Degree Shows Guide 2016 Bedwyr Williams / Alistair Hudson / Class of 2016 / Show listings + Artists on their degree shows: Ruth Ewan / George Barber Marianna Simnett / Catherine Bertola / Hardeep Pandhal a-n.co.uk Image: Sam Petherbridge, BA (Hons) Fine Arts, UWE Bristol DEGREE SHOW 2016 18 – 25 JUNE WWW.GSA.AC.UK/DEGREESHOW2016 THE SHOW 4–8 June ���� Art, Design, Film and Journalism UWE Bristol Degree Show City Campus at Arnolfini, Bower Ashton and Spike Island www.uwe.ac.uk/theshow ACE_Degree_Show_Advert_303x221.indd 1 4/12/16 5:43 PM Welcome #andegrees16 1 Take it seriously but don’t worry about they provide an opportunity for it; see it as a chance to experiment, students to think about the audience not an exhibition; don’t just make stuff for their work, and to tackle the www.twitter.com/ that looks like contemporary art, do challenges of display. an_artnews something useful. This year’s guide encompasses a Opinions on degree shows and their wide range of views – from visual art place in art education come thick professionals, practicing artists, and www.facebook.com/ and fast in the 2016 a-n Degree of course 2016’s graduating students ANartistsinfo Shows Guide. themselves. For the artist Bedwyr Williams they’re With listings from over 75 art schools an oddity, a flawed but essential part across the UK and examples of www.instagram.com/ of the art school experience. students’ work from a range of anartistsinfo For mima director and 2015 Turner institutions, it’s also the biggest Prize judge Alistair Hudson they’re guide yet. an institutionalised idea in need of We hope you enjoy it – and please an overhaul. share with us your views and pictures New Art West Midlands curator from this year’s shows, using the 1 Arts University Bournemouth Rachel Bradley, meanwhile, believes hashtag #andegrees16. BA Fine Art degree show, 2015 5 2016 Degree Shows 2016 Degree & Design School of Architecture 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 1616 16 BA (Hons) Creative Advertising Private Views BA (Hons) Design for Exhibition & Museums (by invitation only) BA (Hons) Graphic Design Friday 27th May, 6 – 9pm BA (Hons) Illustration BA (Hons) Interactive Design School of Architecture & Design BA (Hons) Interior Architecture & Design University of Lincoln BA (Hons) Product Design Brayford Pool BArch (Hons) Architecture Lincoln Master of Architecture LN6 7TS 28th May – 10th June 2016, 10am – 4pm Art, Architecture & Design building www.lincoln.ac.uk Contents 09-11 BEDWYR WILLIAMS The Artes Mundi 7 shortlisted artist graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1997. He offers his thoughts on the degree show process and format, urging students to take things seriously – but not too seriously… 13-21 CLASS OF 2016 1 A selection of this year’s cohort in their own words and pictures. Five student artists answer our degree shows’ questionnaire, plus we feature images of work from art schools across the UK. 23-27 DEGREE SHOW THINKING Mima director Alistair Hudson wants art to be useful and that, he believes, means we need a new approach to degree shows. Plus three more visual arts professionals discuss their relationship with graduate shows. 29-33 ARTISTS ON THEIR DEGREE SHOWS Going back over 30 years, eight artists 2 including George Barber, Ruth Ewan and Marianna Simnett recall what the degree show experience meant to them – both then and now. 39-41 ART SCHOOL FOCUS Presented in partnership with Bath School of Art and Design, and The Cass, London. 47-55 LISTINGS A selection of over 75 degree shows across the UK, plus more images of students’ work. 3 57 ONE YEAR ON… Kate Morgan-Clare graduated in 2015 with a BA (Hons) Fine Art from Hereford College of Arts. She remembers a rewarding time of ideas and experimentation. 1 Ruth Ewan, We could have been anything that we wanted to be (red version), 2011 2 Bedwyr Williams, Century Egg, 2015, installation view. Courtesy the artist 3 Plymouth College of Art degree show, 2015 4 Sam Stopford, BA (Hons) Fine Art, Painting and Printmaking, Glasgow School of Art 5 4 5 Alistair Hudson, director, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art 7 Degree Shows 2016 London & Hertfordshire May – July 2016 Degree show 2016 Friday 13 May - Saturday 11 June For more information visit Find out more at derby.ac.uk/a-n headlines.herts.ac.uk DEGREE SHOW th Private View Friday 20 May @ 7pm Show Open: May 21st, 27th & June 1st, 2nd & 3rd 9.30 - 4.00 May 23rd, 24th, 26th 9.30 - 7.30 