Cultural development post election - the promises and who decides who gets what

The Art Newspaper seems to think that the outcome of the UK election could trigger a cultural bonanza based on the notion that

Both the major political parties make big promises about new money for the arts

When I started reading the article it occurred to me maybe there was another perspective based on timelines that it may have missed and the sort of lobbying that goes on behind the scenes in terms of what gets into any political party's manifesto.

First here are the promises - it's worth making a record of what they aim to do. I've abbreviated and bullet pointed where appropriate.

Then I reflect on how it might all work - and who might decide who gets what.

If there is a Conservative Government

This is what the Conservative Manifesto says - albeit I had to find most of this by plugging in words to the find command while viewing the pdf file. It's not very accessible!

Prosperous towns and cities across Britain - page

Our towns and cities excel when they have vibrant cultural life. Britain’s arts and culture are world-beating and are at the heart of the regeneration of much of modern Britain. 

We will 

• continue our strong support for the arts, and ensure more of that support is based outside London.
• maintain free entry to the permanent collections of our major national museums and galleries. 
• introduce a new cultural development fund to use cultural investment to turn around communities. 
• hold a Great Exhibition of the North in 2018, to celebrate amazing achievements in innovation, the arts and engineering. 
• support a UK city in making a bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. 
• in this 70th Anniversary Year of the Edinburgh Festival we will support the development of the new Edinburgh Concert Hall, reaffirming Edinburgh as the UK’s leading festival city and a cultural beacon around the globe.

A Knowledge Rich Curriculum - page 50-51

We will 

• ensure all children have access to an academic, knowledge-rich curriculum. 
• introduce a curriculum fund to encourage Britain’s leading cultural and scientific institutions, like the British Museum and others to help develop knowledge-rich materials for our schools, 

Shared institutions of Union - page 34-45

For too long, power in Britain has been centred in London. This means opportunity has centred in London too. It is time major cities around Britain shared in the government of the United Kingdom. 

We will 

• proceed on the same basis with the arts and cultural organisations that give our United Kingdom such strength. 
• Channel 4 will remain publicly owned and will be relocated out of London
• work with the nation’s most eminent museums and galleries to ensure their works and expertise are shared across the country

If there is a Labour Government

Labour have a LOT more to say about Culture and the arts

Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2017 - Watch the Heats

The Heats for the Sky Landscape Artist of the Year 2017 start next week. There are six heats in the first stage of the Competition taking place in the North East, North Yorkshire and South Wales.

All the Wild Cards have now been dished out with the exception of Heat 2 on Wednesday 14th June. See this page to apply

However the public can watch the heats take place!

Sky Arts LandscapeArtist of the Year competition would love you to come and join us on the day to support the artists and join in the fun! Filming will take place between 10am - 5pm approx. (it is not essential to stay for the duration of filming, you may come and go as you please)

Please take into consideration the weather and location in regards to clothing, footwear, and refreshments when planning for your chosen day.

Here are the locations

Heats 1 and 2: Paddy’s Hole, Teesside 

13th and 14th June 2017 - "striking industrial scenery in Teesside"

Paddy's Hole - The Wikipedia version

Paddy's Hole is a small harbour at the mouth of the River Tees - down river from Middlesborough. It's located in South Gare, near Redcar in Teeside (in the North East of England). This is a man made cove and is home to fishing boats and fisherman huts.  The backdrop in the picture above is the Coke Plant and Blast Furnace of the Teesside steelworks. It's situated about 2 miles down the private access road from Warrenby.

There are no shops at Paddy's Hole - so visitors will need to pack food and drink for the duration of your visit.

Paddy's Hole - the optimistic publicity version!

Reference:

• A Shimmering of Northern Light - Paddy’s Hole, Redcar, Teesside - contains lots and lots of views of what can be seen at this location. However what gets painted by who is dictated by the production team!
• Wikipedia - South Gare
• MamyPhoto - Paddy's Hole, South Gare, Redcar

Heats 3 and 4 - Knaresborough Castle, North Yorkshire

20th and 21st June 2017 - "picturesque historic town"

Knaresborough Castle - up close

I'm thinking some of the views from the top of the hill must be superb if the ones looking up at it from the River are anything to go by.

Knaresborough Castle from underneath the bridge on the River Nidd

a stunning cliff-top location towering over the River Nidd stands Knaresborough Castle, once a mighty stronghold of medieval kings.

Knaresborough Castle is a ruined fortress overlooking the River Nidd in the town of Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, England. It's owned by the Duchy of Lancaster and is managed by Harrogate Borough Council.



