More Towers of Trash..

In June I am part of a group exhibition that takes the Lee Valley as its subject. This is an area about 15mins walk from my house. It is a marshy nature reserve adjacent to part of the old East London canal network. It’s great to walk or cycle along the towpaths with the brightly coloured narrow boats, swans, geese and ducks all drifting by on the canal. It’s a strange part of London where the City and its natural and industrial history meet. From certain parts of the Valley you can see the towers of Canary Wharf and these are my focus for this show.

So the Towers of Trash are back! This time, however, they are all made of newspaper or more specifically, the Financial Times. Given recent events, it's a lot of fun re-creating the buildings that stand in Canary Wharf, and which represent bastions of banking and finance. As with the 2007 Creek Art Fair in Dubai, the Towers will stand outside for the duration of the exhibition so it is quite possible that they will have disintegrated by the end. I am sure this metaphorical abandonment of financial institutions to the elements will entertain as will many of the FT headlines featured. Perhaps it will also prompt some interest in the FT which I am beginning to think is the only intelligent newspaper left in the country. Unfortunately, even that is showing signs of thinning and as the cost per square inch goes up, the incidence of daily investment goes down. That said the weekend edition is a bargain by comparison.

Will post images of new towers in situ when the exhibition is up and running but in the meantime here’s a preview of HSBC in progress...

Other news is that I got an invitation a few days ago to participate in the 2011 Florence Biennale. I got very excited about this and naturally assumed that my diverse creative output and consummate professionalism had finally been recognised. I would now be lauded internationally and have bundles of cash thrown my way......

Yeah, right! After extensive research I discovered that it actually costs loadsa money to participate in Florence! I am still not entirely clear on how you end up being selected but it seems that zillions of invites go out anyway. Invited artists then either pay for themselves or get sponsors if they want to do it. Overall the reviews from people who had participated in previous editions of Florence were very mixed. Some said it had been one of the best experiences of their lives while others suggested it was merely a prestigious scam. Verdict came out at about 50-50 but unless the Euro slumps to about 100 to the pound I will not be going to Florence. 
 
I actually went to Florence in 1992 but didn't make it very far. Pre-spouse and I got off a train at Florence station intending to spend a few days there. We had a blazing row as we sat on the station steps and ended up storming back in and getting on another train. We still regret that especially seeing as neither of us now has the remotest recollection of what the argument was about!

(Thanks to Valeria Bateson for photo of narrow boats on the canal).

Art Dubai, CSR, Arts Education and START!

I wasn't actually in Dubai at this time last year so I missed the first ever Gulf Art Fair. It has now been renamed Art Dubai and although it won't happen until March, I thought I might as well kick off the publicity now! The other new kid on the art fair block is Art Paris-Abu Dhabi which I posted about here.

I have to say that I regard Art Fairs in general as little more than large corporate events at which commodities are exchanged often for vast amounts of money. The growth of international art fairs does reflect an increase in demand but it is also the result of an effective promotion of art as a component of a diversified investment portfolio! Given that a stable market requires a degree of product homogenisation I think the long term effect of this is actually damaging to creativity and originality. It effectively excludes work that does not fit the market model.

Despite this personal gripe, I have to say that I do find art fairs fascinating . The often seriously grim gallery owners, the weird and the wacky who wash up at opening nights and the inevitable background muttering about money laundering are always highly entertaining. So I will definitely be trying to secure another sneaky press pass for Art Dubai in March!

Art Dubai last year did something which made it much more interesting than your average large corporate event. It demonstrated that it had a conscience and promoted its corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials by making the Al Madad Foundation a major partner. A longstanding affiliation between the fair organisers and the UK based charity was used to raise funds, highlight issues of deprivation and ultimately to launch a brand new programme based in Dubai called START which is:

“ ….an initiative to use the international language of art to heal, educate and enrich the skills and opportunities of children and young adults in devastated areas of the world.”

Essentially START links arts education to social development and serves as one of the only comprehensible means of therapy for children traumatised by conflict. For this reason its initial focus is on the Middle East region, particularly Lebanon and Palestine. One programme is under way in Beirut and there are plans for a programme in the Nahr Al Bared refugee camp.

Local artists are trained to teach the programme so the potential long­-term result is a much stronger connection between art and community and all the benefits that brings in terms of developing local creative expression and arts infrastructure. Given that one of creators of the programme was a huge art fair, there is the added advantage of a permanent link back into an international platform.

Interestingly START is also running projects in Dubai itself. The crazy thing about art and HERE is that the new fairs generate massive publicity, there are galleries sprouting up everywhere and it seems everyone wants a piece of the action. At the same time, there is almost no arts education in the national public school system and local native artists are almost invisible suggesting a danger of exclusion from their own nation’s sudden creative boom!

An awareness of this dilemma is beginning to take shape and START is ahead of the game where it has already run a few workshops involving local artists teaching local children in Dubai. It has also run programmes for children with special needs and for the Dubai Autism Centre including exhibitions of their work in cafes and other public spaces.

Hopefully, arts education can develop if an accessible skills base appears .. ... and it will be good for the artists to get out more!!