesore. But while the campus architecture might be somewhat of an acquired taste, there is sure to be something at York to suit the cultural needs of everyone.

If and when you do decide to venture out of your room your first point of call has to be one of York’s many fantastic theatrical productions. Over 40 years since their first performance York Drama Society remains one of the most active student drama societies in the country. Based at ‘The Barn’, the society put on a different play for every week of term, in addition to which are free Open Drama Nights, also hosted on a weekly basis. Drama Soc also regularly take work outside of campus with successful productions at York Theatre Royal and the Edinburgh Fringe. Play applications are made at the end of each term and all cast auditions are open making York the perfect place for budding young thespians. In addition to all this, the society actively encourages student written work offering new playwrights the opportunity to stage their talents.

However if you are more interested in seeing and being seen than in treading the boards then why not get yourself on the guest list to one of the Norman Rea Gallery’s open evenings. The University’s art space is situated about the Courtyard Bar and regularly plays host to exciting and innovative exhibitions. Past shows have included work by Spanish textile artist Anna Chocola and Saatchi sensations Mark Davey and Candida Powell Williams. In addition to the main gallery is an outdoor exhibition space reserved for sculpture, both maintained by the student run Langwith Arts Committee.

Then again if a quiet evening in with some art house cinema is more your thing then you can always rely on York’s World Cinema Society to provide some intellectually challenging entertainment. For a small fee you can attend one of the society’s weekly showings of art house, independent and international film.

And when you have finished all that? Why not return to your Brutalist box for a well deserved rest and some trashy TV.

Into-Flora, an obvious pun on the name of the well known florists chain Inter-Flora, is a show of work byeight internationally renowned jewellers all inspired in one way or another by the power of nature and in particular by flowers. “I met most of the artists in Munich where I go every year to a huge jewellery competition and exhibition,” explains Kath. “Hundreds and hundreds of people congregate in the city for about a week and that’s where I go to look for people to show. Sometimes I go with a clear idea of what I am looking for, but on this occasion I went with an open mind. I was looking for work that excited me and I just kept seeing flowers everywhere.”

In addition to inviting them to show existing work, Kath then asked her chosen few to think of someone whom they considered to be inspirational and then to make a ‘floral tribute’ to that person: “I asked everyone involved to pick someone that would inspire them to make a new piece. This part of the show we called ‘I’m Into’. At first we thought it could be anyone, but then made it someone well known to engage visitors that bit more. The public can’t really be inspired by someone’s mother.”

Double Fake: Brooch by Lisa Juen

And in terms of curation, Kath says, “we have done this Graphic presentation,” referring to a wall of pictures and post-its, the idea for which also came from the shows in Munich: “I saw this exhibition in which they took shirts from charity shops, and just pasted them onto the wall, and then each shirt had a big brooch attached to it. They were all different shirts, laid out they looked like the outlines you draw when someone has been killed! I just thought it was such a good way of displaying work and so beautiful to look at. Actually I was a bit distracted from the actual work, because there were no cabinets. So we thought lets use some of that but do it in a more accessible way, and people can see it and then come in and get to know a bit about it.”

The wall is decorated with pictures of the celebrities chosen by the artists involved, underneath each of which are ‘bouquets’ of post-it notes left by visitors: “As people make their contributions we hope they will become beautiful big bouquets, blooming and blossoming all over the place,” says Kath. “It’s lovely to get people in who wouldn’t normally be interested,” agrees assistant curator Ruth. “There is even a post-it that reads ‘I don’t normally like jewellery’,” Ruth continues.

Statement Piece: Pussy Brooch for Peaches by Lisa Juen

Of all the works on display probably most notable are those by German artist Lisa Juen. Her giant sized glitzy brooches are made using LED screens, industrial switches and false fingernails: “Working in Shanghai she is inspired by traditional flower sellers, but then at the same time behind that is all the neon and bling and madness going on. Her inspirational person the provocative rock star Peaches, whose extreme performances push boundaries in the same way that her jewellery does. She made a pussy brooch you can wear on your underwear in tribute to her, she’s been in touch and loves it!”

Another piece of work which is sure to draw attention is an unusual necklace and adjoined ring by young British jeweller Mikaela Lyons, designed with Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine in mind. Hanging off the body almost like a beaded sash, “it’s a piece for the hand and the heart. All the photos are Mikaela’s own which she then massively manipulates. It’s about Mother Nature and fighting back. We haven’t been able to make contact with Florence, although we have got very close. Hopefully we still will we would love for her to have it.”

But not all the pieces on display are so over the top. “I kind of like to go for a real mixture of both technically innovative and delicate work. Sometimes we choose to show work much more to do with ideas, other times pieces which are purely visual,” comments Kath placing, an extremely delicate snowflake-like brooch into the palm of my hand, a piece by Swedish designer Anna Atterling: “Its just one sheet of silver. It’s very finely repoussed, which usually involves denting the material, but she has chosen to punch straight through, It’s not an obvious flower, but there is a subtle alluding to the shape.”

Mikaela Lyons for Florence Welch: necklace and ring in oxidised copper, acrylic, illustration, beads, ribbon, sequins

To co-incide with the show, Kath has also organised a talk with Joanna Hardy Head of Jewellery for Sotheby’s: “Joanna is also a resident expert on the Antiques Roadshow. She will be here to discuss the way that flowers have provided inspiration throughout the ages for jewellery and about the the language of flowers and what each different one means. There is a long history of people going on expeditions and bringing back unusual botanical specimens and of jewellers finding inspiration from the new and exotic flowers they brought back.”

It will be 15 years next year since Kath opened the gallery, and since then she has gone on to inspire a whole new generation of jewellery curators, including Ruth: “I started two and half years ago and always wanted to go on to set up my own gallery. Initially I always assumed it would be a mixed gallery, but actually whether it’s fine art or jewellery doesn’t matter, and working here has opened up my mind to a whole new world and art form.”

And as for Kath: “If you’re asking me what the difference between jewellery and painting is? I’m not sure there is one… For me they are just artworks you can wear on your body.”

You can see Into-Flora at the Kath Libbert Gallery, Salts Mill near Bradford, until September 26.