Reference:

• Harrogate Borough Council - Knaresborough Castle and Museum + Planning your visit
• Wikipedia - Knaresborough Castle

Heats 5 and 6: Rhossili, Gower, South Wales

27th and 28th June 2017 - "spectacular views from the Gower Peninsula"

Sandy beaches at The Gower

The Gower Peninsula (Welsh: Penrhyn Gwyr) was the first place in Britain to be designated as an 'Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty' (AONB) by the Countryside Agency.  Rhossili is located at the most Western part of the Gower Peninsula - effectively it's the end of the road!

Rhossili Bay curves along an arc running northwards from the village. The sandy beach is three miles (5 km) long and is backed with sand dunes. Locals refer to the beach as Llangennith Sands. At the southern end of the Bay is the small tidal island called Worm's Head. It'll be interesting to see how the producers try to contain the painters!

Worm's Head

Reference:

• Rhossili and South Gower Coast | National Trust - the National Trust website contains this notice

Important notice - Car park improvements taking place at Rhossili, although parking is available, we’ve fewer spaces than normal, it can get busy at times, please allow plenty of time for your visit. Coach parking is unavailable during improvement works.

• Explore Gower
• Rhossili. The village of Rhossili in The Gower Peninsula, South Wales
• Wikipedia - Rhossili

Semi Finals and The Final

The Semi Finalists will consist of the winners of each of the Heats and will take place on Tuesday 18th July 2017. The Finalists will be asked to complete a further two landscape artworks

Previous posts

• Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2017 - call for entries
• Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2016 - Heat Winners & Finalists

4th John Ruskin Prize Shortlist announced

The shortlist for the 2017 John Ruskin Prize was recently announced - and the names of the artists are listed below

Theme for 2017

The theme of the 4th John Ruskin Prize is "Hand & Eye: Master of All Trades in The Age of Jack" - it's about the Artist as Polymath

This year’s theme: refers to the Artist as Polymath. Open to a range of interpretations and approaches, the theme is intended to lend itself to responses from artists and makers whose work celebrates the opportunity to marry diverse materials and disciplines.

In celebration of ‘Artist as Polymath’, 2017 marks the first year that The Prize will be open to makers and craftspeople, as well as fine artists. Alongside Ruskin’s own career as a polymath, the theme has been jointly inspired by The Year of Making in Sheffield, which took place throughout 2016, and The Big Draw’s year of STEAM Power, which celebrates the interconnections between Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths

The Awards

The Award is £5000 with

• £3000 going to the winner, and 
• £1000 going to both the Second Prize and Student Prize & Recent Graduate winners.

The Shortlist

The shortlist of 26 artists, makers and innovators was selected from over 1,000 entries.

The artist / scientist parallel is apparent in the shortlist but there is also evidence of traditional craft combined with social commentary, skilful material manipulation and a visual wit within the selected artworks.

In my experience this is an art competition which throws up some of the more interesting artists working today.

• Louisa Boyd - primarily works as a book artist
• Holly Brodie - a self-taught landscape painter brought up in rural Somerset and now based in suburban West London
• Nuala Clooney - a sculptor and a visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University
• Andrew Ekins  
• Erin Dickson - a digital designer and fabricator. She's worked as the waterjet technician at National Glass Centre and is now the design and manufacturing technician at FabLab Sunderland.  Her Twitter account is @Archiglass
• Paul Hazelton - a British artist based in Margate. His sculptures are intricately constructed using household dust, cobwebs, hair or cut paper, stuffed toys or other materials.
• Marielle Hehir - Did an MA Painting at the Slade between 2014-2016 - and was awarded a Distinction

The original Midland Line Railway Works 2 
is the drawing which inspired Ann Howeson's work
selected for the exhibition

• Anne Howeson - an artist and a Tutor in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art. Shortlisted for a stop frame 'moving drawing' called Regeneration and Revival at King's Cross

She devised the seminar series ‘DRAW’ which supports second-year MA students working on sustained drawing projects and welcomes a wide interpretation of ideas from any area or discipline

• Rebecca Ilett - Has a degree in sculpture and later trained to be a jeweller - trying to present jewellery as art and aims to create wearable art or wearable narratives

