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Photo by Naomi Salaman of life room at the Beaux-Arts in Paris 2004
Art Schools: Invention, Invective and Radical Possibilities (2010)
[[{"fid":"11435","view_mode":"xl","fields":{"format":"xl","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Naomi Salaman Life painting studio, Glasgow School of Art, early summer 2001","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Naomi Salaman Life painting studio, Glasgow School of Art, early summer 2001","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Naomi Salaman, Life painting studio, Glasgow School of Art, early summer, 2001 © Naomi Salaman","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"xl","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Naomi Salaman Life painting studio, Glasgow School of Art, early summer 2001","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Naomi Salaman Life painting studio, Glasgow School of Art, early summer 2001","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Naomi Salaman, Life painting studio, Glasgow School of Art, early summer, 2001 © Naomi Salaman","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"591","width":"736","class":"media-element file-xl"}}]]Investigating the intellectual and spatial legacy of the life-room.This conference considered the intellectual apparatus and physical spaces that structure art education today by exploring the history and legacy of the life room as both physical and intellectual space, and examining the traditions of looking and approaches to knowledge it established. Speakers included academics, curators and artists. See below for full conference programme.The conference was organised by UCL Art Museum, the Royal Collection and the University of Brighton in conjunction with Naomi Salaman's exhibition Looking Back at the Life Room at UCL Art Museum. It took place on Friday 11 June and Saturday 12 June 2010 Conference Programme Conference Programme9.30 - Registration and coffee10.00 - Introduction10.15 - Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci and life drawing in Baroque Rome - Martin Clayton (Deputy Curator of the Print Room, The Royal Collection)10.45 - A Day in 'the Life': The experience of studying at the Royal Academy of Arts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - Annette Wickham (Research Curator, Collections and Library, Royal Academy of Arts)11.15 - Coffee11.45 - Drawing the Figure from the Cast and Life - David Jeremiah (Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow)12.15 - The Redundant Rebus: Reality Checks on the Functioning of the Life Class - Deanna Petherbridge (Professor Emeritus University of the West of England, Bristol and Visiting Professor of Drawing, University of the Arts, London)12.45 - Discussion1.15 - Lunch (not provided)2.45 - Drawing from Objects: A Historical Perspective - Morna Hilton (Head of Learning, Victoria and Albert Museum)3.15 - When is Realistic too Realistic? - Ed Allington (Professor and Head of Graduate Sculpture, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL)3.45 - Discussion4.15 - TeaPanel: History and Practices of the Slade and Norwich Life Rooms:4.45 - The 'F' Studio 1970s to the Present - Jo Volley (Senior Lecturer, Painting, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL)5.00 - John Wonnacott and John Lessore: The Life Room at Norwich School of Art 1978-1985 - Lynda Morris (Curator EASTinternational and AHRC Research Fellow, Norwich University College of the Arts)5.15 - Don't go in there: Painting in the Slade Life Room 2003-07 - Geoff Stein (Artist)5.30 - Dot and Carry; point and scan - Tom Lomax (Lecturer, Sculpture, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL)5.45 - Discussion6.15 - Reception and Private View of the exhibition Looking Back at the Life RoomSaturdayTransitions in art education 1960s - 1970s10.00 - Introduction10.15 - Drawing Parallels between Life and Art: Challenges to the Art School in Fifties and Sixties Britain - Ben Cranfield (Lecturer in Arts Management, Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Birbeck College)10.45 - 'Audience-free' Practices and the Art School Panopticon - Chris Dorsett (Reader in Art School Practices, Department of Arts, School of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Northumbria)11.15 - Coffee11.45 - Excavating the British Art School - Matthew Cornford (Professor of Fine Art, Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton) and John Beck (Senior Lecturer, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University)12.15 - Yurts, Bars and Trailer Parks: Anti-Paradigms for the New Art School - Steven Henry Madoff (Senior Critic, Yale University School of Art)12.45 - Discussion1.15 - Lunch (not provided)Production of the art student as subject2.45 - A Body in Part (performance) - Yuen Fong Ling (PhD Student, University of Lincoln)3.45 - Tea4.15 - Between the Studio and the Seminar: What does art-school's double language do? - Mary Anne Francis (Senior Lecturer Critical Fine Art Practice, University of Brighton and Research Fellow in Writing and Art, Chelsea College of Art)4.45 - Micropolitics of Art and Economy in the Art School Today - Susan Kelly (Course Leader BA Fine Art and History of Art (Studio Practice) Department of Art, Goldsmith's College, University of London)5.15 - Under Construction: Alternative Art School SpRoUt - Amy Cunningham (Senior Lecturer, Music and Visual Art, University of Brighton), Hayley Skipper (Arts Development Officer, Forestry Commission, Grizedale Forest) and Hannah Chiswell (MA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art)5.45 - Discussion6.15 - Close  
