Open exhibitions are becoming an increasingly common aspect of the visual arts landscape, with high-profile big hitters such as the BP Portrait Award and Royal Academy Summer Show joined by a growing number of smaller-scale shows. But with most charging an entry fee and with no guarantee of being included, are artists simply being asked to subsidise the sector with their own money? Jack Hutchinson investigates.
Artist-run Edinburgh space Embassy marks its 10th anniversary with a party, a publication and a new commission. Richard Taylor reports.
Manchester’s Castlefield Gallery is celebrating its 30-year history with a forward-looking exhibition featuring artists who are ‘shaping the future of contemporary art’. Liz West, an artist based in the city, speaks to the gallery’s director and to fellow Manchester artists, about the important role it plays in the area’s art ecology.
As this year’s Frieze Art Fair introduces ‘Live’ – a new strand of performance-based installations – Jennifer Picken assesses the state of play and provision for performance and live art in the UK.
MODEL is a new artist-run gallery in Liverpool that aims to provide a flexible and experimental platform for artist-led activity in the city. Laura Robertson pays a visit and speaks to its three founders.
As part of Brigton Digital Festival, The New Sublime exhibition at the artist-led Phoenix gallery presents the work of 14 artists in order to ask one question with many answers: what is digital art? Chris Sharratt speaks to the show’s curators.
The fourth b-side multimedia festival is set entirely on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, creating site-specific work that includes performance, installation and film work. Dany Louise talks to the director of this distinctive and nuanced ten-day event.
This May Day bank holiday weekend sees the launch of the Bristol Art Weekender, a four-day event that brings together 16 of the city’s visual arts venues, producers and artist-run initiatives for the first time. We talk to some of those involved and investigate the wider context for the upsurge in cultural activity in the city.
The sixth edition of Glasgow International, the biennial festival of contemporary art in Scotland’s biggest city, is the first with new director Sarah McCrory at the helm. On the eve of its public launch, she explains why both laughter and tears are important in art.
As part of its New Art Spaces project, Manchester’s Castlefield Gallery has opened its biggest space yet, across a six-storey, 80,000 square feet building in the centre of the city. We pay it a visit and find out what makes it more than just another artists’ studio complex.
Hotel Elephant’s recent move from the Heygate Estate to Newington Causeway in South London sees the launch of its first shop and café, along with studios, a gallery and projection room within 15,000 square feet of warehouse space.
From the Turner Prize to the recent Lumiere festival, the visual arts has played an important role in Derry-Londonderry’s 12 months as the first UK City of Culture. But as the year draws to a close, what will its legacy be for art and artists in the city?
The role of the artist studio within processes of redevelopment in cities has been brilliantly captured in a fascinating publication, The Nomadic Studio: Art, Life and the Colonisation of Meanwhile Space. Tim Clark speaks to Michael Heilgemeir, the photographer behind it.
ArtSOUTH brings together 15 organisations and ten artists for a series of new art commissions across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Winchester and Bournemouth. Curator Judy Adam discusses the rationale and process behind the commissions, while artist Graham Gussin explains how he pulled off a tricky collaboration with a collective of choreographers and the British Army.
Bookmaking and self-publishing are becoming increasingly prominent forms of artistic practice. Catherine Roche considers the rise in popularity of artists’ books and what it means to ‘publish’ in a post-digital age.
The venerable London Art Fair is playing host to some interesting interventions in its Art Projects strand, enabling unrepresented artists to get a piece of the art fair action. We look at some of the methodologies being employed and test the temperature of the art market in 2013.
