Author: Alan Holligan

Artists: House of Lords debate

The question of government support for individual artists, including visual artists, writers and composers, was the subject of an hour-long debate in the House of Lords this week.

The debate covered a variety of themes including the contribution of art to society, individual and state funding of the art and artists and whether or not art production is becoming a preserve of the rich.

A full transcript of the debate can be found HERE and the following extract relating to art education is taken from a fuller article on the a-n website HERE

A key theme picked up on by a number of peers was the importance of education to the wider debate around the diversity of artists and the value of art in society. Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (Liberal Democrat) said: “It is essential that the status of the arts in the classroom is properly recognised.”

“Have you noticed that whenever an important person visits a school – a prime minister or a president – the first things that they are shown are the paintings of the children? The next thing they are invited to do is to listen to the singing of the children. I rest our case.”

This week the Secretary of State for Scotland visited Edinburgh College to speak to students about votes for 16-17 year olds:

Luc Tuymans guilty!?

The Art Newspaper reported yesterday:

The Belgian artist Luc Tuymans was found guilty of copyright infringement in a legal dispute over a portrait he created in 2011. A civil court in Antwerp ruled on 15 January that Tuymans’s painting A Belgian Politician—a dramatically cropped image of the MP Jean-Marie Dedecker—borrowed too heavily from a photograph taken one year earlier by Katrijn Van Giel, a photojournalist for the Flemish newspaper De Standaard……

Read the full article here: http://theartnewspaper.com/articles/Tuymans-found-guilty-in-copyright-case-involving-political-portrait/36825

Commentary from todays Guardian by Adrian Searle: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/21/luc-tuysmans-katrijn-van-giel-dedecker-legal-case

Soundweaving

Hungarian Artist Converts Folk Embroidery Patterns into Paper Scores for Music Boxes

More here: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/01/soundweaving/

Up town top rankin. TAXI !!

It was a day on the town for CAPetc today. Talbot Rice Gallery to start where assistant curator James Clegg gave us an introduction to both the galleries current shows. First up was The Beguiled Eye, Christopher Orr’s first solo show in Scotland, bringing together new and recent paintings and featuring, for the first time, the artist’s remarkable sketchbooks.

‘Orr’s oil paintings and watercolours offer enigmatic glimpses into other worlds where modern characters appear within expansive environments, laden with drama. The intriguing scenes derive from an appropriation of images from a vast range of visual materials, including National Geographic magazines, scientific manuals, 1950s snaps, art historical images and Super 8 films.’

Also on at the TR is gap in the air: a festival of sonic art which is “a celebration of music and sonic art in Talbot Rice’s Georgian Gallery, including performances by experimental musicians and artists, work by staff and students, workshops and academic discussions. The programme is dedicated to the experience of sound, the neo-classical space of the Georgian Gallery becoming a sounding-box for the most prescient themes in contemporary sonic art”

Next up was a quick walk up to Edinburgh College of Art for a talk by Mark McGowan aka The Artist Taxi Driver. As anticipated the talk was excellent and Mark gave us all a great deal to think about in relation to politics, culture and the role & responsibility or art & artists in contemporary society. Below is one of Marks videos which was playing as we took our seats in the lecture hall.

Thanks to Rhubaba Gallery & Studios for organising the event and for inviting CAP.