St Mary’s is by no means an easy space to work with, “It’s loaded”, as Susan describes, a space with centuries of existing connotations and affiliations attached to it. Affiliations which become unavoidable for anyone attempting to stage a contemporary project there: “At first I thought how I am going to make something that holds its own in this space, it’s so big and heavy and particular in a way,” explains Susan. “But if you draw that into it it’s better and I think I’ve managed to make something that holds its own and even affects the space.”

A tower of discarded electronic components, wires and cables designed to appear as if pouring from a pointed arch in the church’s nave, Flood succeeds in its aim to transform this ancient space by operating on both formal and conceptual levels.

“The shape of the piece relates to the spire,” says Susan. “It’s the tallest spire in York. The components are like rocks the way they are all tumbling; I guess that relates to how York is full of archaeology. Originally I envisioned more of a flood flowing out into the space, but it worked best as a pile of rubble.”

The success of Susan’s project stems from her ability to tap into the building’s history and to utilise its past to inform her work in the present. She comments: “Often in a space like this which is demanding and difficult people tend to find something they know and repeat it and it can become formulaic if you are not careful. To me the idea of a site specific work is that it will change the space.”

Although in Flood Susan uses similar objects, or rather components, as in previous projects she does so only when and where appropriate and with both caution and consideration for the space: “Although they (the components) are very contemporary they start to look very different in this ancient setting, and of course there is the connection between the components being scrapped and the church having been deconsecrated”.

As a result, Susan manages to pull both the new and old together, making Flood not only a contemporary piece but also a retrospective piece: “Flood has so many readings and connotations. It’s a very new piece coming into an ancient space, bringing new into the old, it works on lots of levels.”

Photography by Shannon Tofts

One of the main themes of Susan’s work is communication: “I guess when I first walked into the church it drew my eyes up, because that is what churches are designed to do. I wanted to draw the eye upwards in a sort of godly way. I guess that’s what modern technology is, the computer is the new god. I’m looking at the church as a way of communicating, but it was probably much more important in the past, while these days these components are our way of communicating and as important to our lives.

“The title flood not only relates to the fact that this stuff is pouring down but to a flood of information” states Susan, referring not only to modern technology but also to Christian dogma “Looking at the piece in a biblical sense, the colour red running through the work is a reference to the blood of Christ, but also York is a city that floods a lot and this church has a river running underneath it. At the same time one of our future problems is flooding with climate change so the piece fits in with all of those things.”

Stripped of its gaudy decor during the Reformation, Susan gives St Mary’s austere interior an injection of life by filling the space with a rose tinted glow set off by the red of the piece and stained glass behind it: “I painted the walls behind and across from the piece red. On the floor below the stained glass windows you get this lovely pink glow. It gives it an ethereal quality and pulls it all together, but it’s not just beautiful it’s raw and gritty. Red is the colour of innards and the cores of things. Flood is like a River of blood, it’s almost living.”

Susan is very much open to alternate interpretations of her art: “When you put a piece of work out into the public arena it’s no longer yours. The meanings and readings that other people bring are then what it becomes. I quite like that someone said it’s like a volcano coming out of the earth, because it made me think of the volcano in Iceland and this reading makes it all very topical even though it wasn’t what I intended.”

And she asks me what I think? I have to agree that the Flood seems almost animate. For me the structure becomes the lifeblood of the church, a huge pulsating heart enclosed by the arch like a protective ribcage, the very architecture of the building forming a kind of skeletal framework. Where the top of the pile of components and the pinnacle of the supporting arch meet the thrust of the two opposing elements is seemingly balanced out, uniting the older structure with the modern components in harmony and creating a close connection between the two. Flood with all its wires and intimate links across the existing space appears almost as a vessel for communication charged with and channelling an inexplicable energy in and around the space.

Photography by Shannon Tofts

It is possibly the adjustments made to the piece’s base during its construction which gives Flood the illusion of something more solid than fluid, rooted within the very architecture of the building, or perhaps reaching down to the river running beneath, though this does not seem to faze Susan who is extremely experienced in working on site specific projects and maintains that the difficulties she encounters on such projects only improve her work as an artist: “I think when you are pushed, beyond your comfort zone its difficult, we all like to stay within our comfort zone it’s a human trait, Flood did push me I have to say but I’m pleased now because its pushed my work further, and so I’m coming away from this project with something very new to take further into the future.”

So what is in store next for Susan? “I have a few Museum shows, one at the Berardo Foundation in Lisbon and one at the Katonah museum in New York in autumn,” where she has been asked to speak at a conference for the Art College Association. “I’m talking about art in the public sphere, looking at public art in a new way, public art but not as we know it. What I always thought of as public art was big sculpture that sits on a roundabout, but you know there’s a lot more to it!”

Flood at St Mary’s, Castlegate, is free to visit until October 31 2010. See more of Susan’s work at www.susanstockwell.co.uk.

Kodac Kulture the third and final exhibition of term to open at The Norman Rea last week completes the galleries programme of interactive and student friendly shows for summer. This latest display, devised by ex-director Amy Tobin, curator of last year’s Graphic: the process of print examines society’s obsession with images, looking at the progression from analogue to digital photography and finally the cult phenomenon that is Facebook.

Given the recent opening of Exposed at Tate Modern, an exhibition about voyeurism and surveillance, the theme of Kodac Kulture is certainly topical. The first part in particular, entitled Unseen, which consists of a series of images taken across campus of those sites and spaces which usually go ‘uncaptured’ or ‘unnoticed’. Student photographers Hannah Mumby and Jure Kirbis, were ask to walk around the university for 3 hours periodically taking snapshots of anything and everything, the only condition being that they could neither edit nor delete any images taken. The final images seen on the walls of the main gallery space are those selected by Tobin and the curatorial team. Most are straightforward digital images of familiar places, though some selected pictures really do succeed in making the familiar seem unfamiliar, bringing a fresh and artistic perspective to several of the otherwise dullest places on campus. What is best highlighted here is how photography, originally a means of accurately representing real life as an art form lends itself perfectly to surrealist manipulation, helping us to see things in a different light.