Projection viewed through a display case
Artist Collaborations
10 years |150 artists respond to 500 years of art in UCL's collections. Exploring the contemporary relevance of the art collections at UCL and the key narratives they impart has been at the core of UCL Art Museum's activity over the past decade. ​The fact that works in the Museum’s Collections were either explicitly collected for the purpose of instruction or were the product of a process of learning and experimentation by artists early on in their career, makes the Collections particularly suited for this undertaking. In their efforts to create something new and original, artists at any given time were considering the significance and relevance of the work by those who preceded them. UCL Art Museum is home to a core collection of work by emerging artists spanning 150 years. Since its foundational years in the late 19th century, the Slade School of Fine Art collected the prize-winning works that are now in trust with UCL Art Museum. With new works added to its collections annually through the prize-system a unique and dynamic collection of emerging artists was formed, a long time before this became common currency in the art world. These prize-winning works sit alongside historic collections, international in scope and spanning 500 years, that were donated by philanthropists who believed in the educational use of their art collections. This history and context makes UCL Art Museum's collections the perfect setting for the emergence of new ideas.Only a small percentage of UCL Art Collections are actually on display in the museum. As a result, that which is visible is in constant dialogue with the hidden and vice versa, bringing to the fore the tensions between access to art and the regulation of its visibility, a theme often explored in the museum's collaborations.In 2019 UCL Culture launched UCL Public Art with new commissions by Rachel Whiteread and Thompson & Craighead for UCL's Student Centre. UCL Public Art continues a tradition that began in 1851 with the UCL Flaxman Gallery and the first public art commission in 1865 Marmor Homericum from one of the most sought after contemporary artists of the time Henri Triqueti.  Together with UCL Peformance Lab, launched with the reopening of UCL's newly refurbished Bloomsbury Theatre, UCL Culture cements the role of artists at the interesection of research and audiences, amplifies the legacy of a decade of artist and curatorial collaborations and UCL's founding principles.Two activity strands underpin investigations of contemporary relevance of the collections: The annual UCL Art Museum/Slade Collaboration, Artist Commissions, Residencies & Curatorial Collaborations. The two strands frequently intertwine.The annual UCL Art Museum / Slade CollaborationThe annual UCL Art Museum/Slade Collaboration began in 2008 with an online exhibition, progressed to a weekend-pop-up, an annual exhibition and finally to funded artists residencies. All the projects began with an invitation to the Slade artists to make new work in response to the Collections. Throughout this past decade 150 artists have produced outstanding new work which is the outcome of their indpendent research. Some artists were at the begining of their educational journey, others more advanced. For some this opportunity was the first encounter with collections-based research. Many of the participating artists have since gone on to win major national and international awards and for many engagement with collections and interdisciplinary research continues to shape and inform a multi-faceted practice. This pioneering initiative went on to influence how the museum works with artists to interrogate its collections. UCL Culture at large embraced collaboration with artists as part of its core activity. This model has also encouraged other disciplines to engage with the Collections and has contributed to the institutional turn to interdidisciplinary research and integrated research and education. As such, this annual collaboration has prepared numerous emerging artists to embrace collaboration, develop their work beyond the studio, hone their public engagement skills and gain valuable experiences that serves them well on their chosen professional path. For each exhibition, the artists worked with the Museum team on all aspects of the exhibitions. A signficant component was also the development of the public programme, by creating events in which the artists engaged researchers from other disicplines and a wide range of audiences.This programme