Gallery Wall to Hyde Park Floor, ‘What the flock?!’

Hi everyone I’m Alex and this is my first blog. Where better to start than a trail of stenciled sheep, each titled ‘What the flock?!’ The trail lead me through Hyde park yesterday morning to a full flock of cardboard cutouts stuck on sticks and some hanging in the trees. Projects like these are now a normal site to behold when walking through cities and parks. Over the last 50 years art has slowly moved away from gallery and museum walls, and now pretty much anywhere constitutes an art space. There was no sign of an artist or establishment, which made it ever more intriguing. If I had seen this in a gallery or museum situation my experience would have been somewhat different. The spontaneity of time and place allowed me to look at, think about and make conclusions (or not) about the ‘piece’ without any preconditions. I think seeing art outside gallery walls brings new dimensions to a work as it engages with the environment and the minds of those who would not usually encounter art. All in all it got my brain ticking (which at 9.30 in the morning is quite an achievement) and gave me a cheap giggle on the way to uni. I am excited to see more of this kind of thing next week at Leeds Light Night!

Alex

'All Over the Place' opening night

Come one come all to our next exhibition opening! 'All Over the Place: Drawing Place, Drawing Space' opens tomorrow evening from 6-8pm at SAB Gallery. Among the 17 artists involved, 4 are lecturers in the School of Design. All are inspired by the relationship between space/place and drawing - with varied resulting images.







Hope to see you tomorrow, and if not, the show is on until 23 October 2010.





Image: Iguazu Falls, by Emma Stibbon, 2009, chalk on blackboard, (c) The Artist







Also open in the Education Room this summer (14 June- 27 August) is 'Representing the Romany' - materials from Special Collections Romany Collection. Includes a painting on a butterfly wing, among other treasures.







Have a great summer!

Image: Detail from Die Rotwelsch Grammatic, Augsberg, 1520, Leeds University Library Special Collections

Art Exhibitions & Sociological Space

Hi All,

we were very lucky to have Dr Malgorzata Lisiewicz, from the Art History Department at the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznan, over this week on an Erasmus Scholar exchange. Malgorzata gave a really fascinating talk on Wednesday on the role that the The Grosvenor Gallery played in evolving Class identities in London in the late 19th century...this was delivered as part of our 'Perspectives on the Art Market' series of lectures...keep an eye out...there's more to come....and she also gave a very thought-provoking seminar paper for the MAs on Thursday, outlining some of the work she had undertaken as a curator for contemporary art exhibitions, and the relationships between her 'academic, theoretical' work and her 'practice' as curator...although, as Malgorzata quite rightly suggested, this is never an 'either/or' dichotomy......
I thought that the seminar was absolutely riveting, as Malgorzata brilliantly highlighted how sociologically 'thick', (and how gendered) the actual viewing 'spaces' of the exhibitions were...this was an implicit 'visitor study' of the highest order....and what was nice, (and we didn't actually plan it, honest!), was that our earlier discussion, in the first part of the seminar (on Cultural Led Urban Regeneration), was also focused on how we can think about space 'sociologically'....so all in all a satisfying session?..........

...what did you think?

Mark