While at first glance, as I overheard one fellow visitor remark, “just facebook on the wall” Section 2 of the exhibition Spotted, seems to have been an effective way of getting students interested, involved and in to the Gallery Space and consequently is perhaps the best part of the exhibition. One week prior to the opening of Kodak Kulture, Visitors to the Gallery’s launch of Plots were asked to take away one of 40 digital cameras to be used up and returned exactly one week later. From the assorted images processed and printed a selection of photographs were chosen to fill the walls of the long gallery. It was hoped then that those involved would visit the display to browse their previously unseen endeavours alongside the more professional digital shots taken in a similar manner. Rather than mourning the death of the analogue camera, Spotted celebrates chance encounters and praises room for error.

Kodak Kulture looks at both the similarities and differences between analogue and digital photographic technology, simultaneously exploring the problems and virtues of both. The main tie between the two sections of the show being the theme of spontaneity, while the photographers from Unseen were allowed to use Digital technology they were limited by some of the restrictions imposed on the volunteers involved in Spotted by the disposable cameras. As a result the show perhaps harks back to photography’s more innocent beginnings by recreating the excitement of developing an image with unforeseen consequences.

After completing a degree in fine art at Nottingham Trent University, Rob went on to do an MA in printmaking at the Royal College of Art: “I just [wanted] to try something different, and I saw that there was something in the method that suited the way I thought and laid things out,” he remarks in reference to the discovery of his now unmistakable style and artistic technique.

There may not be anything controversial about his work, but his delicately handcrafted pieces are certainly impressive. He is incredibly understated, as is the roll call of designers he has worked with during a highly successful career spanning over 20 years.

Since graduating from the Royal Academy in 1986, Rob has joined forces with the likes of Paul Smith, Liberty’s of London, Penguin Books and Fortnum & Mason, becoming an acclaimed illustrator and designer.

Rob has literally carved out for himself an artistic niche, explaining “as I slowly did more and more, I realised that there were limitless and quite sophisticated avenues of working for me to explore within the medium.”

Rob claims not to be thinking of the work any differently, whether it be screen-printed handkerchiefs or a large scale mural he is working on.
Instead, he takes the same approach to all his commissions and states that he doesn’t feel like a business artist, despite all his numerous commercial ventures:

“I obviously am a commercial artist. It might seem conceited, but I don’t really feel like one. Even if I do a design to go on a pair of knickers, I still see it as one of my pictures. Albeit on a pair of knickers.”

I wonder if it is his works’ handcrafted nature which lends itself to commercial reproduction?

“What I do seems to have a flexibility to it that lets it apply itself across medium.” However, he stands by the fact that it doesn’t matter whether people consider his work fine art or craft. “To be honest, I don’t really think about it that much, it’s all just work to me, and it’s all just my art.”

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s somebody else’s job completely to categorise it.” It is perhaps this open attitude – and Rob’s obvious lack of self consciousness and easy going nature, so rare to see in the often rather pretentious world of contemporary art – that makes him so successful.

In 2008, Rob opened his own store Ryantown, after receiving a call from a friend about a space on Columbia Road, not far from his London studio. “I did a picture years ago that was called ‘Ryantown’. It was the only picture of mine that my father had and he like it a lot. So, I named my shop Ryantown because I thought he would like that, even though he had long since passed away.”

Following in the footsteps of artists like Keith Herring, who opened his New York Pop Shop in the 1980s, and Rob has in this way made his more formal works more accessible to the public as well as producing collectable items.

I ask him if he feels he has unwittingly become an artist brand, to which he replies with a straightforward “yes,” yet seems unconcerned. “It’s recognised as being by me because it is by me. If that’s my name becoming an artistic brand, then guilty as charged! My work is mass produced in varying degrees: people buy it.”

As far as being a self publicist, Rob sees it as an inevitable part of working in the public domain. “As soon as you put your name to something you’ve made, that act has been completed.” And perhaps we should see Rob’s attitude towards art making and selling as unsurprising given his background in fine art. Haven’t some of the greatest artists in history – Da Vinci, Reubens, Hogarth – become for us artistic institutions?

Image credits: Rob Ryan

Last week following on from their Academy style summer show, Light, The Norman Rea Gallery opened their second exhibition of the term PLOTS a two part display beginning in the main gallery space and continuing outside with an interactive installation.

Visitors to PLOTS on Opening Night; Photo copyright Hannah Mumby

Inside artist Francis Collins showcases her photographic series PLOTS from which the title of the project as a whole comes. The images on display centre on an East London Allotment site, where the majority of plot holders are of Greek-Cypriot origin. The works give their audience a glimpse into life at the settlement for the expatriate community following the seasons from Winter through to Spring. Pieces include picturesque landscapes and some amiable portraits accompanied by explanative quotes, but by far the most interesting part of the exhibition continues outside.

Outside the exhibition continues with a life-size interactive installation in the form of a small allotment complete with garden shed. Orchestrated by Gallery Director and Curator Sarah Bolwell and her team the site is divided into six smaller ‘plots’ including a garden of books. Built to accompany Collin’s photographic exhibition, the ‘plot’ was devised as an ongoing performance piece, with members of the public invited to come view its construction and then to participate in the project by continuing to visit the site .Visitors are encouraged to write memories and comments on postcards and pin them to the inside of the shed. Passersby can also hang notes from a washing line or ‘plant a memory’ by writing on seed labels and sticking them into the ground surrounding the shed.

Interior of the Norman Rea Gallery during PLOTS; Photo copyright Hannah Mumby

PLOTS Makes a refreshing edition to the space and whether you consider it art or not has been a resounding success, certainly brightening up our otherwise often dull campus.Bolwell may not have had any inspirational words on opening night, but PLOTS really speaks for itself, while Collin’s work deserves credit for having sparked off the whole thing. Her exploration of the allotment as a series of ongoing projects and processes is continued in Bolwell’s ‘Plot’ outside where the allotment becomes a living breathing artistic project and it is the continuity of this concept which carries the exhibition. Having said this PLOTS is not just about the hard work and energy which goes in to keeping the allotment alive, it is a piece about escapism, and finding time for reflection and simple pleasures in our hectic modern lives. So next time you are thundering by, stop and take the time to look around the site, you may even find yourself raising a smile.

