Sing Rant Scribble

The Real Art World: Hornsey College of Art : London’s Burning 1980

Hornsey Art College burns…a great start.. I am going to describe the 1980’s artworld as it really was for the majority of art-students. Not the cosy new money YBA’s and their cohorts or the city-slickers with loft-spaces and pockets to fill. No this is one lowly art student’s coming of age in the brutal underbelly of [...]

Thinking whilst making things – a challenge – beyond the crisis in art

I have long been a fan of the Sharkforum and resident artist/critic Mark Staff Brandl’s take on the present state of art criticism. This is by way of a practice run to ’scope’ the afore mentioned ‘art criticism now?’ agenda I love that word ’scope’ you’d think we were shooting bears..maybe we are…certainly foxes… His latest project [...]

Academic Artist? Oxymoron?

There was a time when the phrase ‘academic artist’ was synomonous with a certain conservatism and use of traditional strophes that reflected the academic virtues of fine handling of paint, drawing of a certain standard and a certain ‘resemblance’ to the world of the viewer who would recognise the metaphors and the world that produced [...]

Is traditional publishing dead? Next Wave..

This a response to some interesting issues raised by a CNET video on future of the book. Basically the incoming changes are going to revolutionise the whole concept in a way that the music industry still trying to cope with….see Independent article on music downloading which reveals that illegal filesharers spend more on music thus any [...]

Nottingham Contemporary the good, the bad and the ugly

I have recently had to pull a discussion post from the Nottingham Contemporary Free discussion group on facebook. Here I explain why and deliver a more considered version of basically the same material which less likely to offend the great and the good of this noble art city. The post was a hasty response to seeing [...]