Throughout 2010 University of the Arts London is focusing attention on the practice of sculpture. Developing a programme to take place over the course of the year Shaping Sculpture aims to critically engage in the production and medium of sculpture as it exists today. Through an interrelated series of publications, exhibitions, artist discussions, and conferences Shaping Sculpture is an examination into the act of making aimed at revealing new methods of supporting current and future artistic practice.
Stacky Theme by Andrew Stichbury for Tumblr.
Calendar of Upcoming Events
Staff Meeting
DATE TO BE CONFIRMED
David Batchelor
Artist Talk
POSTPONED: NEW DATE TO BE CONFIRMED.
Byam Shaw School of Art, Lecture Theatre, 2 Elthorne Road, N19 4AG
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Major Internal Events
The Shaping Sculpture programme includes major internal events run and developed by the University. All have as their focus the practice of sculpture bringing into the University celebrated figures from the University’s history as well as developing projects to support the students and staff. These events include:
The A Course: An Inquiry
Jannis Kounellis in conversation
PARK ‘10: Cannizaro Park
David Batchelor: Big Rock Candy
Cass Prize: Mina Salami
Mina Salimi
18th November, 2010
Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground, Chelsea College of Art and Design, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU
The newly commissioned work of Mina Salimi, the recipient of the CASS PRIZE 2010 will be exhibited on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground and the grounds of the CASS Sculpture Foundation.
More information about the CASS PRIZE can be found here.
CASS PRIZE
About the Award
The Cass Sculpture Foundation and Cass Art along with the University of the Arts London have developed the CASS PRIZE, an MA Sculpture prize to be awarded to a graduating MA student from University of the Arts London. Cass Art, Cass Sculpture Foundation and University of the Arts London wish to promote emerging artists working in the sculptural medium, build a wider audience for contemporary sculpture, and engage students across University of the Arts London in demonstrating excellence in creative practice.
Winning Selection
The first annual CASS PRIZE of £10,000 allocates £8,000 towards the commissioning of the winning submission and a cash prize of £2,000 for the winning artist. The selected work will be installed on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground at Chelsea College of Art and Design in Autumn 2010 and featured as part of the Shaping Sculpture programme. Following this, the work will be displayed on the Cass Sculpture Foundation’s grounds as one of its commissioned works for sale.
The winner of the CASS PRIZE 2010 was Mina Salimi, her work can be seen on the Chelsea Parade ground from November 18th 2010.
More information on the CASS PRIZE exhibition can be found here.
Shaping Sculpture Talks Programme
Held at Chelsea College of Art and Design and taking place each month throughout 2010 this artist talks series is being curated by the Shaping Sculpture director George Unsworth and is aimed at extending the discussion surrounding contemporary sculptural practice. A group of practitioners have been invited to discuss their works, its themes and its production, to coincide with current exhibitions taking place in and around London.
Iberian Statues, Immutable Objects, and Staffordshire Pottery Dogs.
SATURDAY 6TH NOVEMBER, 3pm
Zabludowicz Collection, 176 Prince of Wales Road, London, NW5 3PT
Toby Ziegler and curator George Unsworth explore an archive of the artist’s found images. A ranging conversation discussing processes of production in Contemporary Art.
SS08: DAVID BATCHELOR
14TH MARCH 2011, 6PM
Byam Shaw School of Art Lecture Theatre, 2 Elthorne Road, N19 4AG
David Batchelor’s work is concerned above all things with colour, a sheer delight in the myriad brilliant hues of the urban environment and underlined by a critical concern with how we see and respond to colour in this advanced technological age. His studio is a treasure trove piled high with an endless variety of fluorescent plastic objects - clothes pegs, fly-swatters, buckets, spades, children’s toys, empty bottles of household products - found in pound shops and markets in cities the world over. He combines these everyday items with a range of light-industrial materials: steel shelving, commercial lightboxes, neon tubing, warehouse dollies, acrylics, plastics and so on to produce extraordinary installations which exalt the ordinary and celebrate the lurid and trashy whilst being, in themselves, often mesmerisingly beautiful.
Batchelor was born in Dundee in 1955 and lives and works in London.
Information about David Batchelor’s Big Rock Candy project can be found here.
SCULPTURE SOCIAL (staff)
Staff Meeting
Wednesday 27th October 2010, 6.30pm
ICA BAR / The Mall / SW1Y 5AH
SCULPTURE SOCIAL (staff)
Staff Meeting
Wednesday 17th November 2010, 6.30pm
Venue to be confirmed
Martin Creed
Artist Talk
Wednesday 24th November 2010, 630pm
Central St. Martins College, Cochrane Theatre
Martin Creed was born in Wakefield, England, in 1968, and from 1986-90 attended the Slade School of Art in London. He lives and works in London. He has exhibited worldwide and his work is featured in many public collections, notably the Tate in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2001 he won the Turner Prize for ‘The lights going on and off’. Creed’s art is characterised by a gentle but subversive wit and by a minimalism rooted in an instinctive anti-materialism. His often extremely self-effacing works, all titled by number, have been characterised as ‘attempts to short-circuit the visually overloaded, choice saturated culture in which we live’. They also take their place in the honourable tradition within the avant-garde of making work which appears to have no material value - which resists or defies commodification, even if in vain. Hence his conscious use of modest and everyday materials. Whatever the materials, his work is always arresting and can be visually spectacular, as for example his neon works, or what is probably his most celebrated piece, Work No.200 1998, ‘half the air in a given space’. Widely exhibited, this consists of a sufficient number of twelve inch white balloons filled with air to half-fill the gallery space.
A central theme of Creed’s work is the relationship art and life and he explores the boundaries in funny, interesting and sometimes unsettling ways. Ultimately, however, Creed seems to want to do what art has always been supposed to do: ‘I want to make things. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s got something to do with other people. I think I want to try to communicate with other people, because I want to say “hello”, because I want to express myself, and because I want to be loved’.