Following a long tradition of artists active in supporting The Foundling hospital, this year three renowned contemporary artists joined the canon of greats, showing work alongside masters like Hogarth in and around the museum. Opened in 2004 on the site of the original Foundling refuge established in the 1740s, the museum is home to a fine collection of 18th century art as well as a research library dedicated to composer Handel. The Foundling is perhaps an unlikely venue for a modern day exhibition including such controversial artists as Paula Rego and Tracey Emin, but along with Matt Collishaw the respective artists’ work all explore themes central to and in keeping with the building’s history. All three artists are known for producing work about childhood and the maternal subject but simultaneously about loss and separation.

Baby Things, Teddy Bear, 2008, bronze cast, by Tracey Emin, Photo C Todd- White Art Photography

Set against a backdrop of decadent 18th century interiors the work is spread out across various galleries including the Committee and Court rooms ending with a selection of works from all three artists in the white cube style basement gallery.

In the Committee room sits Matt Collishaw’s Snow Globe containing a beggar boy, that I admit having neglected my brochure I failed first time to spot from the 18th century furnishings. Yet far from being a negative thing, this element of discovery is enjoyable and in keeping with the whole idea of the Foundling as an institute for the lost and found. Collishaw’s curio sits well in its setting, but only when you get up close to glance at the globe is it that you realise the harrowing image of a vagrant child.

It is when the pieces are curated thematically here that they seem to sit best in their surroundings. Upstairs in the Courtroom, Emin’s rail of baby clothes and rack of tiny shoes make an interesting contrast to the cases of curios and coins left by women regrettably giving up a child. However upstairs in the Handel rooms it is difficult to establish the link between the classical composer and the subjects of maternal ambivalence and abortion, whilst trying to read a pamphlet left by Emin in the side pocket of an arm chair. Here the artwork seems sadly very much out of place.

Children of a Lesser God, 2007, transparency in light panel, by Mat Collishaw, courtesy of the artist and Haunch of Venison

Paula Rego’s huge installation Oratorio loosely based on Hogarth’s Gin Lane and complete with life size models of foundling children steals the show. Completely overcrowding the first floor landing the piece was modelled on the elaborate altarpieces found in Rego’s home country, Portugal. Although the severe space restriction limits how one can view the piece , this serves the pieces purpose well by forcing the viewer to confront the harsh realities of Rego’s subject matter. The monumental piece encroaches on your personal space and seems to looms over its audience. Both Sinister and theatrical this piece deserves a view.

A trio of minute bronzes from Emin’s Folkestone Triennale back in 2008 extend the exhibition out into the street. On the steps to the museum you would be forgiven for missing a little pink sock lying discarded and crumbled, or the tiny teddy under a bench in Brunswick Sq. Less mistakable is the pink mitten sat on the fence behind the monument to the building’s founder Thomas Coram, and the bold but beautiful blue neon ‘Foundlings and Fledglings’ on the museums facade.

Although at times the juxtaposition of old and new really works, carried by the running themes, the show can feel somewhat disjointed. Rego’s conte work in the entrance hall is lost and the basement gallery feels dim and isolated from the rest of the works scattered around the museum. Having said this there are some really interesting works from all three artists on display which are well worth a look.

Frida and Diego, a love story by Greg Cullen, centres on the meeting and romance of two of Mexico’s most influential and controversial artists, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Set in the wake of Frida’s death and composed of a series of flashbacks, the play cum musical follows the aging painter and revolutionary Diego on a journey into the past to revisit specific scenes from his life with Frida. Accompanied by the ever-present and creepy Catarina Calavera (death incarnate) brilliantly played Charlotte Alexander Marsh, and supported by a cast of Ghouls representing family and friends, Diego and the resurrected Frida explore both the trials and tribulations of their passionate and tormented relationship.

Directed by Rhiannon Ashcroft and Produced by Laurence Cook, Frida and Diego is an action packed and stimulating piece of musical drama. The piece covers a multitude of interrelated topics from cultural identity to the maternal body, art and modernity to war and revolution at the heart of which lie the two basest of subjects, sex and violence and their unshakable bond.

Ashcroft and Cook have really gone all out for this performance; the interior of the barn is transformed into a Mexican villa, while an in-house band wait to greet you at the door and in the true spirit of a fiesta, food and drink are served during the intermission. Watching Frida and Diego is by far more of an experience than it is a performance, yet none of this detracts from the exceptionally high standard of acting.

While Catherine Bennett has all the spunk of a young and bolshie Frida, for me she lacks a certain womanly ardour for co-star Tom Holmes as Diego. She is often outshined by Sarah Lewis, most notable for her role as Lupe, whose seductive performance is incomparable. This aside Bennett is at her best in scenes of heightened drama when an altogether more mature and fiery Frida comes to the fore, in particular the scenes of miscarriage. For me there are two key scenes which stand out, the first being Frida showered in golden glitter, a beautiful yet tragic scene and later Frida’s imagined ritualistic murder, in which her shrieks of terror had my heart in my mouth.

Tom Holmes as Diego is a gentle giant, whose subtle Mexican accent is both extremely enticing and affective in securing the audience’s confidence. At times it is hard to imagine the overweight and aging Diego, however talented, attracting so many young lovers. The pair’s only downfall is their lack of chemistry, where individually they shine; in union they sometimes miss the spark needed to ignite the audience’s passions. Having said this I trust that this is something that can only improve with time and perhaps also serves to reinforce the characters wavering physical and emotional distance. Both Frida and Diego are wildly independent figures, whilst Frida remains a black sheep all her life, Diego is prone to wander.

Luckily the couple are backed up by an incredibly talented supporting cast all doubling up as Catarina’s band of Calaveras; here honourable mentions must go to Robert Stuart for his role as Frida’s Father amongst others and Jonathon Carr for his moments of confrontation with Diego. All the cast shine during the four musical numbers of which Modern Man, and A Viva Los Calaveras (Siqueiros Got a Gun) are particularly entertaining and although Frida and Diego is at times a dark and disturbing piece of theatre , the play is peppered with moments of genuine hilarity. Loaded with tongue in cheek jokes and fabulous innuendo Frida and Diego is one tragi-comedy you will never forget.

