Arts
Hip-hop graffiti in campus exhibition
A specially commissioned piece of art has been created on
campus, in a live public event, as part of the new Gallery exhibition.
Third-Decade Crew painted a graffiti-inspired image as part of the
launch of Pieces: An Exploration of Hip-Hop Graffiti, the first of
three student-curated exhibitions to appear at the Gallery this term.
The exhibition, which will be at the Gallery until 11 May, offers an
historical and social analysis of the hip-hop graffiti scene as a cultural
movement in New York City in the 1980s and present-day England.
Amy Caiger, one of the MA Gallery Studies students who has put together
the exhibition, explained: ‘Graffiti represents the human desire and need
for communication by the use of one of the most universal and oldest
communicative acts: drawing. It is a cultural daily life object but is not
very well understood by those outside the graffiti community.’
Dark Daze, Graffiti by Aroe, 2005
Pieces includes paintings, sculpture and photographs, all of
which explore how the graffiti hip-hop culture has moved from a private
street world to a more public commercialised one while retaining its
transgressive nature. The exhibition deals with hip-hop graffiti as a
human need for expression and its impact on contemporary culture.
The show includes works by Cel, Martha Cooper, Dark Daze, Steam, Third
Decade Crew and WildEye.
Pieces: An Exploration of Hip-Hop Graffiti will be at the
Gallery until 11 May. Admission is free and opening times are as follows:
Monday to Friday 11am-5pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm.
Gallery visitors increase
Visitor numbers at the University’s Gallery have risen
dramatically thanks to additional funding for outreach and educational
activities.
Visitors to the campus-based gallery have risen 20 per cent over the
last two years largely due to increased awareness within the local
community. The Gallery’s Director, Jessica Kenny, believes the increase in
awareness is a result of an expansion of community-based events which have
been made possible by grants from external bodies.
The Gallery won its first external grant in 2003 when the Arts Council,
Essex County Council and Colchester Borough Council supported the James
Luna exhibition. Jessica explained: ‘Winning those grants really boosted
our confidence and now we apply for funds whenever we can. We have not
been turned down yet.’ In the last three years, grants have doubled the
Gallery’s programming budget.
‘Funds are used to create tailor-made activities specific to a
particular school, its curriculum and its children. Quite often we take
exhibitions and activities into schools, although sometimes they come to
us. Alternatively we place an artist-in-residence at a school to work with
children on themes connected to an exhibition.’
External grants have also been used to fund work with community groups,
such the Hythe Community Centre where the Gallery hosted Day of the Dead
workshops for 8 to 12 year olds, as part of the Kahlo’s Contemporaries
exhibition. Chris Dobrowolski, who exhibited in the Gallery last term,
will be leading ‘your world in a box’ workshops there in May.
Jessica added: ‘The impact on visitor figures has been great. However,
it is getting harder to gain funding from our current funding streams,
every time we apply for a grant, we have to prove that we have built on
previous successes.’
Surrealism show
Art History and Theory’s Professor Dawn Ades has co-curated
a new surrealism exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.
Undercover Surrealism: Picasso, Miro, Masson and the Vision of
Georges Bataille, which opens at the London gallery on 11 May, focuses
on the work and ideas of Georges Bataille, self-styled ‘enemy within’
Surrealism, expressed through his Paris-based magazine Documents.
The exhibition will feature over 200 objects drawn from the pages of
the magazine including paintings, drawings and sculpture by various
artists including Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Writing by Bataille and
others will also be on show as well as original films.
Undercover Surrealism will be at the Hayward Gallery from 11
May to 30 July.
Also in the printed April edition of Wyvern:
- firstsite show explores home
- Pratchett performance electrifying: review of Mort
- Refreshingly frank: review of The Vagina Monologues
