News feature - Page 4 of 20 - a-n The Artists Information Company

Founded in 2014 and inspired by the busy schedule of the Newhaven–Dieppe ferry, the diep~haven project sees artists exhibiting across Normandy and East Sussex as well as the ferry itself. As this year’s festival launches, Dany Louise talks cross-Channel collaboration and life after Brexit with the projects creators and artists.

For his exhibition ‘Fellowship of Citizens’ London-based Icelandic artist Saemundur Thor Helgason is promoting a lottery set up to help fund a campaign to bring about the idea of a basic income for each person in Iceland. Laura Davidson visits the show at arebyte Gallery and talks to Helgason about his plans.

For ‘A Woman’s Place at Knole’, six female artists including 2017 Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid have responded to the usually hidden, gendered stories of an historic National Trust property in Kent to produce artworks that span painting, sculpture, film and online. Judith Alder reports.

While its spread-out nature presents plenty of challenges for artists and galleries in the counties of Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and parts of Ceredigion, west Wales nevertheless has a lively and varied visual arts scene. For the latest in our ongoing series, Bob Gelsthorpe provides a snapshot of current activity.

For his exhibition, ‘CAPSID’, John Walter draws on his time as resident artist of infection at UCL where he collaborated with structural virologist Professor Greg Towers. Lydia Ashman finds out how his focus on a protein shell that enables the rapid transmission of viruses has resulted in a riotous, playful mix of film, painting, collage and installation.

A new contemporary art space in Liverpool run by The White Pube co-founder Gabrielle de la Puente is bucking the art world trend for internationalism by only exhibiting work from artists and other creatives living in or from the Merseyside region. Laura Robertson reports.

During this year’s Glasgow International, artists Ailie Rutherford and Janie Nicoll presented In Kind, an action research project using the festival as a case study in order to chart the “hidden economies of the visual arts”. Fellow Glasgow-based artist Jessica Ramm finds out what they discovered and ponders where to go next.

Imran Perretta’s film 15 days focuses on the refugee situation in Calais and Dunkirk and is the result of his Jerwood/FVU Awards commission. He explains to Fisun Güner how the film came about and how his move into art making was shaped by the 2008 financial crisis and an aborted career in architecture.

Nominated for the 2018 Turner Prize and a recent recipient of the European Culture Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award for Culture, the London-based independent research agency Forensic Architecture is making political and cultural waves with its evidence-based work. Chris Sharratt talks to artist and filmmaker Simone Rowat, one of the group’s 15 team members.

The 10th edition of the annual Printemps De L’Art Contemporain festival in Marseille coordinates exhibitions by more than 45 venues across France’s second city and includes a strand on artists from Glasgow, with which the city is twinned. Chris Sharratt reports from the port city that is prioritising contemporary art as it prepares to host Manifesta in two years time.

Designed by David Chipperfield Architects and costing £56m, the Royal Academy’s newly renovated Burlington Gardens site opens to the public today. Fisun Güner finds that even the toilets are elegant and sculptural.

Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery has a new home in a brand new building in the city’s ‘Cultural Quarter’ and its first major show is a Gerhard Richter retrospective that draws extensively from the Artist Rooms collection. Fisun Güner is impressed by the art, ambition, and some of the architecture.

Jean McEwan is this month’s featured artist member on a-n’s Instagram. Richard Taylor talks to the Bradford-based artist about collaboration, the richness of sustained community work, walking, and much more.

For the latest in our ongoing Scene Report series, Preston-based artist Martin Hamblen provides a tour of the city’s visual arts activity and asks whether the much vaunted ‘Preston Model’ of inward investment stretches to investing in the artists living and working in the area.

As he prepares for his Glasgow International solo show at Kelvin Hall, Jessica Ramm – who is also exhibiting during GI – talks to the Glasgow-based artist about authority, control and power, and how his work offsets some of the grandeur of the city’s colonial past.

Bruce Asbestos is no stranger to social media, blurring the lines between documentation, comment and artwork. For the second in our ongoing series, Richard Taylor takes a look at the artist’s use of Instagram as Asbestos gets his shoes together for a new clothing project inspired by Hansel and Gretel.

Richard Parry was appointed director of the biennial Glasgow International festival in May last year, following a move from Blackpool where he was director/curator at the Grundy Gallery. Chris Sharratt talks to him about the artistic rhythm of Glasgow’s rich and vibrant art scene, and his approach to curating the festival, which is now in its eighth edition.

The recent Brexit Conference organised by the Creative Industries Federation gathered together Leavers and Remainers, political journalists and politicians, and a wide range of delegates working in the arts and culture, in an attempt to make sense of what Brexit will mean to the sector. Dany Louise reports.

For ‘Deep Spoils’, the Glasgow-based Scottish artist’s first exhibition in Wales, Claire Barclay has responded to the history and architecture of Swansea’s Mission Gallery by reconfiguring existing works alongside new elements. Anneka French discovers more about her distinctive practice that draws on industrial motifs to explore materiality and memory.

This Might Be The Future, funded by an a-n artist-led bursary, stems from AltMFA’s year-long ‘The Future’ programme and features a pleasingly chaotic collection of contributions that AltMFA co-founder Louise Ashcroft describes as a “clear reflection of our values in an object”. Laura Davidson reports.

For the first in a new series looking at artists who use Instagram as a platform for showing and making work, we explore Glasgow-based artist James St Findlay’s world of digital collage, montage and video.

For latest in our ongoing Scene Report series, Bath-based artist Trevor H. Smith takes a look at the contemporary art landscape in his home city and the county of Somerset.

Four years on from the Mayor of London-commissioned Artists’ Workspace Study, which predicted the possible loss of up to 3,500 artists’ workspaces in the capital within five years, Jack Hutchinson explores how three of London’s studio providers are navigating a challenging environment and the impact this is having on artists.

Rachel Howard’s paintings reference an unstable and violent world, drawing on political events and the devastation of war. With two current London exhibitions at Blain Southern and Newport Street Gallery, Fisun Güner talks to the artist about what inspires her work and how her early experience painting spots for Damien Hirst influenced her approach.

Sheffield-based artists Paul Salt and Susan Shaw have been making books together for more than 15 years. For the latest in her series on artists’ books, Sarah Bodman celebrates their approach to the format which sees them responding to natural and urban environments to create unique pieces or small editions.