I could either be erudite and write a reasoned analysis of the situation or tell it like it is. I have opted for the latter.
I am really pissed off with the organisers of the majority of the competitions that seek artists to enter them. Many restrict entrants to those who are under 35! I have never seen a reason for this.
As a mature student, one of about 20% in our Universities, Art Schools and Colleges I am not able to enter. The same is true of those practising artists struggling for recognition, motivation and even reward who find themselves over the age barrier.
The assumption seems to be that only those under 35 should be eligible as those over that age have either achieved recognition or they are past it!
Many mature students, like me, come to art late in life, so why are we penalised and demotivated? Whatever happened to life- long learning and the notion of a flexible workforce?
Why not call for emerging artists or those with only so many years into their practice?
What is there to be afraid of? Talent will be recognised whatever its age.
So to the organisers……GET REAL.
Ageism in the Art World
Exhibition Success
I held a successful exhibition at Shaftesbury Arts Centre. It’s a great space with good lighting and allowed me to show 11 large works of my Stonehenge oil on canvas exploits as well as my mixed media, including acids, on rusted steel experiments.
The work was very different to what they normally see there which is smaller, crowded, often water colour and not vey original.
The feed back on the steel pieces was very positive, they had never seen anything like that before. The Stonehenge pieces were also well received as being bold, colourful and strong images.
There was steady traffic all week but many people were either tourists or older,local residents who see the gallery as a place to go and see art but not to buy it!
My pieces were large, meaning you had to have good wall space and as one artist said, “the houses around here are small”. My prices were London prices but were consistent with what I saw in other, local galleries, although the art was different..
The week was a great success for me with lots of valuable lessons for the future. In particular, mounting a commercial exhibition is very different in many ways to a more academic show such as you see in University or in London’s east end.
Stonehenge and Wildernesses
This is the title of my one person exhibition at the Shaftesbury Arts Centre to be held from Sunday 31st July to 6th August inclusive and from 10:30 to 16:30 daily.
Two types of work will be shown, the first commemorating Stonehenge from the inside and painted in oil on canvas and the second, in acids on rusted steel, abstracting the devastation man has created on our planet.
All works are for sale.
“Three” at Putney School of Art and Design …A Great Success
The opening of the show on 20th March was a great success with well over 100 people attending from all over the UK.
The three artists, Mike Freedman, Lianne Chan and Jessica Rutterford provoked controversy by presenting a show very different to the usual exhibitions held there.
It was called refreshing by Gavin Maughling a senior tutor, and very professionally mounted.
Charlie Catlin, Head of the School, was also impressed with the strength of the work and its impact.
With over a 1,000 students passing through the School each week, the show will be seen by many artists whilst it runs.
For details please see the press release below.
For prices see the contact list.
Press Release
Three
Three is an exciting exhibition by three contemporary artists, Mike Freedman, Lee Ch, and Jessica Rutterford from Wimbledon College of Art who have collaborated to produce a show that pushes the boundaries of art practice to new horizons. Each examines, in their own unique language, major themes of current political, social, aesthetic and psychological concern.
What unites these artists is as powerful as what differentiates them. The creative motivation they share in common results in work that is experimental, questioning and intensely personal. They explore the limits of the mediums they use and the aesthetic impact thereby created.
Nonetheless, they each inhabit different psychological and physical spaces that challenge their audiences to understand, yet question their motives, values and the intrinsic worth of their work. Their creative techniques, subject matter, processes for making work, mediums and artistic contexts contrast radically.
Mike Freedman’s abstract Wilderness paintings use a variety of acids on mild steel accepting notions of chance, risk and experiment, the results of which question the destruction of our natural wildernesses and the creation of man made ones. The paintings evolve over time as the corrosive effect of the acid takes hold, mirroring the erosion of the ice caps, deserts and rainforests.
Lee Ch’s recent work takes mass produced chalk pastels, and displays a set of hand made, primary, colour ones. They are fashioned to emphasise the contrast between objective, mass-produced, machine-made products and objects created individually with subjective value. Lee is currently exploring the tensions involved in navigating the contemporary landscape of absolutism and relativism in her abstract water colours.
Jessica Rutherford’s work pushes the societal confines denying the viewer the opportunity to project their own interpretation on the people that we pass and stereotype everyday. In her most recent works, Conversations, she combines the visual drawings of the people conversing along with their real dialogue in an attempt to surprise and challenge a pre conceived idea.
Three opens with a private view on Sunday 20th March from 5- 7 pm at Putney School of Art and Design, Oxford Road, Putney, SW15 2LQ.
