Tell us, Tone…

Like all you other CoS followers, we love nothing more on a Saturday morning than to stroll down to Broadway Market, buy a chicken sourced locally (ie Mile End) for fourteen quid, a couple of bulbs of ‘wet’ garlic to ram up its arse, and a copy of the Guardian. But this morning our lovely weekend routine has been shattered by one of the most profound rhetorical artistic questions – and indeed, answers that we’ve seen in a while, courtesy of a Guardian guest column by Antony Gormley. “How do I justify the work and life of my studio, with its 10,000 square feet of heated space and my 17 assistants?” thundered the Gormo. “I don’t know, tell us Tony!” I thundered back at my chicken wrapped carefully in an oh-so-now brown paper bag. “In the final analysis,” pondered the Great Gormksy, “I do not have to justify what we do.”
Brilliant! Who said the Guardian was just for self-satisfied liberals who love portentous pieces of public art?

My So-Called Life

Top Ten Time. It’s been a while. An email from a London gallerist has dropped onto the grubby hessian welcome mat of our inbox, suggesting a Top Ten ‘highlighting’ the joy that is the So-Called Collector. We know the type…. sauntering around galleries, being treated with a suspiciously undeserving level of respect unusual from a gallerist, in the (mistaken?) belief that they COULD be a collector. I mean, Sally from White Cube said this guy once bought a Tracey Emin drawing in 1997.
But has that one investment bought them a decade and a half of dinner invites and VIP invitations?

We’re open for nominations.

Email us (anonymously). We love to hear from you. Answers posted soon.

I fought the Clore and the Clore won

Do you work in a maligned and hopeless public arts institution? Are you sick of your friends who laugh at your specious job and derisory pay? Do you like ordering people around and meeting pointless targets? Do you fancy a couple of “residential fortnights” trying to have sex with someone who works in street theatre? Does your employer dislike you enough in order to pay a bunch of charlatans to teach you leadership skills? Do you look like any of these people or would you like to have them around for dinner at your East London character Victorian terrace basement flat that you live unhappily by yourself in:

http://www.cloreleadership.org/fellows.php

If so, glory be! For that much celebrated arts middle-management course, the Clore Fellowship is open again for applications: http://www.cloreleadership.org/

And here at CoS we know just how shit your A-level results were and why you had to seek a “career” in the arts, so we’re here to give you tips. If you get an interview: DO say things like “The demand for powerful, independent, imaginative leaders in the arts has seldom been greater.” DON”T SAY: “I have absolutely no conception about the so-called arts but I love setting audience development targets and frankly am hoping my employer will pay 15k so I can go off and get my back doors blasted asunder from a nice fellow from Welsh National Opera.”

Independence Day

Rumours surrounding problems at this years new Darren Flook and Elizabeth Dee conception ‘Independent’ range from tales of lack of money, and in-house disagreements. However, this may be scurrilous rumour-mongering from galleries still participating at the Armory. Is NY’s premier art fair losing its mojo?
According to many art dealers, yes… upscale galleries such as Blum and Poe, Tanya Bonakdar, Metro Pictures, Friedrich Petzel, and David Zwirner, all staples from the time when Colin De Land was steering the ship, have all migrated to ADAA, and the Armory hasn’t gotten any cheaper. Even established galleries chose to take part in the 2008 Dark Fair rather than participate in the depressing buildings that make up Piers 92 and 94.

In the words of one participating dealer – “who wants to go to a trade fair in a recession? Depressing. Spend less money, show art in a space that was actually designed for that, and feel good about the fact that you’re doing something new”.

School’s Out?

Woolworths, Zavvi, Whittards, Officers Club and the Pier…. Last month even M&S announced the closure of 27 stores.
We hear that the latest in line for closure are branches of the University for the Arts plc – their Camberwell and Wimbledon stores. Anyone else heard anything?

Erectile Dysfunction (Arts Council Watch)

Last year, after spunking £500 billion on the banks, the Government thought they’d prop up ‘the Arts’ with a £40 million handout (although, at the same time they cut ACE’s budget by 10.5 million). ‘Sustain’, a brilliant new scheme, was named after a treatment for premature ejaculation.