was led by artists Jon Thompson and Kate Bright from the Slade and Andrea Frederiscken and Nina Pearlman from UCL Art Museum.Further information about this collaboration is available in RE-LAUNCH, the catalogue accompanying the 2015 exhibition that includes a conversation about the collaboration between Dr Andrea Fredericksen, Curator UCL Art Collections, with Professor Susan Collins, former Director of the Slade. A video capturing the experience of participating artists in the 4th Annual Collaboration Vincula is available here.Exhibition list:Sequel (2009), Transfer (2010), Moreover (2011), Vincula (2012), Duet (2013), Second person looking out (2014), RE-LAUNCH (2015), Vault (2016), The composition has been reversed (2017), REDRESS (2018)Residencies and commissionsSince 2008 UCL Art Museum has initiated collaborative projects with contemporary artists and other partners through commissions, residencies and curatorial collaboration, linking current research at UCL across the disciplines with the collections and a wide range of audiences. Collaboration outputs range from performances, installations, exhibitions, talks and screenings. Projects include:Naomi Salaman, Looking back at the life room (2010), Nelly Dimitranova Flaxman Gallery (2012), Nadine Mahoney, ANON (2012), Marcia Farquhar, Flaxman Exchange (2013), Edward Allington & Jo Volley, Plasterd (2013), Kristina Clackson Bonnington, Girl at the Door (2015), Edward Allington, Neil Jefferies & Gary Woodley,  Roderick Tye: The Human Presence (2015), Helena Hunter & Mark Peter Wright, Cabinets of Curiosity (2016), Eloise Lawson, Ruins in a Landscape (2016), David Blackmore (2016, 2017) Liz Rideal Splicing Time (2017), Lisa Gornick, Lisa Gornick Regrets (2017), Tai Shani,  Spirit of Slade Ladies Past (2018), Robert Mead (2019)    
Collecting the Emerging logo
Collecting the Emerging (2015)
150 years of collecting work by artists at the start of their career. With ever increasing interest in and opportunities for artists in the early stages of their careers, UCL Art Museum teamed up with Zabludowicz Collection to examine issues around collecting new and experimental art. Over this two-day symposium academics, curators, collectors and artists came together to interrogate the term 'emerging' - how is it used and by whom in relation to contemporary art? What is the term's wider historical context? Discussions covered economic and aesthetic value in the emerging art market; explored emerging practice and its relationship to historical narratives, archives and taxonomies; and considered how the current enthusiasm for collecting contemporary art impacts on practices that are still at a formative stage.YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUBNGth5yrQ This symposium accompanied Zabludowicz Collection: 20 Years, an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Zabludowicz Collection which included significant and rarely seen works by over 30 leading artists, and Re-Launch, a show that marked the reopening of UCL’s Art Museum’s main space after a programme of improvements supported by a DCMS/Wolfson award. This presented a selection of existing, newly commissioned and site specific artworks in collaboration with Slade artists created in response to the collections and the theme of re-launch. The programme was organised by Dr Nina Pearlman, Dr Martine Rouleau and Jenny Pistella from UCL and Kelly Large from Zabludowicz Collection.Programme and speakersThe symposium took place at UCL on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May 2015, with an exhibition preview and live performance by artist Laura Buckley at Zabludowicz Collection.Speakers included:Edward Allington (artist, writer, and professor of fine art at the Slade), Louisa Buck (independent critic / contemporary art correspondent The Art Newspaper), Leah Capaldi (artist), JJ Charlesworth (independent critic / Associate Editor, ArtReview), Dr Ben Cranfield (Curatorial Theory and History, Royal College of Art), Matthew Darbyshire (artist), Ellen Mara De Wachter (independent curator / writer), Attilia Fattori Franchini (independent curator / Co-Founder Open Times – Digital Art Commissions), Chris Hammond (Director, MOT International and lecturer MFA Curating, Goldsmiths College), Vincent Honoré (currently Artistic Director Montpellier Contemporain (MOCO), at the time Director at David Roberts Art Foundation), Kelly Large (Curating Contemporay Art, Royal College of Art, at the time Public Programme Curator, Zabludowicz Collection), Maitreyi Maheshwari (Programme Director, Zabludowicz Collection), Coline Milliard (independent writer), Kirsty Ogg (Director, Bloomberg New Contemporaries), Dr Nina Pearlman (Head of UCL Art Collections), Niru Ratnam (Director START Art Fair / Director Prudential Eye Programme), Dr Martine Rouleau (Programme Manager, UCL Culture), Sarah Thelwall (Creative and Cultural Industries Strategist), Dr Timotheus Vermeulen (Assistant Professor, Cultural Theory, Radboud University / Co-Founding Editor Notes on Metamodernism), Jenny Pistella (at the time Learning and Access Officer, UCL Art Museum). 
