RAQIB SHAW – A SOIRÉE

MANCHESTER ART GALLERY
7PM – 8.15PM THURSDAY MAY 9TH 2013
BAR OPENS 6PM – FREE DRINKS FOR STUDENTS

An evening of conviviality and provocation to coincide with the exhibition Raqib Shaw at the Manchester Art Gallery

Promiscuously mixing Eastern and Western iconographies, combining visual seduction with perverse violence, flirting openly with kitsch and luxuriant excess, Shaw has divided the critical establishment – while becoming a massive success on the international art scene.

Our expert speakers will present four pithy provocations to a free and fun audience discussion.
Speakers include: Dr Anirudha Dhanawade (University of Manchester), Dr Natasha Eaton (University College London), Dr Satish Padiyar (Courtauld Institute of Art), and Professor David Lomas (University of Manchester).

Reserve a seat for this event online at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk.

Brought to you by the ManchesterArtGroup, a student collective in the Art History department at the University of Manchester. Find us on Facebook

Art Installation, Holden Gallery Cafe MMU

Havisham Poster

Curating as a Career’ Talk and ‘To Live is to Leave Traces’ Exhibition Opening

Friday, May 25, 2012
2:00pm

On 25th May the Manchester Art Group will be hosting a panel discussion with several curators from Manchester and further to talk about their experiences. The talk will last for an hour and then there will be a chance to ask the speakers questions.

If you are planning a career in curation or are simply intrigued, this is a great way for all students and non-students to gain insight into what is involved and how you get there.

The talk will be held in the Kanaris Lecture Theatre in the Manchester Museum, Oxford Road at 2-3.30pm.

Speakers are:
Jen Wu, Artist and Curator.

Confirmation of other speakers will be updated shortly!

After the panel there will be an opening of the new exhibition in the ManCoop Corridor Gallery ‘To Live is to Leave Traces’. Taking inspiration from this quote by Walter Benjamin, artists have responded through various mediums.

What better trace is there than art?

The opening will take place shortly after the panel, about 4pm, in the Mansfield Cooper Building at University of Manchester just round the corner. Hopefully our guest speakers will be popping down to look also!

Free drinks will be served too!

Both events will give understanding into how curating works from both professional and student perspectives!

See you there!

For more info see Manchester Art Group’s facebook page.

Posted on behalf of Manchester Art Group.

Curious Pursuits

For students and locals alike, the Portico is one of Manchester’s best kept secrets. We all know John Rylands, most of us will have been to Manchester Central Library, fewer still have made the pilgrimage to Old John Rylands but the city’s real hidden gem lies behind a congruous black door on Charlotte Street. Boasting an impressive list of celebrity patrons, the library is housed in a classical early Victorian building. The main collection sits under an impressive stained glass dome giving the whole space a truly historic air. It is fitting then that the Library is currently playing host to a show dedicated to the darker side of Victorian culture. Curated by Manchester art historians Porter and Jenkinson, the exhibition features both paintings and sculpture dedicated to the curious and the macabre and attempts to bring back the ethos behind the Victorian Dark Societies (according to the poster). In reality this show presents a kitsch, Disneyfied version of Victorian sensibilities. Pieces of note are Family Tree by Lucy Freegard and the excellent hand etched glass vials. Less appealing were the punters who took it upon themselves to dress up as Victorians for the occasion, looking more like Affleck’s Palace rejects than Bazalgette or Brunel, this gothic pretension defined the tone of the evening. It was fun, I would recommend it to anyone with a mind for Manchester’s architecture and anyone with a passing interest in Victorian sensibilities. Just don’t expect too much meaning behind what you see.

by Jack Lewis Barclay

[Curious Pursuits runs until 29th February]

Logo Competition

The new ‘State of the Arts’ podcast for the School of Arts, Histories
and Cultures (due to launch March) is looking for a logo to adorn all
its future communications. It must be simple (and preferably with a
touch of purple in it somewhere!) The illustrator of the logo will be
given full credit for his/ her creation

Please email any submissions to ahvsmanchesterresearch@gmail.com

State of The Arts Committee
The University of Manchester
http://www.artsmethods.manchester.ac.uk/resources/podcasts.html

Cotton: Global Threads

It’s everywhere, you’re probably wearing it right now and the chances are you sleep in it every night. Cotton isn’t just a commodity, from the cotton fields to TopShop it is the one true witness to the history of the world and is now the subject of a major exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery.

I was lucky enough to attend the preview, notepad and obligatory bottle of free Cobra at hand I kicked off my tour with Early Global Trading Cotton, a brief history of the commoditization of textiles. Before moving on to the rest of the show Maria Balshaw and Jennifer Harris took to the stage to introduce the exhibition and thank everyone involved in putting it together. Both women made a point to tell the tale of their own garments, focusing on the brand and that all too important ‘made in’ inscription, which made me very aware of my socks, a high street purchase no less – probably unethically sourced. It became quite clear that this exhibition aims to educate the public about cotton industry, as Jennifer said cotton is and will ‘always be about the money’.

