Here's the latest from our session yesterday.
More to come later today...
Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 September 2019
EYESORE - latest progress by marginendeavour
It's been a while since marginendeavour last worked on our billboard, so it is great to be back on it and making progress with its development.
Here's the latest from our session yesterday.
More to come later today...
Here's the latest from our session yesterday.
More to come later today...
Wednesday, 27 March 2019
Friday, 3 April 2015
Mersey ferry gets the dazzle treatment from Sir Peter Blake
As part of commemorations for the first world war, the noted British artist has repainted a passenger
boat in homage to anti-submarine ‘dazzle camouflage’
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/02/mersey-ferry-peter-blake-dazzle-treatment-first-world-war
Mark Brown Arts correspondent
Thursday 2 April 2015
The Guardian
Seven ship painters spent 10 days covering a Mersey ferry in the reds, oranges, blues, yellows, pinks, greens, blacks and whites carefully specified by Sir Peter Blake and the one obvious thing now is that no one’s going to miss it.
“It is a crazy concept,” said Blake on board the ship he has now “dazzled” with wild colours and patterns. “They’ve done it so beautifully and it looks fantastic. It is very exciting to see it.”
The Mersey ferry Snowdrop has become the third vessel to be painted in this way in homage to the artists 100 years ago who painted British ships in “dazzle camouflage” to mislead German U-boat captains.
The organisation 14-18 Now, responsible for five years of art commissions marking the first world war centenary, estimate that 8 million people haveseen two contemporary dazzle ships that were unveiled last year on the Thames in London and on Liverpool waterfront. The Snowdrop is now the only one that will actually go anywhere.
Blake was chosen in part because of his long association with Liverpool, one that extends beyond his design for the Beatles album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band in 1967.
On Thursday Blake recalled his first visits to Liverpool 63 years ago when he was stationed in Belfast for his national service. “I used to get the ferry from Liverpool. It was an old cattle ship and one had recently sunk so people were nervous, obviously.
“I remember coming back from Belfast on a New Year’s Eve and it was really rough – it was full of Irish Guards, all very drunk, and lots of nuns terrified of the soldiers.”
In 1961 Blake won the prestigious Liverpool-based John Moores Painting Prize – “junior section”, he stressed – ahead of artists including David Hockney and Lucian Freud.
“I’m very proud of it,” he said. “I remember coming up on the train and having a party in my room at the Adelphi and meeting the Liverpool poets. It was pre-Beatles, they hadn’t broken yet, but there was a definite vibe in the city and great music going on.
“I do feel like an adopted son.”
The artwork, called Everybody Razzle Dazzle, is the biggest of Blake’s long career, but creating it was similar to doing a small watercolour, he said.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/02/mersey-ferry-peter-blake-dazzle-treatment-first-world-war
Mark Brown Arts correspondent
Thursday 2 April 2015
The Guardian
Seven ship painters spent 10 days covering a Mersey ferry in the reds, oranges, blues, yellows, pinks, greens, blacks and whites carefully specified by Sir Peter Blake and the one obvious thing now is that no one’s going to miss it.
“It is a crazy concept,” said Blake on board the ship he has now “dazzled” with wild colours and patterns. “They’ve done it so beautifully and it looks fantastic. It is very exciting to see it.”
The Mersey ferry Snowdrop has become the third vessel to be painted in this way in homage to the artists 100 years ago who painted British ships in “dazzle camouflage” to mislead German U-boat captains.
The organisation 14-18 Now, responsible for five years of art commissions marking the first world war centenary, estimate that 8 million people haveseen two contemporary dazzle ships that were unveiled last year on the Thames in London and on Liverpool waterfront. The Snowdrop is now the only one that will actually go anywhere.
Blake was chosen in part because of his long association with Liverpool, one that extends beyond his design for the Beatles album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band in 1967.
On Thursday Blake recalled his first visits to Liverpool 63 years ago when he was stationed in Belfast for his national service. “I used to get the ferry from Liverpool. It was an old cattle ship and one had recently sunk so people were nervous, obviously.
“I remember coming back from Belfast on a New Year’s Eve and it was really rough – it was full of Irish Guards, all very drunk, and lots of nuns terrified of the soldiers.”
In 1961 Blake won the prestigious Liverpool-based John Moores Painting Prize – “junior section”, he stressed – ahead of artists including David Hockney and Lucian Freud.
