News
Backdrop by Ivan Kashdan
©Ivan Kashdan. Photography by Lam Pok Yin
Current MA student Ivan Kashdan recently completed 'Backdrop', a 5 x 10m triptych created on the Bloomsbury Theatre paint frame, formerly used by students on the Slade Theatre Design course, which closed in 2003.
The photos show the work installed in the Bloomsbury Theatre auditorium. 'Backdrop' will be returning to the stage next week as part of Platform 1 at Bloomsbury Theatre on the 4th and 5th May. Book your tickets now via UCL ticketing for a night of exciting performances by current Slade students.
With thanks to Ellen Frost at the Bloomsbury Theatre, Stephanie Nebbia, Liquitex and Colart.
For more images and a time lapse video of the work's creation, see the Backdrop webpage.
Inter Worlds Talk: Suki Chan, Dr Alice Correia, Bhajan Hunjan
©the artist
Part of a series of talks, presenting South and East Asian British contemporary women artists’ practice by artists, writers and curators: Suki Chan, Dr Alice Correia, Bhajan Hunjan, in association with Chai Shai: Asian British Art Research Group. Friday 12 May 2023, 2 - 4pm BST, online via Zoom. Free, reserve via Eventbrite. See event page for more information.
Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photo by Paul Lachenauer, courtesy of The Met
Alumna Cecily Brown has a solo show, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 4 April - 3 December 2023.
The show unites some 50 paintings, drawings, sketchbooks, and monotypes — many never before seen in New York and several recently completed — to focus on Brown’s enduring and intertwining themes of still life, memento mori, mirroring, and vanitas, symbolic depictions of human vanity or life’s brevity.
Read Edward Helmore's interview with Cecily Brown in The Guardian, 16 April 2023.
Slade Undergraduate Virtual Q&A
©Mary Hinkley
Join us for the Slade Undergraduate Virtual Q&A on 27 April. There are two sessions available (you only need to book one session), at 10am and 5pm.
Book now via the UCL website, please select the Slade School of Fine Art Information session.
Vivan Sundaram
We were very sorry to hear of the passing of Vivan Sundaram, who studied at the Slade from 1966 - 1968. Our thoughts and condolences to his family and friends. Read an appreciation of his life in Art News.
Booking for Slade Summer School 2023 now open
©Thomas Jenkins
Booking for Slade Summer School now open! Slade Summer School will run from 10 July - 2 September 2023. We are delighted to return to teaching in person. Further information on our Summer Short Courses webpage.
Dr Sally Witcher awarded an honorary degree from the University of Stirling
Congratulations to alumna Dr Sally Witcher, who has been awarded an honorary degree from the University of Stirling.
Dr Sally Witcher OBE is a high-profile campaigner on disability, inequality and exclusion. She has held a range of senior leadership roles in related fields in third and public sectors, and was awarded an OBE in 2006 for her services to people with disabilities.
Read more on the University of Stirling website.
Fevers, Frets and Futures
Fevers, Frets and Futures: Uncertainty and New Ecologies for Post-Covid Healthcare - call for abstracts and conference, and student competition. Deadline for submissions has been extended to 9am, Tuesday 11 April 2023. See the IAS webpage for further details regarding the call for abstracts and student competition.
Rites of Passage - Gagosian
© Nengi Omuku © Phoebe Boswell Photo: Lucy Dawkins, courtesy Gagosian
Alumnae Phoebe Boswell and Nengi Omuku are showing in Rites of Passage at Gagosian, Britannia Street London WC1X 9JD, from 16 March - 29 April 2023. Rites of Passage, curated by Péjú Oshin, features work by nineteen contemporary artists who share a history of migration. Rites of Passage explores the idea of “liminal space,” a coinage of anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957). In his 1909 book, after which the exhibition is titled, Van Gennep was among the first to observe that the transitional events of birth, puberty, marriage, and death are marked by ceremonies with a ritual function that transcends cultural boundaries.
Carey Young: Appearance - Modern Art Oxford
©Carey Young. Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
Modern Art Oxford announces the largest institutional show in the UK by Carey Young. Focusing on the artist’s multi-layered vision of female identity, the exhibition offers timely new perspectives on power, gender and justice. Featuring three major video works, including the ambitious new commission Appearance (2023), as well as related text-based and photographic works, Carey Young: Appearance, runs from 25 March until 2 July 2023.
In the video work Appearance, Young extends her ongoing artistic interest in the law, developed over the past two decades. This wordless, filmic portrait presents UK female judges - diverse in seniority, age and ethnicity - in their judicial robes looking straight at the camera. With almost forensic close-ups of hair, shoes, jewellery and regalia, the camera plays off the judges’ roles as powerful, self-possessed public intellectuals against their varied physical presence and the quirks of individual personalities. Sitters including Dame Vivien Rose, Justice of the Supreme Court, exhibit a mix of studied neutrality and a complex interiority. Stylistically poised between painting and photography, the piece takes inspiration from Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, which in itself was inspired by the ‘most wanted’ ads of the New York Police Dept. Whilst countering the familiar patriarchal culture of law, Appearance places the viewer in the dock, and centres on ideas of judgement between viewer and judge, on judging as performance, and on the power relations between judge and camera.