Speech over I set about the exhibition eager to learn more about the global commodity. From African video installations to up-cycling there was an inescapable transcontinental feel to the exhibition. Anne Wilson’s ‘Local Industry Cloth Walking the Warp Manchester’ stood out for me it takes pride of place at the heart of the Whitworth Gallery and encapsulates the exhibition quite fittingly. Wilson’s woven threads reminded me of DNA, after all, cotton is that all important strand that ties the world together and the exhibition narrates its epic journey from a mere commodity to a way of life as seen through: video installations, interactive workshops, canvases, photography, sculpture and textiles.

 

Cotton: Global Threads is the name, educating you about cotton is its game, a fierce contender in the cultural Olympics the show runs until the 13^th May and is worth a visit.

Photos courtsey of Cotton: Global Threads and Pixie Freeman

Post Modernism. Style and Subversion.

High culture this was not. True to form the V&A’s retrospective on the excesses of what it called “the most conscientious phenomena in recent history” was delightfully “pop”.Starting with fantastic models of both the Vanna Venturi House and Phillip Johnson’s AT&T building and featuring a full-scale version of Hans Hollein’s columns built for the Venice Biennale the concentration was clearly on design rather than high art. Bathed in the glow of neon light the visitor was lead through perspex curtains echoing those of the Hacienda and accompanied by the dystopian synths of Bladerunner’s soundtrack: a film they described as “a postmodern exercise par excellence”, the exhibition had a dark, menacing tone. Somewhat surprisingly the focus on design materialized in a large collection of ceramics, especially teapots but this bizarre fascination was excused when the exhibition’s pop-culture credentials were fully exposed.

Exploring the cult of celebrity, the exhibition featured clothes from some of the leading stars of 80’s New Wave. Devo’s radiation caps stood alongside David Byrne’s oversized tour suit to give the postmodern pop-culture geek in us all the ultimate ego boost. To add to this, the collection showcased the design work of Factory Record’s Peter Saville with both posters for the Hacienda and a selection of New Order record sleeves. Tellingly, New Order formed the final piece of the exhibition with a screening of their delightfully vibrant video for “Bizarre Love Triangle”, finally cementing the movement’s pop aesthetic.

Whilst there was much left out in this retrospective, especially from a strictly artistic point of view, the V&A did a remarkable job in creating an engaging and thoroughly enjoyable exhibition. True to Postmodernism’s ethos there was something for everyone and it’s influences were pleasantly wide-ranging.

Timothy Manley, Head of marketing at The Manchester Museum & The Whitworth Art Gallery

Q&A by Jack Lewis-Barclay

From V&A Department of Theatre and Performance – Volunteer opportunity for graduates

Dear Sir/Madam

Please find below [pdf] details of an upcoming opportunity for volunteers
to work on exhibition development in the V&A Department of Theatre and
Performance. The placement will run from April – September 2012, and
will be based in the public-facing/exhibitions side of the department.

This is a valuable opportunity for anyone wishing to work in the
cultural sector, and I would be grateful if you could forward it to your
students, past and present, who may be interested in applying.

With thanks and very best wishes,

V&A Department of Theatre and Performance
Victoria and Albert Museum
http://www.vam.ac.uk/

Download the pdf

Tape Drawing with Naomi Kashiwagi

It’s not every day that you get a chance to go to a gallery and create the art that’s on display; but that’s exactly what happened a week ago at Kraak Gallery.Tucked away in a small Manchester corridor on Stevenson Square, finding it was the most difficult part of the night. Despite clear instructions on facebook my inbuilt sat nav was set to explore. After wondering about for ten minutes I came to a narrow cobblestone alleyway with music blasting from the end of it, being quite the intrepid explorer I followed the funky melodies and luckily found myself at Tape Drawing with Naomi Kashiwagi.By the time I had arrived (fashionably but not too late) things were in full swing, music pumping, alcohol flowing and art in the making. Drawing with tape doesn’t just limit you to the floor, people were being tapped to seats, there were streamers running from the ceiling even the tables were taped. Art Historians came out in full force though it was equally encouraging to have met people outside the faculty: psychics, sociology and politics students are but a few that I encountered. It was nice to see faculty members David Lomas make an appearance to support the events organisers: the Manchester Art Group.The event was a first for the Art Group which has been running since mid November and was certainly a success. Drawing with tape might not be conventional but being around friends and having no inhibitions about drawing abilities made it all the more fun ending in a tape fight in the small hours – nothing is more frightening than a ball of tape the size of a football hurtling towards you at 1 o’clock in the morning; which is why I decided to call it a night and set my sat nav to home.