The theme has even infiltrated the world of fine art, with the recent success of Northern Arts Prize Nominee Rachel Goodyear. Goodyear’s works are, at first glance, both charming and childish, yet on closer inspection, there appears to be something rather sinister at work.

Goodyear picks up on centuries’ old “cautionary tales, tales that involve a lot of brutality”, which she claims “have all been censored out over the years.” Her illustrations reference the grisly tales of the Brothers Grimm, not the Hollywood glamour of Disney, bringing these stories to the attention of a modern and decidedly adult audience.

Goodyear has become increasingly popular over the past 12 months, becoming well known for her unusual drawings. Earlier this year, she featured in the group exhibition ‘Unheimlic’ at the Nunnery, London. The title literally translates as unholy, a reference to Freud’s notion of the uncanny, a phenomenon in which repressed childhood feelings resurface, causing the familiar to unexpectedly appear somewhat distant. In many ways, we might best describe Goodyear’s drawings as uncanny. Her habit of taking a familiar childhood topic, and removing what can only be termed as the ‘Disney-spin’, allows us to see it for the fairytale was designed be: a sinsiter warning about what happens to naughty children who disobey the rules of society.

There is something almost subversive about Goodyear’s practise, particularly in the stark contrast between her delicate style and questionable subject matter. Although she maintains that this is not an artistic concern for her, she admits freely: ‘the content matter of [my] work is such a precarious balance between something playful and something quite sadistic” explaining “in the combinations of the girl figure and the animals, the relationships could be quite innocent or they could be transgressive and slipping more into a feral or bestial kind of nature”.

Bear Kiss by Rachel Goodyear, copyright: the artist

This careful selection and juxtaposition of contradictory content and method is intrinsic to the work’s reception. “The way they are drawn in that small scale intricate way is what is very important for drawing the viewer in,” says Goodyear. “Once you’re up close and personal and being intimate with them – that’s when you sense something quite macabre; something not quite right. It’s part of the whole process”.

Goodyear is clearly fascinated with testing the boundaries of drawing as a creative medium and in her words, “subverting what a drawing could be till you look at it”. Goodyear took part in the show ‘The Intertwining Line’ back in 2008, exploring just this; drawing as a subversive art form.

“It was about exploring the process of drawing and subverting the notion of drawing, how drawing on paper relates to something more filmic or something more animated,” describes Goodyear, “[creating] a static image which still has a sense of movement.” To a large extent, this is what she, herself both aims to do and achieves through her art.

Although technically a mixed media piece, Rat King, recently on display at Leeds City Art Gallery (right), is “an investigation into what happens when a drawing starts to slip off the paper and starts to invade your (real) space”.

Reminiscent of Cornelia Parker’s Breathless installation at the V&A or an image found inside a zoetrope, Rat King is an almost 3D drawing. Despite being exhibited flat on an illuminated plinth, there is a definite sculptural aspect to the piece. “The sense of space on paper is very much imagined space,” says Goodyear. “A white bleak atmosphere, a void, a blank canvas to image some environment onto.”

Though she is recognised for her drawings, Goodyear has worked in all different types of media during her career as a visual artist. Before breaking into the big time Goodyear would create spontaneous sketches and paintings during her 9 to 5 lunchtimes, converting coffee stains on the backs of paper bags into pictures and scrawling on receipts.

“I originally started with the receipts and stamps – a lot of those were being made whilst I was working. I had a few jobs – I was a cinema usher and worked in a book shop, using the paper bags as my sketch books, drawing whilst I was having coffee on my breaks. They kind of played this huge role in my work in a way because they fit into my life. I’ve not rejected that way of working but I’m careful not to back myself into a corner where I was only known for making drawings on receipts or these little ephemeral bit of paper. It’s still part of my work and I still work in that way.”

Later this year, Goodyear will be leaving behind her urban lifestyle to take up residency in the Canadian Rockies. “I will have a chance to explore a new environment, and to get close to some wildlife – elk, wolves, coyotes, maybe some bears, or maybe not quite so close to them!” she laughs.

Rachel Goodyear will be opening a solo show of her latest works at the Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, next autumn.

When he begins to talk about his work though, it quickly becomes apparent that however calm and collected he may seem, he thrives on living and working in the artistic centre of a buzzing Metropolis like Manchester. It’s the sort of place where he can daily encounter the ‘small stories’ and ‘cultural situations’ which inspires his work.

As you step into his deceptively large office, with multiple doorways and only one exit, it’s clear that Buchler is another world. His world is one in which two pencils make a castle, or where one glove is better than two. Each door, I am assured, leads to nowhere, but might provide a gateway into another dimension.
In his words, he lives in a place “where everything is back to front” and is “brilliant”.

Originally from Czechoslovakia, Buchler recently scooped the prestigious Northern Arts Prize. Nominated by Maria Balshaw, Director of the Whitworth Gallery, for his contribution to the international art scene, the Prize’s accompanying exhibition in Leeds centres on his work with found objects. Notable pieces include ‘Eclipse’, an arrangement of projectors, casting the shadows of variously sized balls onto a blank wall.

Pavel Buchler, "Il Castello", copyright Pavel Buchler

Another is the fantastic ‘Il Castello’, described as “two pencil stubs forming a visual-verbal pun for a castle” and the smallest, yet arguably the most fascinating piece in the entire institution.

Meaning “the castle” in Italian, after its namesake the seminal yet unfinished novel by Franz Kafka, Buchler describes the work as “almost like a full stop”. But he stresses the fact that Kafka’s text is not the subject matter of the piece, but more a source of inspiration, and what Buchler terms a cultural situation. “There are artists who are inspired by trees and birds and rocks and that’s where they live. Where I live is about books and cultural products. Those are the things that come my way.”

“[Artists] who I get a lot from are not models,” explains Buchler. “They are almost like situations in culture – Duchamp is already of our culture really – they are for me something completely depersonalised.” Although artists like Duchamp provide Buchler with a certain artistic license, claiming “you can measure the greatness of an artist by what he or she enables you to do”, he insists that ready-mades are not the method of working for him. Nevertheless, the use of the found object is integral to his working practice (pencils and solitary gloves his particular favourites), providing an essential barrier between artist and audience. “Another measure of greatness”, he claims, “is the extent to which a work resists exhaustion. The extent to which it makes you curious again and again.”

