This term the Undergraduate Fine Art Programme at Camberwell College of Arts has held a series of 4 Key Ideas Debates that brought together leading practitioners to interrogate ideas of subject-specificity and the role of medium.

Each debate focussed on the work of 2 artists.

• Drawing – Cary Kwok and Laura Oldfield Ford.
• Painting – Dan Perfect and Alastair MacKinven.
• Photography – Kennard/Phillipps and Hannah Sawtell.
• Sculpture – Phillip King and Gary Webb.

Camberwell BA Fine Art symposium – Tuesday 23 October 2012 / 11.00 – 16.00

Definitions and applications of “craft” within contemporary sculpture has become a hot topic used by contemporary artists and critics to consider the role and relationship of physical labor in sculptural practices.

If craft is traditionally related to manual skill, what results when conceptual art embraces craft, or when craft becomes increasingly conceptual or brought more into contemporary visual theory?

Recent trends in object making or ‘unmaking’, the un-monumental and ephemeral have provoked critical speculation on the interrelation between DIY and avant-garde practices while some critics have proposed theoretical models for understanding craft within modern art history.

This mini symposium hopes to initiate a discussion in the Fine Art departments of Camberwell College of Art regarding the often heard and seemingly opposing terms of “craft” and “de-skilling” within the context of disparate contemporary sculptural practices.

Speakers:

Patricia Ellis

Is an artist, writer, and curator. She has written catalogue texts for museums, publishing houses and commercial galleries including, The Royal Academy, The Hermitage, Gem Museum, Vanabbe Museum, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Thyssen Bornemisza, and MUSAC. She has worked with The Saatchi Gallery since 1998 as a writer and spokesperson. Ellis has curated 11 international exhibitions in the UK, Finland, Israel, and Ireland, including the British exhibitions for the Tirana Biennale 2001, ArtKliasma Moscow 2003, and the Prague Biennale 2005. She was Specialist Advisor to the Scottish Arts Council from 2007-2010 and is an Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England.

Cedar Lewisohn

Is an artist and curator based in London. Between 2005 and 2011 he worked at Tate, where he curated the exhibition Street Art in 2008 and co-curated the exhibition Rude Britannia in 2010. He also curated numerous large scale public projects for Tate and was assistant curator of the exhibition Dali and Film. In 2010 he co-curated the UK touring exhibition Orbitecture and in 2012 he curated the exhibition Les Fleur de Mal at the BWA Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland. In 2008 he wrote the book, Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution (Tate), and in 2011 his book Abstract Graffiti was published by Merrell.

Ian Monroe  

Is an artist and writer. He was born in New York in 1972 and currently lives and works in London. He received his MA from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2002.

Monroe came to public attention in 2003 when the Saatchi Gallery featured a large-scale work from the artist’s MA show. The artist was included in ‘Edge of the Real’ 2004, a group painting show at the Whitechapel Gallery. ‘They Built Upon It’ (2005) at Haunch of Venison London was accompanied by the first major catalogue of Monroe’s work, including texts by poet and art critic, Barry Schwabsky.

Monroe was recently commissioned by St Johns College, Oxford to design a major public commission for the university. Most recently, Monroe was the recipient of the Freund Fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, in partnership with the Saint Louis Art Museum, where Monroe had his first US solo show.

Paul O’Kane

Is an artist, reviewer and essayist. He completed a PhD at University of London entitled ‘A Hesitation of Things’. Paul’s work starts from the premise that photography has profoundly informed both human experience and all the arts by making us newly conscious of time. Hence the object, the image and the act of making can all be considered as ‘events’. Today, our increasingly virtual environment might justifiably lead us into a defensive fetishisation of making, but in doing so we should not forget or deny generations of critical experiment that have questioned this cornerstone of art’s value.

As artists we should continue to take risks and continuously question our personal and cultural habits and tendencies, working e.g. against established notions of the ‘good’ or ‘fine’ object or image, attempting to answer the cultural and material values of our fast-changing world, making hypotheses about what ‘making’ might mean in a digital age.

Barry Reigate

His practice comprises of an engagement with cultural exhaustion and an inevitably doomed attempt to find an escape from the impasse imposed by our present historical conditions through the imagined freedom of play.  Barry Reigate lives and works in London; he is represented by Paradise Row gallery and his works have been featured in museums such as Tate, Saatchi Gallery, and The Hermitage.

Key Ideas is a series of events organised by the Design Area specifically for Camberwell College of Arts design students.

The Key Ideas 2011/2012 series of talks and workshops intends to investigate a range of aspects that inform how we consume, use and discard today.