Sofia Mitsola, Siren, 201
Curating Equality
UCL Art Museum’s Slade Collections (since 1897, c.3000 works): 45% work by women artists About Curating EqualityCurating Equality* is a research hub and virtual platform for interdisciplinary and collaborative research, which uncovers hidden histories in UCL’s collections and addresses their contemporary relevance. Projects undertaken to date have brought forgotten artists into the limelight, many of them women. Significantly, these projects address currencies of esteem and have uncovered women artists' relationships with peers across disciplines, as well as the conditions that made it possible for these artists to thrive. Exploration of the patterns and systems that underpin visibility and the impact of new technologies continue to inform directions for new research. UCL is well suited to exploring the visibility of women within institutional narratives and British history more widely. The university paved the way to advancements in gender equality in education and research, and was at the vanguard of co-education in art.*The term Curating Equality was coined by Nina Pearlman and is also the title of her current research.Curating Equality projectsThe suite of Curating Equality projects led by UCL Art Museum include Prize & Prejudice (2018), Instruction and Access: Women in art education (2018), The Magic Fruit Garden (2018), Disrupters and Innovators: Journeys in gender equality at UCL (2018-19), Passing In: Access and influence in higher education (2018),  Slade Sculpture Prize (2019) and Redress (2018). These projects draw on the models and methodologies of earlier initiatives focusing on diversity and inclusion, such as UCL Art Museum’s Spotlight on the Slade Collections - a curatorial research project funded by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2015-2018) - as well as the interdisciplinary project and exhibition, Drawing over the Colour Line (2012-13).Further examples of Curating Equality research by UCL staff and students:Curating Equality: a case study for applying predictive technologies to art collections (2002), conference paper, Dr Nina Pearlman, Head of UCL Art Collections and Professor Julianne Nyhan, Professor of Humanities Data Science and Methodology, TU Darmstadt; Professor of Digital Humanities, UCL, presented at the Universeum European academic heritage network 2022 conference. Curating Equality: applying systems thinking to achieve gender balance in the arts (2021), collaborative project led by Dr Nina Pearlman, Head of UCL Art Collections and Professor Julianne Nyhan Director UCL Centre for Digital Humanities with research assistant Magdalena Araus Sieber, graduate of UCL Digital Humanities and currently Digital Curator British Museum. This was supported by a UCL Research award to foster interdisciplinary research. Unseen Women: reframing women artists and cultural agents within the Slade Archive and UCL Art Museum Collection (2021-present)), practice-led PhD project by visual artist Holly Davey, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. Holly is discovering further details about the lives of Slade prize-winning women artists in the UCL Art Museum collection through research in UCL Special Collections and the Slade Archive. She is producing digital drawings and text-based artworks in response that raise the visibility of women artists within collections and archival spaces.Traces from the Registers: Animating the Slade’s Etching & Engraving and Lithography Prizes (2021), Sabrina Harverson-Hill and Tianyu Zhang, UCL History of Art with Material Studies (HAMS).The Slade Sculpture Prize (2019), Sarah Waite, Lok Hei Wong, Patricia Roberts and Yiting Fu, UCL Museum Studies, Collections Curatorship course.Some statistics to date: twenty-six women artists, eleven women from other fields and six living artists are featured across this suite of Curating Equality projects, which incorporate research from ten academics, ten students (BA/MA/PhD) and ten collections and archives.Affiliated projects The Curating Equality research hub has also supported peers across the university and wider sector in various affiliated projects, including the UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project and Professor Liz Rideal’s Slade Women: A Celebration, both commissioned as part of the Slade 150 anniversary.Women Artists at UCL Art MuseumUCL Art Museum is a valuable resource for exploring gender imbalance in the arts. Its Slade Collections span 150 years and reflect the history of art education at the first art school to admit women on the same terms as men. Slade Prizes were awarded from 1871 and retained from 1897. In the first year that prizes were awarded, three of the five winners were women and women consistently won prizes at the Slade thereafter. The museum has helped restore reputations of artists lost in the gaps of history through ongoing research, loans and exhibitions working with cultural sector partners as well as students and academics. For instance, UCL Art Museum was the major