“I’m very proud of it,” he said. “I remember coming up on the train and having a party in my room at the Adelphi and meeting the Liverpool poets. It was pre-Beatles, they hadn’t broken yet, but there was a definite vibe in the city and great music going on.
“I do feel like an adopted son.”
The artwork, called Everybody Razzle Dazzle, is the biggest of Blake’s long career, but creating it was similar to doing a small watercolour, he said.
Working on a computer, he initially planned it all in monochrome but quickly realised it
needed colour. “It has to be cheerful: it would have been dour in black and white really.
“I was slightly nervous that there might be some diehards who’d think I’d messed it up, they preferred the old livery. But I was very respectful of it: I checked things like whether I was okay to change the funnel.”
The plan is for the Snowdrop to have its Blake livery for two years. It set off for its first newly dazzled journey on Thursday with Bill Haley and the Comets’ Razzle Dazzle playing on a loop.
Not far away from its setting-off point is is a static vessel, the Edmund Gardner, dazzled by the the Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez last year.
Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson, said the city was proud to have great things in pairs: two great cathedrals, two great football teams. “We’ve got two ferries and I hope the other one will be painted as well ... I was told not to say that.”
The dazzle ship project shines light on a story largely forgotten today. During the first world war, professional artists would paint wild patterns on British ships to confuse the enemy. The idea was that U-boat captains would spot the ship but have no idea of what class it was, or if it was coming or going.
It was, Blake said, the invention of optical art and he had a great time following in the original dazzle artists’ footsteps.
Blake praised the painters at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead who had done the hard work. “We came up about a month ago when they were still working on it. To see it today when it’s all beautifully cleaned and polished is terrific.”
Arthur Hardacre, who led the team of painters, said it had been a bit like a very big paint-by- numbers exercise. “It was no big problem really, it’s all paint.”
The result is magnificent though. “It is absolutely fantastic and it’s great that visitors to the Mersey will see such a colourful ship.”
The project was commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial, 14-18 Now and Tate Liverpool.
“I was slightly nervous that there might be some diehards who’d think I’d messed it up, they preferred the old livery. But I was very respectful of it: I checked things like whether I was okay to change the funnel.”
The plan is for the Snowdrop to have its Blake livery for two years. It set off for its first newly dazzled journey on Thursday with Bill Haley and the Comets’ Razzle Dazzle playing on a loop.
Not far away from its setting-off point is is a static vessel, the Edmund Gardner, dazzled by the the Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez last year.
Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson, said the city was proud to have great things in pairs: two great cathedrals, two great football teams. “We’ve got two ferries and I hope the other one will be painted as well ... I was told not to say that.”
The dazzle ship project shines light on a story largely forgotten today. During the first world war, professional artists would paint wild patterns on British ships to confuse the enemy. The idea was that U-boat captains would spot the ship but have no idea of what class it was, or if it was coming or going.
It was, Blake said, the invention of optical art and he had a great time following in the original dazzle artists’ footsteps.
Blake praised the painters at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead who had done the hard work. “We came up about a month ago when they were still working on it. To see it today when it’s all beautifully cleaned and polished is terrific.”
Arthur Hardacre, who led the team of painters, said it had been a bit like a very big paint-by- numbers exercise. “It was no big problem really, it’s all paint.”
The result is magnificent though. “It is absolutely fantastic and it’s great that visitors to the Mersey will see such a colourful ship.”
The project was commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial, 14-18 Now and Tate Liverpool.
Friday, 30 January 2015
Ball pool for adults opens in London
The pit is free to visit and contains 81,000 balls, which can entertain up to 30 people at one time.
It is the brainchild of creative agency Pearlfisher, who will donate £1 to the charity Right to Play for every person that visits.
They've shunned the traditional multi-coloured balls, instead going for a nice calming, utopian white.
The installation follows a similar one from Turner prize-winning artist Martin Creed last year, who filled a room with white balloons.
Friday, 19 December 2014
Nick Forbes: we were whistleblowers for what austerity meant for the arts
Nick Forbes: we were whistleblowers for what austerity meant for the arts
After the Newcastle upon Tyne council leader dealt with cuts, the city’s theatre companies have been forced to adapt or die
This is not a scene from real life but from Hope, Jack Thorne’s close-to-the-bone play about local-authority cuts, which recently opened at the Royal Court in London. But Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle upon Tyne council, sounded uncannily like the drama’s main character when we met in his grand, 1960s panelled office in the city’s Civic Centre – its bold modernist architecture a remnant of a more confident age, before cuts of 44% from central government sent a chilly blast through its elegant courtyards.