Other notable prior works include the critically-acclaimed Palais de Justice (2017), for which Young surreptitiously filmed courtroom trials at Brussels’ labyrinthine main courthouse over a two-year period. Shooting only female judges and lawyers glimpsed through circular windows in courthouse doors, the piece uses a painterly, hallucinatory aesthetic to evoke a legal system controlled by women. The Vision Machine (2020), here receiving its UK debut, develops the approach and aesthetic of Palais de Justice to a concern with women as skilled technicians and often-overlooked creators. Filmed at the factory of SIGMA Corporation, a renowned brand of lenses for photography and video, the piece reflects on the factory and its processes as a metaphor for photography and mass production, suggesting a female-centric vision, or indeed, perhaps a wider visual culture created by women.
Alongside the videos, a selection of Young’s new and existing text and photographic works feature sites including prisons, legal borders and imaginary space, connecting law, architecture, language and the body.
Exhibition curator Emma Ridgway said, “Young's compelling and intelligently playful work has substantially expanded in scale and ambition in recent years. Her new videos make a valuable contribution to discussions on gender equality, visual perception and the codifications of power. Her latest video work 'Appearance' is a masterclass in the act of seeing, sensitising us to the delights of looking closely at telling details.”
Supporters of Carey Young: Appearance
Arts Council England, Modern Art Oxford Commissioning Circle, UCL Grand Challenges, UCL HEIF Knowledge and Innovation Fund, UCL Dean’s Award, UCL Judicial Institute & Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. With additional thanks to: Ede & Ravenscroft, Simmons & Simmons LLP, Slade School of Fine Art, The Lord Chief Justice & TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities), University of Oxford. Special thanks are also extended to: Annick Mottet, Daiwa Foundation, Elephant Trust, SIGMA Corporation, SohoSonic Studios, Wolfson College (University of Oxford) & Humanities Cultural Programme (TORCH, University of Oxford) and Prof. Cheryl Thomas, UCL Judicial Institute/UCL Laws.
Read the review of Carey Young: Appearance in The Guardian, 26 March 2023.
Choral performance of Gospel Oak - St James Church
John William Griffith, composer and conductor, currently studying at the RCM, has composed choral music for 9 poems from the poetry collection, Gospel Oak by Sharon Morris. The concert will take place at St. James Church, Sussex Gardens, Paddington, 8.00 p.m. Thursday 30 March 2023. Choral singers include Slade alumnus Sam Belinfante. See the St James Church website for details.
£1.5M Philanthropic Gift To Support Inclusivity And Welfare At UCL Slade School Of Fine Art
Students and prospective students are to benefit from a transformational £1.5m donation which will facilitate recruitment of more diverse cohorts, outreach activities and student welfare at the Slade.
We are delighted that this generous gift will forge more accessible pathways to a fine arts education and enact real, long-term change for the future talent pipeline by supporting a trio of targeted initiatives.
Of these, the Bloomfield Scholarships will be established to fund the tuition fees and living costs of ten UK-based students (over the next five years) applying to the three-year BFA Fine Art Undergraduate degree at UCL.
Student feedback consistently highlights financial circumstances as a significant barrier to higher education in fine art. Recipients of the scholarships will be selected on the basis of financial need, as well as artistic merit, and applications will open ahead of the 2023/24 academic year.
Furthermore, the Slade’s hardship fund will benefit from £100,000 in philanthropic support, providing a vital lifeline for students facing unforeseen financial hardship during their studies.
Underpinned by the belief that nobody should have to withdraw from their studies because of monetary concerns, the fund has experienced an unprecedented demand for its services since the onset of the cost-of-living crisis and now receives more than 50 requests for help annually.
This sum will enable UCL to act quickly and responsibly to provide assistance to students in need, with emergency funding of up to £500 available to eligible applicants.
Finally, the gift will directly enable UCL to host a dedicated Slade Widening Participation Summer School on our Bloomsbury campus for Year 13 learners in each of the next five years.
The four-week summer schools will act as an inclusive pathway to higher education in fine art by demonstrating the potential of an artistic career to up to 40 learners, helping to develop their skills and knowledge and to provide a platform for progression within the sector.
“The potential of a gift of this scope to open up participation in fine art education is transformational,” said Professor Kieren Reed, Director of the UCL Slade School of Fine Art. “This activity will support current Slade students who need it the most and empower future Slade students from disadvantaged backgrounds to envisage a future for themselves as the artists of tomorrow. We are proud to be leading on this important work to grow a more diverse talent pipeline for the entire industry and very grateful to the donor for their generous support.”