lender to the first major retrospective of Winifred Knights at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2016.Curating Equality projects have enabled us to establish that 45% of the museum's Slade Collections holdings comprise of work by women artists and connect contemporary artistic practice to research in other disciplines.What can we learn from these collections?These collections are a valuable resource for understanding currencies of esteem and the career paths of women artists of the past, and that which connects them with their contemporary counterparts. For example, interdisciplinarity, collaboration, education, social and political activism, and public engagement – all now at the forefront of contemporary art practice – characterised the careers of many nineteenth and twentieth century women artists. And yet, the contributions of so many of these artists remain invisible, having failed to be mapped along with their influence and legacies by the generations that followed. Being able to consider the conditions that impacted the professional advancement of women artists who demonstrably out peformed their male peers in art school when the playing field was level sheds light on conditions that perpetuate gender imbalance in the arts today.The prize-winning drawing by Elinor Monsell (see above slide) would have been one of the first to enter the museum collection in 1898 while recent additions to the collections through the prize system and other methods include work by twenty-first-century award-winning artists Sophie Bouvier Ausländer, Yvonne Feng, Lily Johnson, Sofia Mitsola, Anya Olofgörs and Marianna Simnett. These acquisitions sit alongside works by key twentieth-century figures such as Dora Carrington, Paula Rego and Ana Maria Pacheco. The UCL Art Museum collections offer a unique record of the theory and practice of art education at the Slade from 1897 to the present day. No other art school collected in this way. Unlike other public collections, the Slade Collection was built up through the prize system and thus, the museum holds examples of work by artists before they began their professional careers – with no foreknowledge of their future position within the art world. To read more about the history of the Slade and the prize system see the exhibition page for Prize and Prejudice.A short story about Elinor Monsell: the earliest prize-winner in 1898Elinor Monsell (1879-1954)Elinor Monsell’s prize-winning drawing entered the collections in 1898 together with a drawing by William Orpen. Competing under the same conditions and drawing the same model, both artists shared the first prize that year. We know a lot about Orpen, but at the time of our Spotlight on the Slade research project very little information about Elinor Monsell was available. Research conducted as part of this project revealed that as well as the prize for this work, Monsell was awarded the Slade Scholarship in 1898 and the following year, she was awarded 3rd prize equal for Figure Painting and another certificate for Figure Drawing.Monsell returned to Ireland after leaving the Slade. She produced the first press mark for Dun Emer Press – the organisation founded by Elizabeth Yeats, and she produced a woodcut of Queen Maeve for the Abbey Theatre, which was used on the programme cover in 1904. Over a century later, this design still exists today as the theatre’s logo.  Monsell also made illustrations for children’s books written by her husband – amateur golfer, golf writer and Charles Darwin’s grandson Bernard Darwin. Significantly, Monsell taught wood engraving to her husband’s cousin, Gwen Raverat, also a Slade student, who went on to become the only female founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers.What does Monsell’s story tell us and how is it still relevant?Monsell's story demonstrates the importance of women’s access to the life model and exemplifies the teaching method at the Slade, where the life room was used to explore form, placing emphasis on understanding the figure, rather than producing a finished drawing (as evidenced by the corrections and sketches on the same sheet). Viewed alongside William Orpen's work, Monsell’s drawing tells us about the prize system. Only by studying the two drawings together are we able to determine that the two artists drew the same model. An article by a female student in 1883 states that male and female students ‘compete under precisely the same conditions’ using the same casts and models for the competition subjects.Questions that arise from this research:To what extent was Monsell’s career affected by her marriage to Bernard Darwin?To what extent has her name change from Monsell to Darwin challenged researchers in mapping her legacy?To what extent did Monsell's interdisciplinarity contribute to, or detract from, opportunities to show her work and establish herself as an artist?Where is her work today? A number of drawings have been noted to have surfaced in recent sales however none of her work resides in other public collections.