Pavel Buchler

“There’s a big difference between ready-made and found objects. The difference is that when you find something, it’s only then that you realise that’s what you should have been looking for. I’ve never had an idea in my life. After a lifetime of doing it, I still don’t know what to do in the studio.”

“The studio is somewhere I can practice, like you practice the piano, so I’m alert enough and ready enough to see a thing when I come across it.”

Authorship and authenticity, in a traditional sense, clearly do not apply to Buchler, who describes how “the artist is always ultimately disconnected” and how the categorisation of art according to medium is “historically redundant”.

“If we think of all the properly 3D objects as sculpture, what does that really mean for the historical meaningfulness of that category? I think you probably don’t get very much out of that sort of thinking. I don’t even have a proper category for my work. If it performs for you one way or another, I don’t care. A friend of mine, who also finds it problematic to be described as anything other than an artist, came to the opening of Eclipse in London. They said that if this was a painting, they would spit on it. It must be a sculpture because he didn’t spit on it.”

Despite the fact that his work is largely theoretical, Pavel Buchler comes across as far too sincere to be considered sensationalist. His works belong to an avant-garde canon of western art to which they both refer and significantly contribute.

If the measure of a great artist is what he or she enables us to do, in the simplest sense Buchler is a one of our greatest. His art makes things visible, pointing out the little things that pass by unnoticed, not in a patronising way as he explains, but in a “let’s see what happens kind of way”.

After a sufficient amount of brainstorming and ‘a trip to the British Museum’, Ballard began toying with the idea of life after death and the themes of immortality and eternity.

“I was thinking about the gallery and its ending, and about this Egyptian thing of preparing everything to go to the other world- mummification.” The Arts Gallery, due to be demolished this year in order to make way for Crossrail, has played host to numerous big names including Gavin Turk and Peter Doig, not forgetting all the rising stars that have passed through its halls as students.

Ballad drawing inspiration from this aiming to “metaphorically mummify the inside of the gallery, [using] hieroglyphics and symbols of the worlds and sort of charms.” He adds, reverently: “So much effort into something that would be buried and never seen.”

While it is sad indeed to see one of arts best loved institutions go, Ballard proves that the end is only the beginning with this exhibition. The show has been dubbed a ‘supersonic’ journey into his own art history culminating in the creation of installation cum exhibition The All of Everything – an explosion of patterns and motifs.

Described as ‘fittingly epic’ the installation is effectively a giant monochrome mural covering the art space floor to ceiling.

“As it is the last show at the Arts Gallery, I wanted to go big – unify everything by acknowledging all of its surfaces’ Ballard says.

The work is both psychedelic and surreal, but Ballard asserts that his art remains firmly rooted in the 1980s of his youth: in hip-hop culture, graffiti art and the comic book strips which have always inspired his work.

“I kind of got the title from a track by an old jazz musician, pretty cosmic and way out there, hip hop is the music I grew up with and the whole sand print culture; making new things from existing things, it’s always been there in the collages and things” he comments.

“I was thinking, I wanna do the ceiling not like the Sistine Chapel but like an updated version for my generation, a mix from popular culture.” The exhibition displays his eclectic style: “I’m like a bit of a magpie, mixing it up.”

Ballard immortalises art he finds inspirational, by bringing it up to date using a pop aesthetic. Explaining for example: “The relation between graffiti art and cave paintings” is remarkable. “It’s the immediacy of it – coming from an outsider in the art world; I really love all of that sort of thing.”

Although the show draws influence from many different sources, Ballard sees them as being interlinked and unified under both his signature style and the themes of eternity and immortality which run through the very threads of the show.

The idea of eternity is echoed in a central circle painted on the floor, inside which the repetitive slogan ‘the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end’, runs into a loop.

The centre piece has to be a large almost 3D Sphinx with the face of a skull, which seems to jut out of the wall. The black and white of the show keeps the focus on his symbols, preventing them from becoming lost in a sea of colour and chaos, while alluding to the themes of death and dying.

Ballard believes it was important for the Gallery to go out with a bang and as he says that to give the gallery a good send off, using imagery from his own personal art history and music that has inspired his work, including flamboyant time travellers Sun Ra and RAMM: ELL: ZEE, claiming: “I have selected guardians for the gallery as it goes to the other side of time.”

In Herzog Mathew Shelton collects discarded papers or ‘detritus’ washing, ironing and then draws over the top of them, although he maintains that the process is not a form of recycling. Linking the work to his habitual and compulsive collecting Shelton claims “My creative process has, historically, involved the private, almost obsessive hoarding of a huge range of useless items. I then constantly worry about what to do with them, how to store them, whether I am wasting my time or whether I am really, finally, on the cusp of making something significant. The methods of production I employed to make my contribution to Signs of Life developed through necessity.” The paper collages were the only pieces he planned every aspect of and displayed as originally envisioned. This was, perhaps, an attempt to stop chaos creeping back in and reverting the finished artwork back into the ‘bits of crap’ it took him 10 years to collect.

Matthew Shelton - Litter Drawing

However unintentional, the work unleashes a narrative potential, if these found objects provide the stories then Shelton provides the illustrations when he takes pen to these picked up papers. Studying closely the discarded items from bills and shopping lists to certificates of achievement and even ASBOs one can begin to form chains of association linking them back to people or places and in a sense creating links to various imaginary narratives or histories. ‘Many connections are made’ even if as Shelton says ‘most of them are made by accident!’

In contrast to the way he conducted himself with in hanging the paper collages , Shelton allowed himself more freedom during the installation of Harry Thubron, with the end result surprising even him. “In making the wood collage something wonderful and unexpected happened; when it was complete, I noted that the piece resonated with references to fantastic synthetic cubism and early pop art by people like Juan Gris and Stuart Davis, old ‘art heroes’ of mine who’s work I had not looked at in detail for many years.”

Brogden brings a fine art aesthetic to the street, transforming run down urban areas into picturesque landscapes and exposing their hidden depth and beauty through the medium of photography. Brogden, a fellow at the University of Leeds, has been photographing these ‘non spaces’ for around five years. The images shown in Signs of Life are part of a larger series of works involved in a project named Terra Nullius.