“We’ve cut our play service and youth service,” Forbes said. “We have had to reduce the libraries. We have cut sport and leisure. We have reduced support for older people; we’ve cut bin collections; we’ve cut street cleaning. We have lost our flower programme in the city. We’ve cut graffiti removal. We’ve lost getting on for 1,200 cuts from the council.” Newcastle lopped £37m from its spending in 2013-14, £38m this year, and more is to come.
It also cut its cultural budget. In the autumn of 2012, the council published a draft three-year – instead of the usual one-year – budget, which projected a cut to funding for arts organisations of 100% from 2015.
Tommy Knight (Jake) and Tom Georgeson (George) in Hope by Jack Thorne. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton
Arts leaders in the rest of the country looked on anxiously: would other Labour councils “do a Newcastle” and declare culture an unaffordable luxury?
Cuts to local-authority grants felt like a last straw, for they came on top of a 30% reduction in Arts Council England’s budget, delivered in the 2010 comprehensive spending review by the then culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. The keynote of the coalition’s cultural policy has been this: austerity measures, combined with injunctions by Hunt (and his successors Maria Miller and Sajid Javid) for the arts to find more financial support through philanthropy.
Among those affected by Newcastle’s draft budget were Northern Stage, Tyneside Cinema and Live Theatre, where Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters, learned his craft as a youngster. They were furious. Culture was being disproportionately targeted, they felt. Furthermore, a total cut could have meant Arts Council England pulling out of Newcastle, since its policy is that it will not act as a sole public funder in any area – a move that would have led to the collapse of most of the city’s main cultural organisations. A vocal campaign from the north-east’s artistic diaspora – Lee Hall, Neil Tennant, Sting and Pat Barker among them – swung into action with open letters and attacks on the council’s stance.
Two years on and the council has indeed removed culture from its budget, effective from April 2015. But, after an intervention from the shadow culture secretary, Harriet Harman, it found about £600,000 a year (skimmed off from interest on loans and dividends from Newcastle airport) to put into a new charitable Culture Investment Fund, to which arts organisations in the city can apply for grants. It is only 50% of the old budget, but better than what Alison Clark-Jenkins of Arts Council England has called “the symbolically and practically disastrous 100% proposal”, which would have meant “the closure of some of the best-known institutions in the country”. The new fund also aims to raise money from donations from individuals – following the thrust of Conservative cultural policy, which encourages arts organisations to aggressively pursue philanthropic donations.
Unusually for a Labour politician, Forbes is comfortable talking about his cultural hinterland; he told me how much he was looking forward to performing a baritone solo in a concert with a local choir (“singing keeps me sane”). But despite his personal attachment to the arts, when we met two years on he said he had no regrets about the row. “We were the whistleblowers for what the government’s austerity programme means for a range of services, but particularly arts and culture ... As often happens with whistleblowers, people didn’t believe us, didn’t believe the scale of the cuts. We faced abuse and criticism. [But] I still think it was the right thing to do.”
Arts leaders in the rest of the country looked on anxiously: would other Labour councils “do a Newcastle” and declare culture an unaffordable luxury?
Cuts to local-authority grants felt like a last straw, for they came on top of a 30% reduction in Arts Council England’s budget, delivered in the 2010 comprehensive spending review by the then culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. The keynote of the coalition’s cultural policy has been this: austerity measures, combined with injunctions by Hunt (and his successors Maria Miller and Sajid Javid) for the arts to find more financial support through philanthropy.
Among those affected by Newcastle’s draft budget were Northern Stage, Tyneside Cinema and Live Theatre, where Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters, learned his craft as a youngster. They were furious. Culture was being disproportionately targeted, they felt. Furthermore, a total cut could have meant Arts Council England pulling out of Newcastle, since its policy is that it will not act as a sole public funder in any area – a move that would have led to the collapse of most of the city’s main cultural organisations. A vocal campaign from the north-east’s artistic diaspora – Lee Hall, Neil Tennant, Sting and Pat Barker among them – swung into action with open letters and attacks on the council’s stance.