Milou van der Maaden Alphabet of the Idle 2013
Duet (2013)
Emerging artists in the footsteps of old masters and their Slade predecessors from a century ago.During the fifth annual UCL Art Museum/Slade collaboration, a group of Slade students were selected to develop their own practices while taking the time to consider and appreciate what had gone before. Over one term, the artists were given special access to works from the UCL Art Museum collection and invited to contribute their own responses under the concept of ‘Duet’.The selected works evidence the range of the UCL Art Museum catalogue, with contemporary Slade artists responding to William Hogarth’s Industry and Idleness series; Eduardo Paollozzi’s collages from the Bunk! series; a watercolour by Slade alumna Gwen John, a plaster phrenological heads; Japanese woodblock prints and printing tools.Many of the featured artists have gone on to forge prolific artistic careers, exhibiting internationally and publishing research, such as Dana Ariel, Jonathan Kipps,  Jumpei Kinoshita, Julia McKinlay, Eleanor Morgan, Marianna Simnett, Georgina Tate,  and Milou van der Maaden with some like Kipps, Simnett and van Der Maaden returning to collaborate with us for the exhibitions Time Based Media at UCL Art Museum in 2014 and RE-LAUNCH in 2015.The full list of featured artists includes: Dana Ariel, Sheenagh B. Geoghegan, Andrew Gomez, Lauren Keeley, Jumpei Kinoshita, Jonathan Kipps, Mollie King, Siân Landau, Julia McKinlay, Eleanor Morgan, Marianna Simnett, Georgina Tate, Danielle Tay, Eunice Tsang, Milou van der Maaden, Patrick White, Tom Worsfold.Ariel, McKinlay, Morgan and Tate formed The Printers’ Symphony for Duet in 2013. All artists work in different media but the printmaking process brings them together. As a collaborative print group they work with museums, galleries and institutions to reveal the hidden marks of printmaking. They were the first recipients of the UCL Art Museum Prize for their contribution to this exhibition - A Printer's Symphony, 2013.An interview with Siân Landau is available here.For more information about the UCL Art Museum/Slade Collaboration series, see here. 
Colour photo of an angular, abstract green sculpture
Edward Allington: In pursuit of sculpture (2019)
 "The exhibition is a beautiful teaser for what one hopes might one day be a larger retrospective"― Robert Kesseler, Apollo Magazine 15 February 2019This celebration of British artist Edward Allington (1951-2017) at UCL Art Museum, launched UCL's Year of Sculpture 2019 earlier this year.Sculptures, photographs, drawings, antique ledgers, motorbike parts and toy dinosaurs are part of the exhibition, exploring Allington’s concerns and ambitions for sculpture, as well as his composite persona as artist, writer, educator, collector and motorcyclist. The public programme has included interpretations through dance with a youth group from The Place and dance students from University of East London.Find out more about Edward Allington and his work below.UCL Art Museum wishes to thank Thalia and Harry Allington-Wood, Megan Piper, Jo Volley and Gary Woodley in realising Edward Allington: In pursuit of sculpture, curated by Dr Andrea Fredericksen and Dr Nina Pearlman.This is part of UCL Art Collections’ commitment to interdisciplinary research-based and exhibitions-led collaborations. For more information or expressions of interest to collaborate contact museums@ucl.ac.ukSee more of Edward Allington at the Henry Moore Institute:Exhibition:   Edward Allington: Things Unsaid 25 Oct – 19 January, focusing on the artist’s larger sculpture works.Conference:   Sense – Perception: Sculpture, Drawing and Influence of Classicism, Henry Moore Studios and Gardens, 12 October 2019, Henry Moore Institute 29 November 2019 Edward Allington: In pursuit of sculpture - exhibitionEdward Allington: In pursuit of sculpture presents a selection of the acclaimed sculptor’s smaller works, cohabiting with the university's historical collections in a traditional Print Room setting. Allington was fascinated by the classical worlds of Greece and Rome, particularly the hold they have on our imagination and how they continue to shape our physical environment. His preoccupation with timely questions about authenticity, origins and truth evolved from his practice as a sculptor, researcher, writer and teacher. He was not nostalgic, but rather recognised in classical sculpture radical qualities that fuelled his practice. He noted that sculpture was based on principles and processes of reproduction – such as casting, and that often our encounter with it is through souvenirs or heavily restored artefacts in museums. Most classical sculptures are themselves copies – Roman copies in stone of Greek sculptures in bronze that are lost and only known to us through descriptions by Greek scholars. In Allington’s words ‘I realised that in culture itself it is impossible to prove that one level is more important than any other. As an artist it would be irresponsible to omit what I began to see as the larger part of culture. I had to learn and understand not only ‘high’ art but also ‘low’ art.’ As such a preoccupation with kitsch infused Allington’s work in the 1980s where the Dionysian energies of exuberance, opulence and excess were at play in his ‘cornucopia’ sculptures. Snail from the Necropolis of Hope (1983) shown in the exhibition represents this body of work in which plentiful plastic fruits, insects, frogs or vases spill out of decorative shells or horn-like forms. While paintings generally have a wall as their backdrop – wherever that wall may be, the backdrop for sculpture changes. A recurring theme for Allington was sculpture’s capacity to subvert its surroundings and for sculpture’s capacity to change as a result of its placing. He maintained that everywhere there is a space in which sculptures cohabit and interact with other things and that most sculptures are made with ideal settings in mind yet are more likely to exist in storage, a home, an institution or a photograph. This led him to explore the union of site-sculpture-photography through a longstanding collaboration with Edward Woodman. This included Decorative Forms Over the World, a series that was ongoing since the mid-1980s and is featured in the exhibition. Allington and Woodman travelled with an illusionistic drawing – a scroll based on an architectural corbel – and photographed it in different locations and situations. More recently, Heini Schneebeli photographed Allington’s small bronzes which he placed amidst collections in the museums of UCL.  [[{"fid":"10251","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, We are time (1985), photographed in UCL Art Museum, 2012","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, We are time (1985), photographed in UCL Art Museum, 2012 by Heini Schneebeli","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, We are time (1985), photographed in UCL Art Museum, 2012 by Heini Schneebeli © Heini Schneebeli & the artist's estate","field_float_left_right[und]":"right","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, We are time (1985), photographed in UCL Art Museum, 2012","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, We are time (1985), photographed in UCL Art Museum, 2012 by Heini Schneebeli","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, We are time (1985), photographed in UCL Art Museum, 2012 by Heini Schneebeli © Heini Schneebeli & the artist's estate","field_float_left_right[und]":"right","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"768","width":"511","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Allington was equally interested in the power of memory and addressed the states of materiality and illusion with playfulness and humour. This is evident in his drawings, which were an integral part of his practice, as well as in Three Japanese Measuring Devices (2016) where three small sculptures are concealed within an antique ledger becoming invisible when the ledger is closed, or Suitcase: Lost World (2010) where a plentiful stream of plastic dinosaurs spills out of a suitcase. These works prompt reflection on the significance of the visible and physical presence of the object, as opposed to our memory of it.[[{"fid":"10267","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, Three Japanese Measuring Devices, 2016","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, Three Japanese Measuring Devices, 2016 © the artist’s estate","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, Three Japanese Measuring Devices, 2016, antique ledger book, ledger paper, ink, emulsion, MDF and bronze, photo: Sam Roberts © the artist’s estate","field_float_left_right[und]":"right","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, Three Japanese Measuring Devices, 2016","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, Three Japanese Measuring Devices, 2016 © the artist’s estate","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington, Three Japanese Measuring Devices, 2016, antique ledger book, ledger paper, ink, emulsion, MDF and bronze, photo: Sam Roberts © the artist’s estate","field_float_left_right[und]":"right","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"768","width":"512","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Antique ledgers were among the many objects Allington collected, alongside plastic replicas of classical architecture, motorbike models and actual motorbike parts, selections of which feature in the exhibition. All of these collectables became infused with sculpture and embodied alternating status as disposable copy, sculpture fragment, or drawing surface. Sheets from the ledgers that carried tracings of everyday life became the surfaces upon which Allington inscribed architectural spaces. Into these imaginary spaces he introduced oblique projections of sculptural forms that fused natural, architectural and mechanical orders, ultimately forging what became his signature style.