Key Ideas 4: (You) Consume – 9 November 2011

The day aimed to examine an array of perspectives on consumption, design and how they relate to each other. The event also explored fresh notions of how design can be instrumental in proposing less conventional routes for more sustainable modes of consumption.

“Consumption may be regarded as negative production.” – Alfred Marshall, Economist.

In very simple terms it is conventionally accepted that the economic success of organisations, markets and countries is based on scales of growth. As a short term solution this may seem okay, but isn’t it an unsustainable approach to growth and consumption that is leading us to major global concerns? Can we really expect to spend our way out of a crisis and somehow magically create a post-crisis economy that is sustainable?

If the current western financial crisis was partly caused by the belief that organisations and economies must grow through the stimulation of over-consumption of things we can’t afford through easy credit, the environmental crisis is being caused by the over-consumption of natural resources and the health crisis is being caused by the over-consumption of foods we shouldn’t eat, then it probably indicates a bit of a problem with endless consumption.

Speakers:

• Dr Sansi-Roca – Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Goldsmiths.
• Dr Neil Maycroft – Senior Lecturer in History of Art & Design, Lincoln School of Art & Design
• Laurent Lebot and Victor Massip – Faltazi

Guided by the talks, the morning was followed by discussions and a practical workshop. The aim of the day was to create an intellectual platform for students, creative practitioners and thinkers to cultivate a long lasting discussion on the current design landscape, its responsibility and opportunities.

Take a look at the Design Area Key Ideas Blog.

Key Ideas is an annual lecture series organised by the Design Area specifically for Camberwell College of Arts design students.

Key Ideas 3: Society – 11 May 2011

“The legacy of disconnection between contemporary art and society is being challenged by a wider rediscovery of the emancipatory nature of the art process (true of art’s function in the longer story of human societies), which is collaborative, participatory and communal, not limited to, or by, lonely agency of the individual artist.” - McGonagle D. (2007) ‘It’s art…but not as we know it! Art of Negotiation.’ Cornerhouse Publications: Manchester.

Society is the title of the third Key Ideas Symposium at Camberwell College of Arts. The event will explore a range of critically important issues and themes relating to design, art and society.

The aim of the day is to create an intellectual platform for students, creative practitioners and thinkers to develop an interdisciplinary conversation on the role of the art and design in and for society. Through a series of provocations the purpose of the event is to bring to the table notions on the role of the artist/designer in the creation, growth and shaping of our built environment, communities and cities, through an exploration of theoretical concepts and practical approaches. The day will include talks, discussions and a practical workshop.

This occasion is intended as a space for critical debate, investigation and experimentation of ideas and concepts that relate art/design and their many contexts to society – in the public ream, environmentally, as notions, as a subversive tool, as utopias, on the streets and in communities.

As designers, we are largely concerned with how to create communication, product, or experience that fulfills our intentions. However, with globalizations, digitalisation, and virtualisation, we begun to realise the need of a bigger question, which is, how artifacts (the facts of art) define us as humans. As designers we have influence on how humans maneuver and shape the environments and rituals through implements – homo faber; how chairs alter natural ways of congregating; to ethical concerns of how participation in the design process empowers marginalised communities. Within a fluid social field the contemporary creative practices are negotiating their merits through interactions, collaboration and even frictions.

The scope of Key Ideas 3: Society is deliberately broad and ambitious. Our times demand nothing less. However, the day also embraces the specific areas of expertise of our panel of speakers with practical examples of ideas in situ.

Speakers:

• Mark Davy (Director – Futurecity)
• Adrian Holme (Artist, researcher and visual theory and art history lecturer)
• Almir Koldzic (Refugee Week UK Co-ordinator)
• Fabiane Lee-Parrella (Artist, designer, founder of Flour)
• Hannah Lewis (Design researcher, social innovator, Co-ordinator of Remade in Brixton)

Workshop leaders: Fabiane Lee-Parrella and Karen Richmond.

Format:

AM: Provocations delivered by the speakers which will examine the ideas described above from their perspective.

PM: Practical Workshop: Re – Act:  Introduction of activity and public intervention.

At the end of the day: Presentation of interventions – images/photographs. Conclusion.

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Take a look at the Design Area Key Ideas Blog.

Fine Art Key Ideas panel discussion – What is Socially Engaged Practice?