Although he agrees the work displays an ‘obvious intimacy’ with the urban wasteland, he maintains it is not to be confused with sentimentality. This is why colour is an important aspect of his work. His investigation into the area of ‘non-spaces’ is more ‘forensic’ than nostalgic, according to him.

Mika Hannula, Professor for Art in Public Space, at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, states “Brogden has a great ability to address the important and meaningful nuances and details in non-sites in a way which is not nostalgic or didactic.”

More over his work is much more than the exploration of post industrial townscapes; it is a study into the subject of space itself. “In relation to our frenetic urban experience, one could suggest, that some form of consolation may be found in these forgotten spaces” he comments “the zones that I explore act as palimpsests” and although Shelton might deny it, this is really what the show is all about .The documentation of changing spaces, the passing of time and as Brodgen reveals “the more universal themes of transience, loss, erasure, return, memory etc: associated with the ‘human condition’ ”.

Signs of Life runs between 19th January and 27th February 2010 at Project Space Leeds. http://www.projectspaceleeds.org.uk/

If you have not yet had chance to visit Tate Modern this Winter, this coming holiday is your opportunity to experience the latest instalment in the Unilever series , Polish Artist, Miroslaw Balka’s monumental installation in the Turbine Hall. Curated by Helen Sainsbury, Balka’s How it is was named after a novel by Samuel Beckett, in which the protagonist recites a monologue whilst crawling through thick mud, representative of purgatory. Although Balka likes to think that the meaning of the work is open to interpretation and not constrained by his choice of title, stating when asked about the concept behind How it is, “You can shape this yourself”.

Unilever Series: Miroslaw Balka - How It Is 2009. Photocredit: Tate Photography

The piece, 13 metre high, 10 metre wide and 30 metre long is effectively a huge shipping container visitors are invited to enter by means of a ramp , although it is possible , if you dare to do so, to walk underneath it. Upon reaching the entrance to the ‘black void’ as it has been so aptly called, one is plunged into absolute darkness save for the tiny distant flicker of a red light. Presumably supposed to prevent the more daring of participants from walking face first into the back wall. I say daring, for once one ventures inside one might find themselves at intervals paralysed, unable to move forward and outside of their own comfort zone. Once within the visitor really becomes Balka’s guinea pig in this most interesting of psychological experiments, come art installation. The issue of trust is an important theme, trust in both the creator as well as in oneself and those around you, when your sight and subsequently confidence is stripped away from you. Most interesting of all is on reaching the safety of the box’s back wall, to turn around and watch the silhouettes of fellow visitors apprehensively navigating their way through the darkness and battling against their own instincts and anxieties.

Unilever Series: Miroslaw Balka - How It Is 2009. Photocredit: Tate Photography

“I’m touching the subject of disappearing” explains Balka , who does not deny the exploration of deportation and immigration identified within his work . How it is makes clear references to recent Polish history and the deportation of Polish Jews to the concentration camps. The piece also addresses current immigration issues, the problem of illegal migrant workers arriving on our shores in shipping containers, and our fears about refugees being lost in the system and of being kept in the dark.

As well as exploring a range of themes, How it is also exposes the visitor to a multitude of sensations from fear and apprehension to complete awe. Balka , cited by Tate director Vicente Todoli as a ‘master poet’, claims the piece was intended to “provide an experience for visitors which is both personal and collective; creating a range of sensory and emotional experiences through sound, touch, contrasting light and darkness’. To experience How it is, is to experience a mass of different emotions all at once and is easily the most stimulating thing to do at the Tate this Winter.

How it is remains on display until Monday 5 April 2010 at the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern.

When the 2009 infamous Turner Prize committee announced this year’s shortlist, including Roger Hiorns, Lucy Skaer and Richard Wright, all of whom create unusually decorative and delicate pieces, it was obvious that this year was all about the ornamental and understated. After years of the bold and the brash, Enrico David was the only artist offering of an element of surrealism. Taking this into consideration, it came as no surprise when the prize was awarded to Richard Wright for his gold-leaf fresco was hailed as ‘nothing less than the return of beauty to modern art,’ by the Tate Britain.

The intricate baroque-style piece was one of four exhibits on this year’s shortlist which on the whole represented a more reflective tone to the show; contrasting with last year’s winner Mark Leckey’s pop influenced film featuring Homer Simpson. Anyone taking bets based on previous prize winners , would surely have been disappointed with Enrico David’s unsuccessful theatre of the absurd, featuring himself as the ‘egg man’, which was decidedly the most controversial piece on show.

Lucy Skaer’s skull of a sperm whale and sculptures made from reformed coal dust are distinctly minimal pieces. Skaer often uses chairs and other everyday objects in her work to infer the presence of an unseen character, or narrative. Her work is a strange kind of alchemy, in which she takes objects apart and plays with the pieces transforming them into patterns . Her prints from chairs resemble primitive hieroglyphics. Through her art a domestic object like a chair ‘becomes a kind of abstract language’ when taken apart and used as a tool for printing or writing coded messages.

Roger Hiorn continues the themes of otherworldliness and alchemy in his nominated piece Seizure, a run-down council flat entirely internally covered in crystallized copper sulphate. Transforming a dilapidated domestic situation into a cave of wonder, Hiorn creates a truly ethereal experience. His work to be found at the Turner exhibit includes a piece created by spreading dust and debris across the floor, which becomes his canvas, leaving a kind of spillage or an industrial residue.

Wright creates print like drawings, some of which resemble fading wallpaper, others which simply consist of dots, almost like Lichtenstein’s cartoon strips which simulate benday screening, a technique used in engraving. On close inspection the works consist of various patterns and abstract forms reminiscent of Rorschach inkblots. True his paintings seem more like the kind of thing found in a physiatrist’s office than in a gallery. Yet they are so much more than mere decoration; identifiable influences include Siennese medieval painting and the Tate recently announced his latest work the ‘most complex and ambitious painting to date’.

Working in the painstaking manner of old masters’, with a drawn ‘cartoon’ transferred onto the wall, before being painted with adhesive and covered in gold leaf, Wright’s entry took him four weeks to complete with help from four assistants to produce the design covering almost an entire wall (plus a small image above the gallery entrance which responds to Skaer’s sculptures).

