Over the course of four years, artists, curators and writers were invited to select blogs from the a-n site. Their choices highlights the range and depth of practice discussed on a-n’s artists’ blogging platform at that time.
We’re proud of what a-n Magazine has achieved over its thirty-two years. On the occasion of the last print edition we invited many of our collaborators and contributors to help us celebrate and mark this moment by giving us a ‘few words’ – a short testimonial of what a-n means to them. Here, they reflect on our significant role for artists and on the value of a-n Magazine, publications or initiatives.
“AN will be an open line communication shared by all interested parties. It has not the resources nor the wish to be a one-way information service. It will be a clearing house for practical information and a means of raising issues significant to visual artists. The format is not fixed and will adapt and change according to the response and opinions of artists.” So wrote founder Richard Padwick in the first ever issue, published in September 1980, price 35p.
Although very many individuals now and in the past have given their best to or contributed hugely to a-n Magazine, with this the very last issue, I’d like to extend some special thanks: firstly to Gillian Nicol who started with […]
A-n Magazine May 1998: Increasingly, interdisciplinary or collaborative working processes are being used by artists, both as a means of extending their knowledge and personal experience and to create partnerships in which artists move beyond the close confines of the art world and can more readily address social, political and environmental concerns, we asked six artists, for whom collaborative working is a driving force, to describe their approaches and concerns and to provide some analysis of the issues an questions which have arisen.
Flow is a tidemill, a floating building on the River Tyne that generates its own power using a tidal water wheel and houses a range of musical machinery that responds to the river. It is one of the twelve Artists taking the lead’ commissions to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. ~Flow is the brainchild of the artist group Owl Project and producer Ed Carter: To bring their fantastical idea to life required the skills and expertise of a diverse range of professionals, including Nicky Kirk, a chartered architect; Amble Boat Company; and David Willcox, a waterwheel designer. Here David, Ed and Owl Project talk about their experience.
Thirty-eight artists have been selected from more than 600 hundred applications for the 5th Oriel Davies Open exhibition (Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, until 27 June). “Works presented use diverse materials and visual techniques to push boundaries – such as challenging […]
Artists talking Online Editor Andrew Bryant looks to the Projects unedited blogs to consider the enduring question: Why be an artist?
Artists Sally Lemsford and Elizabeth Murton reflect on AIR’s first annual members forum, OpenAIR: Effecting Change. Interview by Jack Hutchinson.
In April 2010 six young people from North Glasgow were given the unique opportunity to explore life in a completely different way and to interpret what they saw using photography within contemporary art.
Last month’s announcement that June would be the final copy of a-n Magazine in print has generated some questions which we’re responding to here for the benefit of all readers.
A good proposal is like a conversation. To begin a really good relationship, you’ve got to find out as much as you can about who you’re talking to and what they’re interested in. This is the basis of making a successful pitch.
Early in March I was in Margate for the National Federation of Artists’ Studio Providers’ (NFASP) AGM and a series of events designed to bring artists and studio providers together to share experience, intelligence and generally bond.
Access to professional development is vital to artists’ careers, so here’s something we think will help.
Townley and Bradby have an ongoing collaborative practice. They also have two children. Here they discuss how they used an investigative project to allow their art practice and their parental commitments to inform one another, rather than remaining distinct entities. However, this feature does not look at the existing collaboration between the duo, it looks at the working relationship they initiated with a psychologist who specialises in families.
OpenAIR, the first annual members’forum of AIR: Artists Interaction and Representation, offers a unique platform for artists’ dialogue and debate, empowered and enabled through speakers drawn from very different disciplines and fields of work, all committed to campaigning for effective change.
Cara Courage examines the evidence about the gender imbalance in the arts workforce and asks whether it’s really down to women wanting to ‘have it all’.
The continued economic doldrums and uncertainty in public funding make it more important than ever for artists to find ways to make and save money. So here are some tips – old and new – from the a-n community.
A survey of commissioning projects and public art consultancies around the UK.
Ruth Ben-Tovim and Anne-Marie Culhane discuss two collaborative projects that focus on exchange, community and participation.
We’ve an opinion-rich issue for December/January – see packed letters page and extended Debate section for evidence of artists taking a stand.
Artist, educator and AIR Council member Rosalind Davis reports on some recent events for and about artists and contexts for practice.
Joshua Sofaer asks what can culture do in times of wider crises.
Andrew Bryant discusses a new series of events that take Artists talking ‘out of the virtual and into the actual’.
Is there enough funding going to individual artists and are the application processes user-friendly? These were questions a-n set out to answer in the fourth issue of what was then Artists Newsletter in 1980. Now, thirty one years later, we asked Dany Louise to do this research again, examining the current state of play for grants to individual artists as offered by Arts Council England, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales and Creative Scotland – including comparators of volumes of artists applying and success rates – and to ascertain whether a “fair share” has been getting into the hands of artists to develop their practice.
Read guides and profiles that offer valuable information, insights and strategies on art practice from a range of expert voices. Plus extensive archive of past publications.
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