Two years on and the council has indeed removed culture from its budget, effective from April 2015. But, after an intervention from the shadow culture secretary, Harriet Harman, it found about £600,000 a year (skimmed off from interest on loans and dividends from Newcastle airport) to put into a new charitable Culture Investment Fund, to which arts organisations in the city can apply for grants. It is only 50% of the old budget, but better than what Alison Clark-Jenkins of Arts Council England has called “the symbolically and practically disastrous 100% proposal”, which would have meant “the closure of some of the best-known institutions in the country”. The new fund also aims to raise money from donations from individuals – following the thrust of Conservative cultural policy, which encourages arts organisations to aggressively pursue philanthropic donations.
Unusually for a Labour politician, Forbes is comfortable talking about his cultural hinterland; he told me how much he was looking forward to performing a baritone solo in a concert with a local choir (“singing keeps me sane”). But despite his personal attachment to the arts, when we met two years on he said he had no regrets about the row. “We were the whistleblowers for what the government’s austerity programme means for a range of services, but particularly arts and culture ... As often happens with whistleblowers, people didn’t believe us, didn’t believe the scale of the cuts. We faced abuse and criticism. [But] I still think it was the right thing to do.”
Maria Crocker (L) and Meghan Doyle from the Letter Room theatre company at Northern Stage.Photograph: Craig Connor/NNP/North News & Pictures Ltd
On the ground, it has been a case of adapt or die. Lorne Campbell is the artistic director of Northern Stage. One of his means of diversifying has been by harnessing the notion that “creativity” is itself a commodity. Over a pre-rehearsal coffee, he told me he hires himself out to lead workshops on creative management for business executives, raising about £50,000 a year, or around half a production budget. He would like to see the new Culture Investment Fund work – but pointed out gently, as did others, that his organisation has been energetically fundraising for years now.
He believed, he said, that a fundamental part of his job was providing a conducive environment for artists who want to make work in the north-east – their presence in turn enriching Newcastle’s civic life. But, he said: “That ecosystem is in danger of collapse. We are not many salami slices away from having to make a dramatic change to what we do.” What would that change consist of? He shrugged. “Producing a Christmas show every year cast with people who aren’t from here, and acting as a receiving house for productions from elsewhere the rest of the year. An utterly pointless exercise.”
Northern Stage provides, at present at least, support for young theatre companies. One such, Camisado Club, is made up of eight young performer-writers, all fairly fresh out of college, all “hellbent on staying in the north-east and making work”, according to company member Caroline Liversidge.
For these 20-something artists, the notion of a well-funded arts environment is, said Liversidge, “a myth – like: ‘In days of yore there was funding.’ ” She works five zero-hours-contract jobs to make ends meet, and fits her artistic work around them. Camisado Club’s first show, Send More Paper, about murderous wives in Hungary after the first world war, was a success, and had a short tour, including to London, but making it work was a struggle – they crowdfunded to get themselves to London, called in favours, sought support from friends and family. Getting the eight company members in a room together – when they are all working shifts to pay the rent – is an achievement in itself. Fellow company member Jamie Tansley said: “We are looking at ways we can sustain ourselves by charging for education projects. You not only have to make it work but become a business, and that’s a little scary. But we will find a way, because we have the hustle.”
On the ground, it has been a case of adapt or die. Lorne Campbell is the artistic director of Northern Stage. One of his means of diversifying has been by harnessing the notion that “creativity” is itself a commodity. Over a pre-rehearsal coffee, he told me he hires himself out to lead workshops on creative management for business executives, raising about £50,000 a year, or around half a production budget. He would like to see the new Culture Investment Fund work – but pointed out gently, as did others, that his organisation has been energetically fundraising for years now.
He believed, he said, that a fundamental part of his job was providing a conducive environment for artists who want to make work in the north-east – their presence in turn enriching Newcastle’s civic life. But, he said: “That ecosystem is in danger of collapse. We are not many salami slices away from having to make a dramatic change to what we do.” What would that change consist of? He shrugged. “Producing a Christmas show every year cast with people who aren’t from here, and acting as a receiving house for productions from elsewhere the rest of the year. An utterly pointless exercise.”
Northern Stage provides, at present at least, support for young theatre companies. One such, Camisado Club, is made up of eight young performer-writers, all fairly fresh out of college, all “hellbent on staying in the north-east and making work”, according to company member Caroline Liversidge.