“A determination to nurture a more diverse community is core to the Slade’s vision but there are too many systemic barriers to higher education in fine art, exacerbated by rising living and study costs and a fear of uncertain career prospects,” said Professor Stella Bruzzi, Dean of Arts and Humanities at UCL. “Philanthropy has the power to enable those who have the talent, but not the resources, to come to the Slade and carve a future for themselves in the ever-growing creative and cultural industries.”
Having marked the 150th anniversary of its foundation through a bequest from Felix Slade in 1872, the School is privileged to work with stakeholders and visionary philanthropists to reshape the future of arts education and foster a rich and exciting community of creatives.
Read more
UCLGiving
UCLGiving - Scholarships
Spineless Wonders: The Zine, Type and Script
©Leila Kassir
Spineless Wonders: The Zine, Type and Script has been rescheduled to 5 May 2023. This online event is free, reserve via Eventbrite.
Event includes: queer reading group, online tour of Manchester Poetry Library, panel discussion and hybrid zine making workshop. See the Spineless Wonders event page for more information.
Phyllida Barlow (1944 - 2023)
We were very sorry to hear the sad news about Phyllida Barlow.
As well as being a brilliant artist, Phyllida was a much loved part of the Slade community, having been a student (1963 - 1966) and a tutor until 2009. She was a generous friend and colleague, and a great supporter of the Slade. She will be sadly missed. Our thoughts and condolences to her family and friends.
Read the UCL News article: Tributes paid to sculptor and art educator Dame Phyllida Barlow
Image: Phyllida Barlow, with Dog Door print (2013), film still, Slade Print Studio, 2013
What We Do Is Secret: Contemporary Art and the Antinomies of Conspiracy - Larne Abse Gogarty
Larne Abse Gogarty has a new book, What We Do Is Secret: Contemporary Art and the Antinomies of Conspiracy, published by Sternberg Press.
Written in the wake of the far-right populist turn in Europe, the US, and beyond, What We Do Is Secret addresses aesthetic and intellectual affinities between recent art and conspiracy, proposing a theory of conspiracy that is not primarily concerned with conspiracy theory. This inquiry takes shape across chapters on the politics of post-internet art aesthetics; the sublime and possessive individualism in recent “critical” art; Cady Noland’s security fences, and silkscreens of the Symbionese Liberation Army; and mutuality, secrecy, and improvisation in the work of Ima-Abasi Okon. Larne Abse Gogarty discusses the relationship between culture and contemporary politics, following on from David Lloyd’s proposition that through its compensatory qualities, the aesthetic sphere naturalizes forms of life lived under the rule of property. What kind of art can work against this? Can art exist as a conspiracy capable of corroding that rule?
See the Sternberg Press website for more information.
Deep Horizons - MIMA
©Onya McCausland
Onya McCausland is showing in Art + Social: Deep Horizons presented by the Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) and the Roberts Institute of Art, 10 March - 18 June 2023.
Bringing work together from the Middlesbrough Collection and the Roberts Institute of Art, the exhibition starts with the topic of excavation to present sculpture, drawing, painting, installation, ceramics, photography and moving image from the last 90 years. The show also includes work by alumni Paula Rego and John Stezaker.
Colour & Poetry: A Symposium V
Colour & Poetry: A Symposium V 21st - 22nd March 2023 is a cross- and inter-disciplinary two-day virtual event held by the Slade School of Fine Art, in celebration of International Colour Day, World Poetry Day and World Pigment Day. For full details, see the Colour & Poetry event page. Book via Eventbrite.
Bhajan Hunjan shortlisted for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2022-24
Photo of Bhajan Hunjan: Bruno Cattani Photography. Courtesy Collezione Maramotti.
Congratulations to alumna Bhajan Hunjan, who has been shortlisted for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2022-24. The winner will be announced on 28 March 2023 at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.
The Max Mara Art Prize for Women, in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery is a biannual award established in 2005. It is the only visual art prize of its kind and aims to promote and support artists identifying as women based in the UK, enabling them to develop their potential with the gift of time and space. The winner is awarded a six-month Italian residency tailored to fit the artist and their winning proposal for the Prize. During the residency, which is organised by Collezione Maramotti, the artist has the opportunity to realise an ambitious new project which is presented in major solo exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, UK and at Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Read more on the Whitechapel Gallery website.
Photo of Bhajan Hunjan: Bruno Cattani Photography. Courtesy Collezione Maramotti.
Stanley Jones MBE (1933 - 2023)
We were very sad to hear of the passing of Stanley Jones, who was a student at the Slade from 1954 to 1956 and later a tutor in printmaking from 1958 to 1998. Our thoughts and condolences to his family and friends.
Future Greats 2023: Mataio Austin Dean
Alumnus Mataio Austin Dean has been selected as one of Art Review magazine's Future Greats 2023. Read the article by Larry Achiampong in Art Review, 8 February 2023.