Monday, October 24, 2011

23rd October 2011 - Who's made a mark this week?

Art in the UK is seeing the emergence of a new regionalism.  The notion is that the geographical spread of contemporary art is an indicator of its maturity.

The UK's premier contemporary art prize - the Turner Prize - opened at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead this week.  The Prize is seen by some as a sort of "crude barometer" of contemporary art.  It's certainly had a fair few artists of note winning the Prize since it was first conceived - although the prize has not always gone to the artist who turned out to be the "best" of the bunch.
The Turner Prize award is £40,000 with £25,000 going to the winner and £5,000 each for the other shortlisted artists. The Prize, established in 1984, is awarded to a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months proceeding 4 April 2011. It is intended to promote public discussion of new developments in contemporary British art and is widely recognised as one of the most important and prestigious awards for the visual arts in Europe.
The shortlisted artists are summarised below.  Here's a slideshow of the artists and their work and this is a video of Turner Prize 2011 by the Press Association.
  • Karla Black - this is an artist with an impressive set of sponsors
For her solo show at Galerie Capitain Petzel, Berlin, and for contributions to various group exhibitions, which together consolidated her innovative approach to sculpture and displayed her increasingly powerful works made with ephemeral materials.
For his solo exhibition at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, which built upon his project for the 53rd Venice Biennale by holding the viewer within an atmospheric sculptural installation. Boyce’s work combines references to design history and text and is marked by a subtle attention to detail.
For a solo show at Raven Row, London. The exhibition marked a step-change for the artist in terms of the ambition and scale of her project, which investigates the interrelation of moving image, sound and sculptural form in the portrayal of the urban environment.
For his solo exhibition at BALTIC, Gateshead. Shaw’s paintings depict the area around his childhood home and are rendered exclusively in Humbrol enamel paint. With their deeply personal juxtaposition of subject matter and material, they lie intriguingly on the edge of tradition.
I'm guessing - but I think George Shaw will win.  There's a few newspaper critics hoping he will win too. He was certainly my favourite when the shortlist was originally announced.  Not least because of this wonderful video of him talking about his paintings at a previous exhibition at the Baltic.

George Shaw and his Humbrol enamel paints at the Baltic
Artists and Art Blogs

This week I asked How do you define a "professional artist"?


Group Blogs
Drawing and sketching

  • Nigel Fletcher (Nigel Fletcher) lives in the Limousin National Park in France and produces oil sketch studies which he sells online.  You can see a couple of his paintings below.  What I like about them is he draws well with his paintbrush!

Autumn at the Pond by Nigel Fletcher
Summer meadow by Nigel Fletcher
Painting
Cathy Johnson wearing a magnifier
Printing
  • This week I came across the blog of Mags Ramsay (Mags Ramsay) who lives in Brentford and enjoyed her posts about monoprinting
Art Business and Marketing
Internet retail sales in September reached £539.4 million, approximately 9.6% of total retail sales (excluding automotive fuel), compared with £415.9m in September 2010.
Which? - 1 in every £10 is now spent online
Art Economy and Art Collectors
The game is up: we see through the pyramid schemes of the temples of cultural elitism controlled by the 1%. No longer will we, the artists of the 99%, allow ourselves to be tricked into accepting a corrupt hierarchical system based on false scarcity and propaganda concerning absurd elevation of one individual genius over another human being for the monetary gain of the elitest of elite.
Occupy Museums! Manifesto
Art Competitions
Art Exhibitions

National Galleries
London Galleries
  • Sylvia Plath: Her Drawings and Dadamaino - an exhibition of Sylvia Plath's pen- and-ink drawings opens at the Mayor Gallery in Cork Street in London. : Volumes 2 November - 16 December 2011
UK Art Societies
USA Galleries
Art Bloggers
  • Karin Jurick (A Painting Today) and Karen Hollingworth (Windowscapes) are both participating in a group show at 16 Patton Gallery in Ashville, North Carolina opened yesterday October 22, 2011.  The titles of their exhibitions are New York Life and Birds Eye View respectively.  Well done on all those red dots!
Art Galleries and Museums
Art History
Art Education
and finally.....

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