How appropriate given that so many of the awards made over the past eight months have gone to organisations run by wankers working in newly erected capital development schemes. All made their claims to make up for revenue lost owing to the recession. None admit hopelessly flawed business plans, poor programming, hidden capital development funding shortfalls and generally weak management. ACE decided that only larger organisations were eligible because they realised that this would involve less work and also save the embarassment of yet more piss poor Lottery funded capital projects closing. So the list of shame (in the visual arts) runs as follows:

£116,000 to Ikon
“Ikon has suffered a significant drop in earned income as a result of the recession which put the programme at risk. The funds will also allow the organisation to refurbish the café to generate further income.” Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 1998

£1,200,000 to the ICA
We already wrote about their idiocy. Get your invoices in – they’re about to close!

£630,000 to Modern Art Oxford.
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2002.

£89,937 to Project Art Works.
Ever heared of them? Nope, us neither. Artist-run social work in Hastings apparently: http://www.projectartworks.org/

£370,000 to De La Warr Pavilion
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2002

£92,650 to Newlyn Art Gallery
“to maintain the development of its internationally recognised artistic programme to 2011”. Not sure their programme is recognised locally let alone internationally. Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2006

£1,453,000 to Yorkshire Sculpture Park (or ‘YSP’ as it now likes to be known)
“one of the world’s leading art galleries” apparently. “The award will enable YSP to maintain the quality of its artistic output, education and outreach work over the next two years. It will also enable it to invest in essential buildings and estates maintenance works and income generation projects”. Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2006

£140,000 to Camden Arts Centre
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2004

£170,340 to Project Space Leeds,
“to maintain the quality of its artistic exhibitions and activities” oh dear.

£155,000 to Wysing Arts Centre
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2008.

£136,778 to Cornerhouse
So much to answer for…

£500,000 to Bluecoat
“To maintain the quality of your artistic output” Yoko Ono? Oh no.
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2008

£264,500 to Grizedale
“To maintain the quality of artistic output”
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2009

£200,000 to Artangel
“To alleviate problems caused by a reduction in Channel 4 investment in future commissions.” A relationship of dubious merit anyhow which was jeopardised by Michael Morris’ iratic, bullying behaviour and that terrible Gormley/ Margate film as much as by anything else.

£233,500 to FACT
“The award will allow the organisation to maintain the the quality of artistic programmes and finance the necessary refurbishment of the shop/café” FUCT more like.
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened in 2003.

£232,000 to The Photographers Gallery.
Where and what is it these days? Anyone been? Does it even exist?

£480.000 to Whitechapel Gallery.
Major lottery funded redevelopment opened a few hours ago.

£594,000 to Nottingham Contemporary Ltd.
Major lottery funded project opened a few minutes ago.

Those rejected are quite amusing also (Spike Island twice and, do my eyes deceive me, Mrs Alex Sainsbury’s publishing hobby, Four Corners)

There were also of course lots of other deserving recipients in other art forms. Sadly even performance poetry has been hit by the economic downturn we read.

Well done to everyone involved you should be very fucking proud.

“Julia Peyton-Jones gives us a quick peek-a-boo”

Sometimes, when things come in to us at CoS we’re baffled, sometimes saddened, often amused, and frequently irritated.
Every now and then, however, we can’t quite fucking believe it. This is one such moment.

We are ‘lost for words’. Let the head explosions commence.
WOW.

Dragging your heels.

After we heartily lauded the fine levels of diversity (and cocktails) at the Ofili party, a slightly different angle on those welcoming arms has drifted in.
Two party-friendly artists, planning on attending the party in drag finery (the biggest false eyelashes that money can buy, dahling) were called up by Victoria Miro’s ‘people’ and politely asked to leave the size ten stilettos at home. The reason? Apparently, they would potentially ‘upset’ the crowd expected at the party…

Rats/Ships/Sinking etcetc

Calum Sutton PR are a sinking ship due to their crazed control freak of a Director and many a top gallery leaving them…so much so that despite handling the Frieze Account during the fair last year Calum Sutton was himself banned from entering the fair.
Detractors include Stuart Shave, and Timothy Taylor, to name a couple.
We also heard that all his top staff have left him; and he felt so threatened by them leaving that he got them their new jobs…

Problems were flagged earlier on last year when a gallery director confided in us that despite employing Sutton they never got invited to any other gallery parties/events, despite the fact he would often also be representing the gallery hosting the party! They too are now considering abandoning the Sutton ship.

Huo’s the new guy?

News just in! HUO should be worried – JPJ has a new puppy.

We’re not sure if this’ll impact on HUO’s role, but we’ve heard that ‘Charlie’ is currently sketching out plans for live-art marathon in the next Pavilion.