Yet despite constant praise from gallery owner Larry Gagosian who cites Wright as being as equally important as the YBAs, Wright has never been the focus of much widespread attention, and has been consistently criticized for producing work to please ‘middle England’. In his own words “there’s no sense of ‘Richard Wright. He’s a somebody.’ I’m just a person who turns up and paints something on the wall.” That ‘something’ though, is invariably mesmerizing, a curious concurrence of opulence and minimalism, geometric with a dream like character. Art Critic, Jonathan Jones has called the effect of the piece ‘dazzling but elusive’. What heightens this feeling is the fact that Wright’s work will only last for the duration of the exhibition – after it closes, the fresco will be painted over. While this may seem bizarre, the amount of work invested being at complete odds with the time it is seen for, Wright claims to be focusing on the concept that ‘all art is mortal’. While it still survives, don’t miss this year’s Turner Prize.

The Turner Prize exhibition runs to the 3rd January 2010 at Tate Britain.

The night went off with a bang with the who’s who of the History of Art department out in force for the occasion and snap happy Society member, Jure Kirbiš, there to capture the spirit of the evening. Both drinks and conversation were flowing in the main portrait gallery, with speeches from SAASY spokesperson Sophie Littlewood and York Fellow Sarah Turner, outlining the society’s manifesto, followed by an informal but interesting lecture from featured Artist Simon Periton. The party also served as the launch for Anonymous Rose, a large wall mounted installation piece, Periton was commissioned to create for the gallery in the spring of this year. Inspired by and referencing a culmination of different things including stained glass windows, Yorkshire craftsman Peckitt and 17th century portraiture of lace clad women.

Periton, who is represented by prominent arts dealer Sadie Cole, built the piece, funded by the Arts Council, in 18 framed parts, installing it in August. Despite being over two metres wide, the piece fits snugly but comfortably into the space, situated at the bottom of the Gallery Stairwell.

SAASY, who are affiliated with the friends of the York Art Gallery, hope to bridge the gap between campus and the wider local community as well as the generations with an exciting programme of events including lectures, film screenings, exhibitions, excursions and lunchtime talks at the art gallery, open to all members. Extending the opportunity to learn more about art and art history to the general public. Promoting art and architectural scholarship as something for everyone is a main priority. SAASY is much more than your average student society; with the odd meeting at the nearest college bar, it is a network of art based contacts and enthusiasts from around the city working together to make art and knowledge more accessible.

“We hope to encourage people of all ages from all backgrounds to come and be a part of our society”, says SAASY member Uthra Rajgopal. The excellent turn out and launch’s success certainly indicates a bright and busy future for the society and for art and architectural scholarship in York.

Watch out for a full follow- up interview with Simon Periton for Nouse Arts online.

The Norman Rea Gallery kick-started their new year’s programme of events this week with the opening of Graphic: The process of print. This exhibition showcases the talents of three very different artists, through the shared medium of print, covering subjects as diverse as conservation and homosexuality. Works include the colourful prints by University of York’s own Mary Greene, a member of the music faculty, whose work is visually representative of the rhythmic sounds of Buddhist chanting. Greene’s monochrome sketches in series capture the spirit of this sacred form of music and the sensation of surrendering to its rhythms. The largest of her works, however, is less expressionistic and more referential to more ‘primitive’ forms of representation; the bold shapes, when brought together, suggest the outlines of obscure and exotic instruments of percussion. Printed in rich earthy tones, the impressions left by the coloured inks on the canvas imitate the texture of a stretched drum skin.

More abstract work comes in the form of Nathan Chenery’s Queer Purple series, tracking his experiences as a homosexual man. While Catherine Sutcliffe-Fuller’s large scale prints of repetitive woodland scenes serve to highlight the exploitation of the world’s limited natural resources.

Curator Amy Tobin has been highly successful in putting together an exhibition of interesting and affordable art, to please both an older generation of Gallery patrons and the ever-changing student body. But Graphic is much more than this, for it celebrates and highlights a much undervalued form of art.

As student performances go, the standard of acting at the Drama Barn is always high, and this week’s piece, Eugene Ionesco’s nonsensical Bald Prima Donna, is no exception. Lonesco’s very first short play, originally preformed in 1950 and in only one act, is nevertheless a hard act to follow. Lonesco’s pataphysical play set in middle class suburbia invites the audience into the home of the aptly named Smiths for an evening’s entertainment with their guests the Martins. Where everyday experience is transformed into expression, by making their banal dialogue both senseless and surreal.

On stage the tricolor of white, red and blue furniture not only references the plays French origins but also serves to reflect one of the major themes of the play, Britishness and great British eccentricity. Voiced through the ‘Oxford accent’ scores of Archers fans would be proud of, Mrs. Smith aptly indicates changes in scene. In the intimate space of the Drama barn we are literally transported into the Smith’s front room which takes up almost the entire place. The actors make full use of the set moving in, around and even over the furniture, posing to reflect on the silliest of contemplations and notions.

All the cast deliver dynamic performances, especially an interesting awkward intensity that exists between the two couples. The strongest scenes being those involving these core four. The comic timing, of both the whimsical Mrs. Smith and wistful Martins is particularly good, frequently getting bursts of laughter from a receptive audience. Members of the cast, including the excitable maid Mary, are often carried out of a scene which is particularly consistent with the farcical nature of the play.

The ‘nonsense scene’ is the climax of the play. Where all four main characters spring off on to individual tangents posing questions, uttering axioms and announcing the most obvious statements. But the addition of a more reflective last scene, a repetition of the first, is effective in making social commentary on the uniformity of conventional middle class suburbia, as well as reflecting the recurrent theme of repetition.

It sometimes seems a difficult script for the cast to get to grips with, but is overall well articulated, making for some classic comedic moments. Moments solely reliant on the actor’s sense of timing and ability to deliver the surreal lines as naturally as possible in order to effectively communicate the moments of humour found throughout the play. The roles of Mrs. Smith and Mr. Martin are parts played with absolute conviction, and sufficient seriousness, something which Lonesco believed made for the best performances of this play. The childlike characters come across as sincere and on the whole the well executed one liners are worth the 20 minute interval in the cold.