The artist as insider and outsider..
I found myself chairing a discussion this week, which had a panel of six people – three artists, two academics and the contemporary programme manager for the National Trust – all discussing how art may help to interpret less glamorous historic sites and to see if we [...]

Looking at art is such a great way to spend a day in London. I have always done this; for the past thirty years, I have devised days in London that resemble army manouevres: 10am – South London Gallery; 10.30- leave and go to Tate Britain, and so on. It’s my research, my work. [...]

Questions are all I get asked, from people trying to understand contemporary art. And it is questions that you can ask an artwork to enhance your enjoyment and understanding of what you are looking at.

A wee story
Back in 2005, I worked for Creative Partnerships in the Black Country, as the professional [...]

One of the questions I always get asked by people goes something like this:
YOU know about art stuff don’t you? So that Tracey Emin’s bed – what’s that all about? She’s having a laugh isn’t she (at us, the public, the ones that don’t know about contemporary art)..

Or another version::
[...]

I spent last Friday looking at art, starting off at ROOM to see the Shelagh Wakely retrospective. Beautiful, fragile and poetic; all about material, and very well suited to the spaces. ROOM is literally two floors in a house, so any work within it caries a sense of the domestic and of [...]

Just back from the Penzance Convention – three and a bit days away, in Cornwall, with many people I haven’t seen for ages. The Convention brought together people –  thinkers, curators, writers, artists, and scientists – from all over the place to focus on the theme of extraction, with Cornwall as its [...]

Anya Gallaccio

Anya Gallaccio was associated with the Young British Artists movement in the ’90′s, working with materials – flowers, fruit, ice – which, when placed in unfamiliar contexts to their original use, inevitably decay. A kind of beauty that will never last, but lead to a death.Her work is less a straightforward comment [...]

World Aids Day

The 1st December – today – is designated World Aids day. It exists to keep us aware of the facts of HIV.  Many people do not understand how HIV is transmitted, how it can be prevented, or the reality of living with HIV today. People living with HIV can also still [...]