Panel:

Cornford and Cross –  are an artists’ collaboration comprised of Matthew Cornford and David Cross. Their cross-disciplinary practice, which responds to physical sites, social situations and historical moments, stems from their interest in urban patterns of social, political and economic organisation, as well as power structures further afield. 

www.cornfordandcross.com

The House of Fairy Tales – Established by the artists Deborah Curtis and Gavin Turk, The House of Fairy Tales is a child-centred artist led project which draws on an extensive team of artists, performers, writers, educationalists, designers, musicians, film makers, dreamers and philosophers to create magical, parallel worlds where learning is play and play is directed learning.

www.houseoffairytales.org

Lottie Child – Artist Lottie Child describes her unique practice of Street Training as “the ability to negotiate the multiplicity of forces at play in city streets – by making, and refraining from, spontaneous urban interventions, the ways in which we behave, may be the most effective personalised combination of artistic and political expression we will possess. My work explores what survival skills we might need for the 21st century.”

www.malinky.org 

Anouchka Grose -  is an art critic, author, newspaper columnist, and psychoanalyst. Her writing (both fiction and non-fiction) is centred on human relationship dynamics.  Her essay ‘Is Art Good For You?’ was recently published by Tate. Grose will give grounded analysis and insight to both the critical and the well-being implications of socially engaged art practice.

www.anouchkagrose.co.uk

Images top to bottom: Lottie Child, ‘Street Training’, Conford and Cross, ‘The Once and Future King Security’, Meadow arts commission 2008. House of Fairy Tales ’2010 Tour – Camo Frogs with Stephen Whitehead and Gavin Turk creating The Evolution of Life.’

Fine Art Area Key Ideas lecture series. Topic – Extreme Research.

Guest speakers:

Clara Ursitti  – is a Glasgow-based artist whose work is focussed on non-visually based media, such as situational performance, actions, and especially smell. Her work is informed by a very intensive research base which spans science, academia, sexual politics, and cultural mythology, and has involved live human sexual behavioural studies as well as re-enactments of genuine 1960s CIA experiments with LSD and dolphins.

www.claraursitti.com

Sigrid Holmwood –  is a London-based  artist. Her paintings of rustic scenes stem from her interest and participation in historical re-enactment groups and are made using authentic techniques from the early modern period (late 15th c). Her research often involves trawling through ancient archives, consulting with biologists, chemists and historians to link haptic processes with global anti-capitalist debates.

www.sigridholmwood.co.uk

Discussion Agenda: Ursitti and Holmwood will share their unorthodox processes of research and discuss how students might more innovatively approach the integration of research and making practice. Ursitti and Holmwood will give expert advice on how to investigate your interests in genuinely interesting ways. This discussion might help you develop a proper academic argument and solid critical context for your work – no matter how weird or ‘non-academic’ your interests may be!

Key Ideas is an annual lecture series organised by the Fine Art Area.

Images top to bottom: Clara Ursitti, ‘The Smell of Fear’. Sigrid Holmwood, ‘Two Dairy Maids’.

Key Ideas is an annual lecture series organised by the Design Area specifically for Camberwell College of Arts design students.

Key Ideas 2: Employment – 2 February 2011

Over the last twenty years the creative industries have undergone a period of unparalleled change. The growth of desktop publishing technology, the expansion of the internet into all aspects of our life, and the rapid development of a plethora of digital tools have meant that the production of design and communication media are more accessible than they have ever been before. As a result the average final year undergraduate student can now create something on their laptop that, to all but the trained eye, could pass as something that a team of experienced designers and a studio full of equipment would have produced even 10 years ago. At the same time creative subjects are more popular than they have ever been before and the numbers going on to study these subjects at undergraduate level has expanded exponentially.

As a result, when these students graduate they emerge into a world where there are many more graduates than jobs. Conventional career progression is extremely difficult to find and often can only be accessed through unpaid internships and work placements. Meanwhile, clients have learnt that they can access this army of work hungry talented graduates through the internet and get them to work at a fraction of the rate demanded by more established studios. As a result we have seen a growth in ‘crowd-sourcing’ and ‘free-pitching’.

Established designers complain that our business model is being undermined, while others welcome a more fluid and dynamic market. Holly Willis from the University of Southern California said in her lecture, Embracing Flux, at the New Contexts/New Practices: Six Views of the AIGA Design Educators Conference. “Our current moment as unsettling as it is, and as unique and apocalyptic as it feels, repeats a host of previous junctures in recurring cycles of disruption and stasis that punctuate the previous 200 years of Western culture.”

Speakers:

• Hannah Tyson (Director, HedOn / former owner of Eye Magazine)
• Matt Wade (partner, Kin)
• James Bull (co-founder, Moving Brands)
• Sam Arthur (partner, No Brow)
• Matt Rice (Sennep)
• Mike Ratcliffe (Represent)

Format:

AM: Key industry speakers will deliver 20 minute provocations that examine the ideas described above from their perspective. After each provocation there will be opportunities for group discussion from staff, current students and invited alumni.