For these 20-something artists, the notion of a well-funded arts environment is, said Liversidge, “a myth – like: ‘In days of yore there was funding.’ ” She works five zero-hours-contract jobs to make ends meet, and fits her artistic work around them. Camisado Club’s first show, Send More Paper, about murderous wives in Hungary after the first world war, was a success, and had a short tour, including to London, but making it work was a struggle – they crowdfunded to get themselves to London, called in favours, sought support from friends and family. Getting the eight company members in a room together – when they are all working shifts to pay the rent – is an achievement in itself. Fellow company member Jamie Tansley said: “We are looking at ways we can sustain ourselves by charging for education projects. You not only have to make it work but become a business, and that’s a little scary. But we will find a way, because we have the hustle.”
Jim Beirne of Live Theatre. Photograph: Mark Pinder/Mark Pinder
Meghan Doyle and Maria Crocker are part of another young theatre company, the Letter Room, which has performed at Latitude, Bestival and the Edinburgh fringe. According to Doyle: “We made our last show on no budget and no sleep.” All accomplished musicians, they perform as a band to make money to support their main work. “It is hard,” she added, “devising, producing, making the website, performing, working our other jobs.” They are a determined pair, committed to staying in the north-east – where the flipside of the lack of funding is cheap rent and a feeling of shared artistic enterprise with their peers. “It feels like something is brewing in Newcastle,” said Crocker. But, said Doyle: “We can’t continue making work for no money. There is a point where you have to say, you’ve got to live.”
A spirit of enterprise is also at work at Live Theatre. When I visited in early 2013, I saw how the work of the 150-seat theatre was supported by a gastropub, the Broad Chare, and rental income from a set of offices converted from a schoolhouse. Its chief executive, Jim Beirne, had used his own “hustle” to make money. The Broad Chare makes Live £100,000 a year, enough for an entire production budget. The schoolhouse makes £35,000, enough for an education project.
Since then, Beirne has masterminded the purchase of more buildings clustered around the theatre, including a vacant plot that faces the Tyne. With the help of European funds and loans from the council, he is now running a £10m project that includes building a new office block to rent, creating an outdoor stage and park, and converting an almshouse into a children’s literary centre. The piling for the new offices is complete; the steel framework is due to rise in January and the structure should be built by September. “The point is to create an asset on our balance sheet that provides an income to spend on our mission,” said Beirne. Initially, the yield is expected to be £150,000-£200,000 per annum.
I asked Beirne what his background was – expecting him to tell me of an MBA or a career in business. He laughed. “I trained as a lute player and composer,” he said. Was Live in danger, I wondered, of being buffeted by competing values? Would its business concerns conflict with its artistic ambitions? Would Live become, to misquote an unfortunate advertising slogan adopted by the V&A in the 1980s, “an ace gastropub with quite a nice theatre attached”? He said: “It’s just a tool to deliver what we do. Of course we have to be robust about what we stand for and what our values are. If we didn’t do this, what the fuck else would we do?”
Meghan Doyle and Maria Crocker are part of another young theatre company, the Letter Room, which has performed at Latitude, Bestival and the Edinburgh fringe. According to Doyle: “We made our last show on no budget and no sleep.” All accomplished musicians, they perform as a band to make money to support their main work. “It is hard,” she added, “devising, producing, making the website, performing, working our other jobs.” They are a determined pair, committed to staying in the north-east – where the flipside of the lack of funding is cheap rent and a feeling of shared artistic enterprise with their peers. “It feels like something is brewing in Newcastle,” said Crocker. But, said Doyle: “We can’t continue making work for no money. There is a point where you have to say, you’ve got to live.”
A spirit of enterprise is also at work at Live Theatre. When I visited in early 2013, I saw how the work of the 150-seat theatre was supported by a gastropub, the Broad Chare, and rental income from a set of offices converted from a schoolhouse. Its chief executive, Jim Beirne, had used his own “hustle” to make money. The Broad Chare makes Live £100,000 a year, enough for an entire production budget. The schoolhouse makes £35,000, enough for an education project.
Since then, Beirne has masterminded the purchase of more buildings clustered around the theatre, including a vacant plot that faces the Tyne. With the help of European funds and loans from the council, he is now running a £10m project that includes building a new office block to rent, creating an outdoor stage and park, and converting an almshouse into a children’s literary centre. The piling for the new offices is complete; the steel framework is due to rise in January and the structure should be built by September. “The point is to create an asset on our balance sheet that provides an income to spend on our mission,” said Beirne. Initially, the yield is expected to be £150,000-£200,000 per annum.
