Art – FIELD READINGS

04/10/202004/10/2020

Fluff and nonsense

Recently on Facebook I posted the following video by Mike Rich from the Steering YouTube channel. In it he discusses whether Graphic Design could be considered art.

This is an often discussed topic, particularly amongst design students. I certainly have very firm views on the subject, and contend that they are different disciplines. As a result I find it difficult not to be drawn in to such debates.

In response to posting the video, several friends commented with their views—some defensively, some more measured. Most were people who identify themselves as artists, or designer/artists, and their different takes on the topic are interesting.

30/09/201721/05/2020

Can graphic design kill you?

There is an irony to the fact that four days after the Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? exhibition opened at the Wellcome Collection, the biennial Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair kicked off at the ExCeL centre in London’s Docklands.

170911120044-banksy-civilian-drone-arms-fair-super-169 — *Banksy’s submission to Art the Arms Fair*

The former, in the words of Creative Review, showcases graphic design used to “educate, inform, persuade and even save lives. Items include anti-smoking stamps, anatomical pop-up books, a 17^th century plague notice and a mural that uses illustration to explain the symptoms of Ebola to people in Africa.” Where as the latter, in the words of Andrew Smith of Campaign Against the Arms Trade will: “bring many of the world’s most appalling regimes together with the biggest arms companies.”

25/07/201721/05/2020

To Hull and back

In October last year I wrote about the visual identity for Hull City of Culture 2017. I’d mostly only ever heard negative things about the city but vowed to go there this year after seeing this deliberately attention grabbing piece of branding. Claire and I duly booked our summer holiday in the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds for last week so that we could take a day out in Yorkshire, and Hull did not disappoint.

Crossing the Humber Bridge on the day its Grade 1 listing was announced, the Museum Quarter made for our first destination on reaching Hull, with the Streetlife Museum dramatically depicting the town’s everyday history. Time limited, we then veered towards the Fruitmarket ‘cultural quarter’ that friends had recommended, via some fine brutalist structures.

29/06/201721/05/2020

Graphic commons: roadcode

I took a dérive to work the other day and came across road work annotations on the pavement. I’ve seen these many times before, and often photographed them, but yesterday’s discovery prompted me to pull the more interesting images together in one place. When cropping some of these square, the reference to Mark Boyle and the Boyle Family‘s work is obvious to see.

It is not artistic associations that fascinate me about them though, but the fact they are little architectural notes. They clearly have meaning to someone, even if their meaning isn’t always clear to me. When I come across them it is like I have discovered tribal marks during an exploration of unchartered lands. It also strikes me that if they were drawn unofficially on walls, they would be jet-washed off as graffiti.

17/11/201621/05/2020

Survival guide

I’ve just written a review of the excellent Gee Vaucher exhibition, Introspective, at Colchester’s Firstsite gallery for Eye Magazine’s blog. Read it here.

28/05/201621/05/2020

PhotoEast

PhotoEast, Suffolk’s first festival of photography was launched this week in Ipswich and can claim to be a major success, even within its first few days of existence. The half-mile walk along Ipswich’s waterfront from DanceEast to Cult Cafe brings dramatic images from around the world to this small Suffolk town. Local history and Ipswich life are presented alongside contemporary photography as part of the fabric of the waterside architecture. There is even a projection room inside a shipping container at the far end of the marina.

09/11/201521/05/2020

Brutal equations

In my teens in the 1980s, as I was becoming politically aware and active, (going on CND demonstrations and reading radical publications), it is difficult for me not to be very familiar with the work of Peter Kennard. I think I must have held several of his images in my hands as placards and certainly stuck some of his photomontages on my bedroom wall torn from pages in lefty rags. When I heard he was having a retrospective at the Imperial War Museum, titled Unofficial War Artist, I debated whether I should go or not, thinking that I knew what I would get and worried about it being an exercise in personal nostalgia. It wasn’t until I read Art-e-facts’ review of her several visits to the show that I decided to go, and without a shadow of a doubt it blew me away, (no pun intended).

15/08/201521/05/2020

Shadow cabinet

Last week The Cabinet of Curiosities caravan pulled up outside University Campus Suffolk to coincide with an exhibition of the same project in UCS’s Waterfront Gallery.

This visit and exhibition is the culmination of a year long project by UCS Fine Art Senior Lecturer Jane Watt. Jane and her bright blue caravan have visited various locations, and in particular many around Cambridge throughout the Autumn of 2014, providing an opportunity for people to come and document curiosities via cyanotypes. “At each location my assistant Amy Sage and I went through the same ritual: paper ready, aprons on, lights on,” says Jane. “The blue door is opened, the sign put outside inviting people to ‘Bring in your curious object’. Each venue brought many new visitors with unexpected objects and related unique tales.”

03/05/201521/05/2020

Secret seven

A large corner of my loft is stacked with vinyl records, mostly 12″ LPs, but there is a smaller pile of 7″ singles. They are going to stay there, save for the odd time I want to change the artwork in my three album-art frames that deck our landing. It is fair to say I haven’t jumped on the supposed vinyl revival—there’s already enough nostalgia in the world, I don’t need any more.

26/07/201421/05/2020

Ditchling Museum of Art+Craft

I’d read about Ditchling Museum of Art+Craft on the Design Week blog last year when it reopened after being refurbished. It made the design press largely because of the rebranding by Phil Baines, in which he re-drew Gill Sans for all accompanying graphics. In truth, what Baines had done more than help advise on the dressing of the museum was to shine a light on an important historical design gem. And when I realised we wouldn’t be too far away while holidaying on the Kent / East Sussex boarder last week, it went on the itinerary of possible things to do. But rather than visit after going to the Chermayeff exhibition in Bexhill on our return journey home, we decided to go on a separate day, worried that two exhibitions in one day would be too much.