Rebecca Ilett 'Spinning Straw into Gold' (2016). Photo: Simon White

• Shelley James - Trained in textiles, pursued a career in corporate design for international clients; studied Printmaking at the University of the West of England and has developed new techniques for encapsulating prints in glass. Her work is currently inspired by conversations with scientists
• Debbie Lawson - born in Dundee and lives and works in London. Graduated from Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art. A multi-media artist. Difficult to describe what she does.... but it's interesting
• Emily Lazerwitz - graduated from Slade School of Fine Art with an M.F.A in Fine Art Media with Distinction, June 2016. She makes Machine Knit Scarf made of 100% reredacted CIA documents from the FOIA archives
• Sue Lawty - Textile Artist in Residence at the V&A in 2005
• Bethan Lloyd Worthington - Ceramics Artist in Resident at the V&A in 2016. A London based artist who works with drawing, objects and installation to explore themes of place and fragmentation through time
• Hugh Miller - an award-winning contemporary applied artist specialising in studio furniture in wood. Hugh’s work is based on a set of design principles, developed during his Churchill Fellowship in Japan in 2015
• Rosa Nguyen - a London artist with an established practice based in ceramics. She makes objects, installations and displays which include ceramic, glass and botanical elements.
• Kyle Noble - Graduated with a Masters in Fine art from Edinburgh College of Art in 2013. He received the RSA Highland Society of London Award 2014, the RSA William Littlejohn Award 2013 and was selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2013. Over the last two years Noble has devoted his practice to the description of an imaginary ancient culture called 'The Meiklians', who built the stone circles around his home in Aberdeenshire.
• Briony O Clarke - Artist in Residence (2014-2017) at Portmeirion Village, North Wales. MA in Communication Art & Design (2009-2011) at the Royal College of Art
• Sumi Perera - an interdisciplinary artist whose work draws on her background as a doctor and scientist. She generates multiple series from a given set of plates by combining hybrid printmaking techniques (etching, aquatint, drypoint, monoprint, chine-colle, collagraphs, mezzotint, lithography, kiln-fired screenprint decals etc.) with stitch and Computer Numerical Controlled methods (laser-cutting/engraving, sandblasting etc.)
• Shauna Richardson - produces realistic life-size animal sculpture created using crochet
• Conor Rogers - graduated from Sheffield Hallam University 2014 and one of his degree pieces was selected for the John Moores Painting Prize. Paints photo realistic depictions of everyday life and landscape in acrylic on found objects (e.g. crisp, cigarette and condom packets and beer mats)
• Fi Smart
• Serena Smith - trained in fine art lithography at the Curwen Studio (1984-96), and studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art (MA); work has been selected for numerous exhibitions both in the UK and internationally
• Harland Viney - born and raised in Australia, resident in the UK since 1999. Work with film, performance, drawing, painting, printing and photography
• Simon Ward & Robert Mach - foil wrapper from a Tunnocks teacake gratefully received...
• Ray Winder - a Surrey-based artist and sculptor specialising in miniature paintings and finely carved sculptures in wood

Selection Panel

The members of The John Ruskin Prize 2017 selection panel who selected the shortlist from over 1000 submissions are:

• Kirstie Hamilton (Head of Exhibitions & Displays, Museums Sheffield), 
• Zachary Eastwood-Bloom (Sculptor), 
• Mandy Payne (Artist), Julia Bell (Former Head of Partnerships, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art), 
• Dr Rachel Dickinson (Director for Education, Guild of St. George / Principal Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University), and 
• Kate Mason (Director, The Big Draw).

Private View and Prizegiving

The selection panel will announce the 1st Prize, 2nd Prize and Student Prize Winners (total prize fund of £5,000) at the Private View of the shortlist exhibition on 20th June 2017.

The Exhibition

The exhibition is being held at Millennium Gallery, Sheffield between 21st June and 8th October 2017

Reference

• John Ruskin Prize: http://www.ruskinprize.co.uk/

Previous posts on Making A Mark

• 2015​: ​
• The John Ruskin Prize 2015: Call for Entries
• ​ The John Ruskin Prize 2015: Shortlist
• 2014​: 
• The John Ruskin Prize 2014 - call for entri​es
• Recording Britain Now - exhibition and prizewinner
• 2012: The John Ruskin Prize - A New Look at Nature: Call for Entries

The New V&A Photography Centre

The new Photography Centre at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) will open in the Autumn. Yesterday the Museum:

• released the first visual of what one of the largest galleries within a suite of rooms will look like - in its full 'state-of-the-art' glory
• confirmed the first phase of the V&A Photography Centre will more than double the display space dedicated to photography by Autumn 2018
• announced that the original nineteenth-century picture gallery (known as Gallery 100) will be renamed ‘The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery’ in recognition of the generosity of The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation

The render gives a glimpse inside one of the largest galleries
that will sit within the new suite of rooms dedicated to photography

The Centre has been designed by David Kohn Architects (DKA). The intention is that it will:

• celebrate the original features of the V&A’s nineteenth-century picture galleries
• enable a rich variation of atmosphere through the use of lighting
• provide clever climate control to ensure a stable environment for fragile artworks. 
• include a modular system of display cases for greater flexibility and varied displays of a wide range of objects, from photographs to cameras, publications and archive materials, exploring the relationship between art and technology. 