I asked Beirne what his background was – expecting him to tell me of an MBA or a career in business. He laughed. “I trained as a lute player and composer,” he said. Was Live in danger, I wondered, of being buffeted by competing values? Would its business concerns conflict with its artistic ambitions? Would Live become, to misquote an unfortunate advertising slogan adopted by the V&A in the 1980s, “an ace gastropub with quite a nice theatre attached”? He said: “It’s just a tool to deliver what we do. Of course we have to be robust about what we stand for and what our values are. If we didn’t do this, what the fuck else would we do?”
Saturday, 22 November 2014
Is this the end of the British art school?
Art schools used to be a place where the socially and intellectually marginal could distinguish themselves. Now, with unattainable entry requirements and a hefty price tag, they’re becoming a dwelling place for commercial interests and the children of the international elite.
by Isabel Sutton
The old Central Saint Martins building in central London. Photograph: Getty Images.
When the Great Exhibition opened its doors in 1851, Britain’s reputation as the workshop of the world was on the wane. Few visitors would have known it at the time, but the exhibition signified the high watermark of British manufacturing. French design and Prussian engineering were already edging ahead. In 2012, London hosted another event designed to present Britain to the world – one which referenced the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution by featuring towering smoke stacks and beating drums.
Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony represented British history as a creative blossoming that started in the nineteenth century but seemed to reach its zenith in the twentieth century when fashion, film and pop music boomed. And yet it seems to me that Boyle’s Olympic opener – just like the Great Exhibition – was telling a story about Britain that had already ceased to be true. The circumstances which made it possible for artists to thrive in Britain during the twentieth century are rapidly disappearing. And perhaps one of the most essential changes is in our art schools.
Name any one of the UK’s most famous designers or musicians, never mind artists, and they are likely to have set foot in an art school at one time or other: David Bowie, Pete Townsend, Brian Eno, Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano. I could go on and on. Economist Hasan Bakhshi [3] of innovation charity Nesta says that he is frequently asked about how we run our art schools by educationalists abroad. Art schools are perceived by many as the key to our creative success.
Yet art schools have changed dramatically over the last 20–30 years, causing many to question whether they will, in the future, cultivate the innovators we so badly need. Art schools used to be havens for students who, for whatever reason, had not found their niche in the traditional academic system. Now prospective art students very often have to prove their academic credentials to compete for a place at the most prestigious colleges. Once on the course, art students have to submit an increasing volume of written work, arguably a distraction from practical skills and craft.
Tuition fees have made higher education in Britain more expensive than anywhere else in Europe, and art schools are no exception. This means that the social and economic mix is disappearing (students from poorer backgrounds being less inclined to take out a loan for a non-vocational subject such as fine art). What’s more, art schools are going out of their way to attract foreign students for the extra income they bring. Unsurprisingly, there is deep concern among many artists and teachers that the age of the art school is – to quote Sir Christopher Frayling – “over”.
Frayling was, until 2009, dean of one of Britain’s most venerable art schools, the Royal College (RCA). But as I walked its corridors with him recently, he admitted that even this renowned institution has suffered from the same damaging developments as art schools around the country: workshops for ceramics, printing, and metalwork have been replaced by computer rooms, digital expertise is prioritised before craft; student numbers are rocketing and teaching hours are sinking.
Designer Jay Osgerby [4] graduated with a Masters in architecture from the Royal College of Art. He’s one of a generation of British designers who are now leading design practice around the world, in every field from fashion to technology. The head of Burberry, Christopher Bailey, was in the same year as Jay and his partner Edward Barber; Thomas Heatherwick was another who attended the RCA around the same time; and Apple’s Jonathan Ive was an industrial design student at Newcastle Polytechnic.
Osgerby remembers the RCA as a place where people were constantly making things. The lift was continuously crammed with half-made dresses and furniture being ferried up and down. The RCA, he believes, still manages to hold on to this highly practical ethos, but everywhere he sees the rise of computers taking the place of the hand-made: computers, he says “make you look like an innovator rather than a throw-back to the industrial revolution, but I think that’s a really big mistake.”