PM: Students, staff, alumni and speakers break out into 4 or 5 groups to further examine themes identified from the mornings discussion. Each group will be asked to produce a sheet of wisdom that will point towards solutions and advice for how we can move forward and overcome some of the problems.

At the end of the day: We will summarize the discussion to prepare a manifesto or set of principles for how design and designers can best face up to the situation outlined above.

Become a fan of Key Ideas on Facebook.

Take a look at the Design Area Key Ideas Blog.

The second lecture of this year’s Fine Art Area Key Ideas series takes place on Thursday November 25 and the focus this time is on ‘Art and the Media’.

Guest speakers are:

Pil and Galia Kollectiv – a collaborative duo who are interested in art and politics after modernism. Critical theory is a central force in their art practice, which spans performance, video, curating and writing.

www.kollectiv.co.uk

Matthew Collings – artist and critic who has written and broadcast extensively on contemporary and historical art. Collings has authored 9 books and written and presented several television series for BBC and Channel 4. The Camberwell library has a wide selection of Collings’ books and programmes.

www.emmabiggsandmatthewcollings.net

Discussion Agenda: Pil and Galia Kollectiv and Matthew Collings will discuss how critical and art historical engagement informs their art practice and how artists can become active participants in the systems of intellectual exchange. They will candidly discuss issues surrounding the state of contemporary art media – tabloid and market hype, popularism and intellectualism, criticality vs. spin, authority and responsibility – giving an insider’s guide to the truth behind the headlines.

This year’s Fine Art Area Key Ideas series kicked off on Thursday 28 October with a debate and discussion centring around the theme of ‘Brit Art and You’.

Guest speakers on the day were:

John Russell – artist and writer. He was a founding member of the BANK artists’ collective. Russell is represented by MOT International. Russell’s Frozen Tears (I-III) anthologies can be viewed at  – www.frozentears.co.uk, many of the texts included can be read online. Russell was a contributor to Tate’s Great British Art Debate publication.

www.john-russell.org

Cedar Lewisohn - artist, writer, curator and programmer for Tate Media. Lewisohn recently co-curated the Rude Britannia exhibition at Tate Britain. He is currently working on Tate’s Great British Art Debate project – a nation-wide initiative to promote public engagement with art.

www.greatbritishartdebate.tate.org.uk

Discussion Agenda: The Great British Art Debate poses these questions: Is British Art a British fantasy? Should art be good for you? Is art too popular? Does the art of the past say anything about the world of today? Should the public have a say in what goes into museums?

Lewisohn and Russell engaged in a debate with the students about these topics and offered a series of provocative ideas for young artists to approach their practice and critical context.

Image: John Russell, ‘Untitled’, 2009.

Key Ideas is an annual lecture series organised by the Design Area specifically for Camberwell College of Arts design students.

Key Ideas: Taste – 27 October 2010

“Everyone has taste and yet it is a more taboo subject than sex or money. The reason for this is simple. Claims about your attitudes to or achievements in the carnal or financial arenas can be disputed only by your lover and your financial advisors, whereas by making a statement about your taste you expose body and soul to terrible scrutiny.” - Stephen Bayley, P.13, General Knowledge, Booth Clibborn Editions (2000).

The first Key Ideas Symposium this year will begin with a series of presentations, examining the idea of taste and looking specifically at the manifestation of a style and its application. The aim of the event is to trace the development of taste as an idea and to ask all participants to consider what this thing taste is, where it comes from and what it means.

Darryl Clifton (Design Area Leader + BA Illustration Course Director) will give a ‘light’ overview of that development, referencing the work of Stephen Bayley, outlining the relationship between taste and class, idealism and philosophy and should act as a prompt to the afternoons activity.

Catharine Rossi, a PhD student at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum‘s History of Design department, will expand on our understanding of the cultural value of objects with her lecture ‘From Luxury to Kitsch, and back again: Crafting Design in Post-War Italy’.

Lastly, our special guest Mr Crumpet, a fictional character from Henry Morley’s short story ‘A House Full of Horrors’, will comment on the use of decorative elements and ornaments.

The afternoon part of the event will be practical and will consist of a workshop and a group curated ‘pop up’ exhibition of images considered by the students to be of good and bad taste.

The day will be recorded and the materials produced archived and potentially used in a publication by Graphic Designer Paul Hardman.

Become a fan of Key Ideas on Facebook.

Take a look at the Design Area Key Ideas Blog.

Thanks to GFSmith for donating the paperstock for the event.

Design and event organisation: 2nd year BA Graphic Design students – Maria Martin Carrasco, Miglena Minkova, Louise Lynn.