[[{"fid":"10271","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington and Jo Volley, no title, UCL quad, 2017 ©the artist’s estate and Jo Volley","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington and Jo Volley, no title, UCL quad, 2017 ©the artist’s estate and Jo Volley","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington and Jo Volley, no title, scanned drawing scaled up and printed on vinyl, installed UCL courtyard, 2017, photo: Mary Hinkley©the artist’s estate and Jo Volley","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington and Jo Volley, no title, UCL quad, 2017 ©the artist’s estate and Jo Volley","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington and Jo Volley, no title, UCL quad, 2017 ©the artist’s estate and Jo Volley","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington and Jo Volley, no title, scanned drawing scaled up and printed on vinyl, installed UCL courtyard, 2017, photo: Mary Hinkley©the artist’s estate and Jo Volley","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"768","width":"461","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]The exhibition is book-ended by one of Allington’s earliest works as a student of ceramics and his final public work in the UK: a collaboration with artist and fellow Slade Professor, Jo Volley. Their drawing has been scaled-up to be 7.5m high to wrap around a pop-up structure in the courtyard of UCL. The work features classical columns, as well as drawing and building instruments, which are overlaid on a chart depicting the growth of UCL in its first 100 years. Inscribed with the UCL motto Cuncti adsint meritaeque expectent praemia palmae (Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward) the piece reflects upon the university’s development.To read more about Edward Allington - sculpture and photography visit our blog.[1] ‘Edward Allington interviewed by Stuart Morgan 1983’ in Edward Allington:: In pursuit of savage luxury, Midland Group Nottingham, 1984, p.26.About the artist[[{"fid":"10275","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington on his 1970 Harley Davidson XR750 TT, The Sammy Miller Museum, UK, 2014 © the artist’s estate ","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington on his 1970 Harley Davidson XR750 TT, The Sammy Miller Museum, UK, 2014 © the artist’s estate ","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington on his 1970 Harley Davidson XR750 TT, The Sammy Miller Museum, UK, 2014 © the artist’s estate","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington on his 1970 Harley Davidson XR750 TT, The Sammy Miller Museum, UK, 2014 © the artist’s estate ","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington on his 1970 Harley Davidson XR750 TT, The Sammy Miller Museum, UK, 2014 © the artist’s estate ","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Edward Allington on his 1970 Harley Davidson XR750 TT, The Sammy Miller Museum, UK, 2014 © the artist’s estate","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"683","width":"1024","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Edward Allington (1951-2017) was born in Cumbria. He studied at Lancaster College of Art (1968-1971), Central School of Art and Design (1971-1974) and at the Royal College of Art (1983-1984). Associated with New British Sculpture, Allington’s work was included in the group exhibition ‘Objects and Sculpture’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1981 and ‘The Sculpture Show’ at The Hayward Gallery in 1983, and he exhibited widely in America, Japan and throughout Europe.Allington was the winner of the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Prize in 1989 and received a fine art award to work at the British School at Rome in 1997. He is represented in major public, private and corporate collections, including Arts Council England, Tate, Henry Moore Institute, Victoria and Albert Museum and The British Museum.Allington lived and worked in London and was Professor of Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art until he died on 2017 at the age of 66. The Slade sculpture prizeFrom the establishment of the Slade School of Fine Art in 1871 prizes were awarded to students in a range of categories, including sculpture. However, unlike paintings and drawings, the prizes in sculpture were not retained by the School. Archival records denote a phantom collection of prize-winning works of sculpture that is lost. The first prize for the year 1889-1890 was awarded to a female artist we know little about, noted in the College records as S Rosamund Praeger. Recent research has indicated that prizes were awarded consistently till 1906, then again in 1948, with the final prize awarded in 1969. More research is required to identify this phantom collection of prize-winning works by students, many of them women. Phyllida Barlow CBE RA was recipient of the Summer Competition prize for sculpture in 1964-65 and again in 1965-66 in the category of Free Work.Other artists include, repeat prize winners Paul de Monchaux and Rosemary Young.This is an ongoing research project connected to Spotlight on the Slade. The Sculpture Prize has also been a focus of new research undertaken in 2019 by a group of post-graduate UCL Museum Studies students.Year of Sculpture 2019This exhibition is part of UCL's year-long programme exploring what sculpture means today. Find out more 
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