The truth is that workshops are expensive and that’s a good enough reason to get rid of them. As education is effectively privatised, art school managers are more interested in business models than the experience of students. An art school such as Central Saint Martins (part of the University of the Arts London) recruits around 40 per cent of its BA students from overseas. It also runs short courses for members of the public. This extra income allows the art school to do a few “special things”, says its head Jeremy Till, such as putting on two degree shows so splendid they attracted almost 50,000 people earlier this year. He says the new building at Kings Cross (where the art school moved from its West End site in 2011) makes the art school a “cultural destination”. Never mind the fact that some staff and students feel uncomfortable with the monolithic, anonymous architecture (one tutor told me that there’s never enough studio space for everyone, you can’t open windows, and you no longer meet people from other courses despite the fact that everyone is now on the same premises.)
So is it necessary to impress the public with a dazzling building and exciting brand? Jeremy Till would tell you that it’s exactly this kind of self-presentation that’s encouraged Google to locate its European offices right next door to Central Saint Martins’ new building at Kings Cross in North London. And maybe he’s got a point. Google might offer jobs to some of the young “creatives” who step out of Saint Martins’ sliding doors. But there’s a balance to be struck. If Central Saint Martins isn’t concentrating attention – above all – on the experience of students within its walls, then the shiny exterior will become just that – a façade, a front, a shop window. Nothing more.
by Isabel Sutton
Published 20 November, 2014
New Statesman
The old Central Saint Martins building in central London. Photograph: Getty Images.
When the Great Exhibition opened its doors in 1851, Britain’s reputation as the workshop of the world was on the wane. Few visitors would have known it at the time, but the exhibition signified the high watermark of British manufacturing. French design and Prussian engineering were already edging ahead. In 2012, London hosted another event designed to present Britain to the world – one which referenced the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution by featuring towering smoke stacks and beating drums.
Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony represented British history as a creative blossoming that started in the nineteenth century but seemed to reach its zenith in the twentieth century when fashion, film and pop music boomed. And yet it seems to me that Boyle’s Olympic opener – just like the Great Exhibition – was telling a story about Britain that had already ceased to be true. The circumstances which made it possible for artists to thrive in Britain during the twentieth century are rapidly disappearing. And perhaps one of the most essential changes is in our art schools.
Name any one of the UK’s most famous designers or musicians, never mind artists, and they are likely to have set foot in an art school at one time or other: David Bowie, Pete Townsend, Brian Eno, Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano. I could go on and on. Economist Hasan Bakhshi [3] of innovation charity Nesta says that he is frequently asked about how we run our art schools by educationalists abroad. Art schools are perceived by many as the key to our creative success.
Yet art schools have changed dramatically over the last 20–30 years, causing many to question whether they will, in the future, cultivate the innovators we so badly need. Art schools used to be havens for students who, for whatever reason, had not found their niche in the traditional academic system. Now prospective art students very often have to prove their academic credentials to compete for a place at the most prestigious colleges. Once on the course, art students have to submit an increasing volume of written work, arguably a distraction from practical skills and craft.
Tuition fees have made higher education in Britain more expensive than anywhere else in Europe, and art schools are no exception. This means that the social and economic mix is disappearing (students from poorer backgrounds being less inclined to take out a loan for a non-vocational subject such as fine art). What’s more, art schools are going out of their way to attract foreign students for the extra income they bring. Unsurprisingly, there is deep concern among many artists and teachers that the age of the art school is – to quote Sir Christopher Frayling – “over”.
Frayling was, until 2009, dean of one of Britain’s most venerable art schools, the Royal College (RCA). But as I walked its corridors with him recently, he admitted that even this renowned institution has suffered from the same damaging developments as art schools around the country: workshops for ceramics, printing, and metalwork have been replaced by computer rooms, digital expertise is prioritised before craft; student numbers are rocketing and teaching hours are sinking.
Designer Jay Osgerby [4] graduated with a Masters in architecture from the Royal College of Art. He’s one of a generation of British designers who are now leading design practice around the world, in every field from fashion to technology. The head of Burberry, Christopher Bailey, was in the same year as Jay and his partner Edward Barber; Thomas Heatherwick was another who attended the RCA around the same time; and Apple’s Jonathan Ive was an industrial design student at Newcastle Polytechnic.