It continues until 26th March. It is open from 9:30-8pm Mon- Fri and 9:30 – 4pm Sat.
For further information and prices, contact;
Mike Freedman: 07770 798079: michaelfreedman1942@gmail.com :
Lee Ch: 07981 577679: artistleech@gmail.com: www.artistleech.com
Jessica Rutterford: 07517 200936: jessica.elizabeth1@hotmail.co.uk
Exhibition of new work in Putney 20th to 26th March
I shall be having an exhibition of new work at the Putney School of Art and Design, Oxford Road, Putney from 20th to 26th March in collaboration with two colleagues from Wimbledon College of Art, Lianne Chan and Jessica Rutterford.
My work will be on the subject of wildernesses, abstracted in acid and oils on mild steel, continuing my experimental exploration both of the theme and its depiction.
The terrible decrease in the earth’s natural wildernesses such as our deserts, forests and ice caps is matched only by our indifference to the increasing man made wilderenesses being built in “planned ” cities throughout the world, developed or otherwise, and the attendant slums that grow around them. My work is an attempt to express my concern at these trends that are largely ignored by the onward march of global capitalism. The political wilderness of the left both in terms of philososphy and policy and its inability to capture let alone deploy political power is perhaps the most threatening wilderness of them all.
The private view will be on Sunday 20th in the early evening, all are invited, please RSVP on the contact page.
The Art School is easy to find being 5 minutes walk from Putney mainline station (from Waterloo, Clapham Junction and Richmond) and East Putney on the District Line. Plenty of buses run along the Upper Richmond Road.
That’s Entertainment
The solo exhibition of my “That’s Entertainment” collages at the Playhouse Theatre in Salisbury will be seen by at least 51,000 people, the number of seats sold during the course of the exhibition that runs until January 31st 2011. Everyone who enters the auditorium must mount one of two small staircases where the works are exhibited. A little better than the average gallery!
Raphael Tapestries
Now that the Maps exhibition at the British Library is over, the thing to see in London is the exhibition of Raphael’s tapestries made for the Sistine Chapel, on at the V & A for a short period. they are supported by the original cartoons owned by none other than HM Queen…..
They are astounding in concept and design, let alone craftmanship….I know that’s a dirty word in many art circles…….misguided though.
What have we done to lose skills like those shown in their creation? What do we need to do to recover them?
You cant make a tapestry using a Mac computer!
Why not use plain English?
Why do art theorists and critics have to write in a language 99% of the population dont understand? Is is to show how erudite they are? Or because they are only writing for one another? Or is it because they cant find ordinary words to convey their meaning? And why is there a need to invent new movements? Wither “Altermodern”?
To illustrate……”The function of this rational language might be compared with its role in Freudian psychoanalysis as a safety mechanism applied to inchoate experience(represented here by the visual) to make it conform to a comprehensive narrative.To replace the visual with its analysis can be understood as an act of taming its incoherence,its unamenability to paraphrasing.”
Get it??
News
I am in the process of setting up my solo show of the “That’s Entertainment” series of collages of over 1000 theatre, opera, concert and sports programmes at the Salisbury Playhouse Theatre.
The best exhibition in London right now? ….. “Magnificent Maps, power, propaganda and art.” at the British Library. Its over on 19th Sept but the catalogue is available and worth the money
The book to read?….. “Caravaggio a life sacred and profane” by Andrew Graham Dixon.
Look out for the Anselm Keifer exhibition coming to the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead in October.
The best thing in Vyner Street last Thursday…….Metrorama by Andy Owen at the Vegas Gallery.
There is no planet B
We are continuing apace to devastate and destroy our planet. It is unlikely to last another 100 years without significant loss of life, land, species and a major change in life-style by the survivors, of whom some have estimated there will be but 30% of the current population, even allowing for population growth.
My art tries to express how I feel about this preventable situation. It is enhanced by my memories of places I have been to and which mean a lot to me such as Antarctica (in which I am spending December), Namibia, Narvik in northern Norway and The Chilean Andes at Torres Del Paine.
My recent solo exhibition at Wimbledon took planetary devastation as its theme. It was well attended and I had a good reception both for the art and the message. Please see the photos.
Hopefully this next expedition will provide me with a lot more material and will inspire me. But you never know, hostile weather can destroy everything and I may not see a thing!
Michael Freedman Exhibition
Michael Freedman Exhibition
Michael Freedman Exhibition
Michael Freedman Exhibition
Michael Freedman Exhibition
Michael Freedman Exhibition