It forms part of an ambitious two-phased FuturePlan development project to dramatically reimagine the display of the photographic collection at the V&A. In addition to developing the Photography Centre, the Museum has upgraded its storage facilities to better house its photography collection. An extensive project to catalogue and digitise the recently transferred Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection is also underway to provide web access and research resources for audiences around the world.

This is the

• existing Photography Page on the old V&A website. (The lack of search facilities on the new website is becoming increasingly irritating!)
• new Photography Page on the new V&A website - which to my mind is very much inferior to the old one! I do hope they sort out the website as well as the new Centre before the Autumn!

About Bernard Lee Schwartz (1914-1978)

Known as Bern, he took up photography late in life with great dedication and dynamism. A successful American businessman, at the age of sixty he began taking pictures and flourished as a portrait photographer, depicting well-known figures from across the globe. Bern and his wife Ronny were regular visitors to the UK and admirers of Britain’s museums and art galleries. In his short but prolific career, Bern photographed more than two hundred leading political, religious and cultural figures. His varied subjects included artists David Hockney and Henry Moore, dancers Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, and royals Prince Charles and Louis Mountbatten. Bern’s 1978 portrait of Sir Roy Strong, Director of the V&A from 1973 to 1987, has recently entered the Museum as a gift to The American Friends of the V&A through the generosity of The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation.

This is the website for Bern Schwartz's portrait photographs https://www.bernschwartz.org/

The Foundation has previous sponsored:

• the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition at the V&A - see Review: Julia Margaret Cameron at the V&A in which you can clearly see Gallery 100 which is the subject of the visual above
• the Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

Canaletto and the Art of Venice - recommended

Canaletto and the Art of Venice takes over the entire Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace and displays an extremely fine collection of drawings, prints and paintings of Venice by Canaletto.

I was entirely unprepared for how stunning the new exhibition is and I highly recommend this exhibition to those who love drawing and like paintings by Canaletto and/or which incorporate architecture and people engaged in activities of the day.  Those who love to see complete series of paintings are in for a treat!

The exhibition continues until Sunday 12th November 2017.  It contains c.200 works of art of which about half are drawings and 40 are paintings by Canaletto.

The extremely impressive final gallery with complete series of Canaletto paintings
Paintings by Canaletto | Royal Collection 

Some facts

• The Royal Collection has an extremely fine collection of drawings and paintings of Venice by Canaletto (1697-1768). It is the largest collection in the world. One of its key features is that it incorporates whole sets of paintings of Venice and Rome by Canaletto
• The works come from the collection of a man called Joseph Smith who used to be the British Consul in Venice - living in a palazzo (opposite the Fish Market and the other side of the Vaporetto stop from the Ca d'Oro)
• In an era of the Grand Tour, Smith virtually invented Canaletto as the "must have a view by" artist in Venice. He created the market for "vedute" (view painting). He did this by showing off his personal collection of view paintings of Venice by Canaletto paintings in his palazzo when people came to see him. Before long, Smith had become Canaletto's agent for commissions for more from the Grand Tourists
• George III bought Smith's entire collection of books, paintings, drawings and prints when Smith decided he needed to realise capital to make sure his second wife would be well provided for after his death. George III was really after the books but also happy to have the artwork!

The exhibition takes as its theme the notion that you are walking through Smith's Palazzo and seeing how he displayed his artwork.

Key features of the exhibition 

The exhibition starts with two larger than normal paintings featuring two of the water-orientated festivals in Venice

• the race along the Grand Canal held annually on 2 February, the feast of the Purification of the Virgin and 
• the return to the Molo of the Bucintoro, the ceremonial vessel used just once each year for the Wedding of the Sea, held on Ascension Day ("Festa della Sensa")

A Regatta on the Grand Canal c.1733-4
oil on canvas
Canaletto | Royal Collection

The Bacino di S. Marco on Ascension Day, c.1733-4 
by Canaletto
Royal Collection Trust / (c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016

The second gallery is devoted to the sketches, drawings and prints of Venice and around about executed by Canaletto. (I'll be doing a separate blog post about these.)

Drawings Gallery - followed by Prints Gallery at the end
Drawings and Etchings mainly by Canaletto | Royal Collection 

The Bacino looking west on Ascension Day
Pen and ink, over ruled and free pencil and pinpointing | RCIN 907453
Canaletto | Royal Collection

A drawing of the Bacino in Venice. On the far left is Santa Maria della Salute. On the opposite side of the water the Granai, Zecca, Libreria, Campanile and Palazzo Ducale are visible. The Doge's galley, the Bucintoro is moored in front of the Piazzetta in the centre of the composition.

The next Gallery is large and devoted to other paintings in Smith's collection by painters contemporaneous to Canaletto. As the curators remarked one does wonder how he managed to hang all his acquisitions and whether he ran out of wall space in his palazzo!