Osgerby remembers the RCA as a place where people were constantly making things. The lift was continuously crammed with half-made dresses and furniture being ferried up and down. The RCA, he believes, still manages to hold on to this highly practical ethos, but everywhere he sees the rise of computers taking the place of the hand-made: computers, he says “make you look like an innovator rather than a throw-back to the industrial revolution, but I think that’s a really big mistake.”
The truth is that workshops are expensive and that’s a good enough reason to get rid of them. As education is effectively privatised, art school managers are more interested in business models than the experience of students. An art school such as Central Saint Martins (part of the University of the Arts London) recruits around 40 per cent of its BA students from overseas. It also runs short courses for members of the public. This extra income allows the art school to do a few “special things”, says its head Jeremy Till, such as putting on two degree shows so splendid they attracted almost 50,000 people earlier this year. He says the new building at Kings Cross (where the art school moved from its West End site in 2011) makes the art school a “cultural destination”. Never mind the fact that some staff and students feel uncomfortable with the monolithic, anonymous architecture (one tutor told me that there’s never enough studio space for everyone, you can’t open windows, and you no longer meet people from other courses despite the fact that everyone is now on the same premises.)
So is it necessary to impress the public with a dazzling building and exciting brand? Jeremy Till would tell you that it’s exactly this kind of self-presentation that’s encouraged Google to locate its European offices right next door to Central Saint Martins’ new building at Kings Cross in North London. And maybe he’s got a point. Google might offer jobs to some of the young “creatives” who step out of Saint Martins’ sliding doors. But there’s a balance to be struck. If Central Saint Martins isn’t concentrating attention – above all – on the experience of students within its walls, then the shiny exterior will become just that – a façade, a front, a shop window. Nothing more.
Thursday, 20 November 2014
Liberal arts graduates are sought after by banks
Why banks like to hire liberal arts graduates, redux
by Sarah Butcher
by Sarah Butcher
http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/190592/banks-like-hire-liberal-arts-graduates-redux/
Banks want liberal artists for their 'blue sky thinking.'
Forget finance, economics, maths, physics and electronics, Banks are all about liberal arts graduates. They love them. They want to hire them. And they are saying so in public.
For English-speaking students in Europe who are less familiar with the term, ‘liberal arts’ is a catch-all phrase encompassing arts, humanities and social sciences (with the exception, in this case, of economics). If you’re a history undergraduate, you’re a liberal arts major. Same if you’re studying English literature.
We already knew that Goldman Sachs likes to liberal arts students – it released a chart showing that liberal artists constitute its second largest cohort of employees last year. This year, it’s been holding special recruitment sessions for liberal arts majorsat universities in the U.S.
Now RBS is out penetrating the liberal arts cluster too. The Times reported this morning that the UK bank is pursuing humanities students for its investment banking business. “We still need the mathematicians and economists, we still need those disciplines but what we need to do is leaven it, we need an input from people who have left-field, blue-sky creative thinking, who can bring the ability to ask the tough questions,” Tim Skeet, managing director of RBS capital markets, told the Times. Skeet even invested liberal arts graduates with special powers to prevent finance types from going astray: “If going through this crisis we had had a few more people who could have said – look, explain that to me in plain English . . . I think we might have avoided some of the problems.”
The appeal of liberal arts students doesn’t end with their prosaic approach to complex finance. One head of graduate recruitment told us they benefit from better social skills too – they can, “carry a conversation.”
And yet… banks’ increased interest in humanities graduates may also have a darker side. As Ezra Klein pointed out two years ago, liberal arts graduates form a helpful pool of new talent for banks struggling to keep applications up after the financial crisis. It helps, said Klein, that liberal artists aren’t sure what to do with themselves. “You’re encouraged to take classes in subjects like English literature and history and political science, all of which are fine and interesting, but none of which leave you with marketable skills…the finance industry takes advantage of that confusion, attracting students who never intended to work in finance but don’t have any better ideas about where to go.”
It’s also difficult to shake the suspicion that banks are hiring liberal artists for the less ‘sexy’ business areas where talent is harder to come by. Our own research into the people banks hire into front office roles regularly turns up students who’ve graduated in maths and finance. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs seems to be particularly targeting liberal artists for its infrastructure hub in Salt Lake City. In 2010, its Salt Lake City recruiters were reportedly tasked with hiring 35% of staff from a liberal arts background because the firm was convinced that liberal arts majors brought, ‘a unique perspective and set of skills to the table.’
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