01554 748201 • Jobs well road campus, Carmarthen, sa31 3hy • www May 25th 9.30 - 5.30 8 A Change of Perspective .colegsirgar.ac.uk • Facebook/Twitter: Carmarthen School of Art 1 FIRST THOUGHTS “Degree shows are this oddity that work for some people and not for others” Bedwyr Williams is an artist known for his surreal sense of humour, his celebration of the outsider, and a deep suspicion of the contemporary art establishment. So what’s his take on degree shows? For my degree at Central Saint about my past, it’s funny, it’s low-tech. Martins in 1997 I was in a group I’m still quite proud of it. with two other artists called Finger In my last year at college I think I de Buffet. We almost had our degrees was on to something with the work I taken off us because we took the walls was doing. We had a great degree show down between our spaces and painted party, we got sponsorship for booze and everything purple. The paint wasn’t my free peanuts from some silly company. It idea; it made all my things look shit! was the best place to be that night... What I got from being part of that I guess students should take the group was the irreverence. We were degree show seriously but they quite cocky – we wound up the other shouldn’t fuck up their time 2 students a little bit. beforehand worrying about the thing The video work I made then was – that’s stupid. You get some students 1 done really quickly in the few weeks worrying in their second year that Bedwyr Williams, The Starry Messenger, 2013, installation view. Courtesy the artist before the show. It’s closer than they’ve got to reach a certain point 2 anything else in that show to what I do to hit their stride in the third year – Bedwyr Williams, Bard Attitude, 2005. Courtesy the artist and Limoncello now; it’s got me in it, it’s got me talking it’s bonkers. Gallery. Copyright the artist 9 Swansea College of Art Summer Shows 2016 20 May - 3 June www.uwtsd.ac.uk/art-design Cerys Thurlow ART & DESIGN GRADUATES PRIVATE VIEW 19 MAY 6 - 9PM OPEN TO PUBLIC 20 - 22 MAY 11 - 5PM AVA BUILDING, UEL DOCKLANDS E16 2RD NEAREST STATION CYPRUS DLR For further information on the UEL BA Fine Art course contact programme leader Alexis Harding: [email protected] 10 1 UWE Bristol Fine Arts degree show preview, 2015 2 Glasgow School of Art degree show 1 preview, 2015. Photo: © mcateer photograph What I always tell students when I do visiting lectures is to see the degree show as a step rather than an end point. Because that’s something that I’m still learning now; all the things that I’m excited about, like doing Venice and GI [Glasgow International] festival, they’re all just steps. There’s this idea that this is it, this is the mother lode; and then, a few weeks later, your show is down, it’s gone. And so I try and get them to think of it as part of a journey. 1 I quite like seeing people coming to the end of [the art school] process. Because on the whole, while the art world who are confident to put less work in is full of fuckers, art college isn’t. and not bombard you. If you can make yourself ring clear, then that’s about as A degree show is probably the good as it’s going to get. I think that’s what hardest place to do a performance. I’m most interested in. Because if you are going to take off your clothes and put an apricot stone up your Degree shows should remain as they arse or whatever, that’s great as part of are, as this oddity that works for a festival or something, but with other some people and not for others. If you people’s parents around, it’s not so great. think of all the other things you could be doing at university, they all end with hired Some students get so wrapped up in gowns and a scroll of paper and stuff. it all that they try and rebel against And whilst you also get that on a fine art the whole idea of the degree show. degree, showing your work in college They end up making some kind of really is much better than dressing up in a futile gesture, like putting their paintings in mortar board. a dark room. Bedwyr Williams graduated from Central Degree shows shouldn’t be hyped Saint Martins with a BA Fine Art in 1997. up so much. This thing of saying ‘the Based in Caernarfon, north Wales, he has fabulous new female artist’, ‘the exciting’ exhibited widely and in 2013 represented this, ‘future greats’ – all these superlatives Wales at the 55th Venice Biennale. He is all the time, it’s unhelpful to talk about shortlisted for the international art prize people in that way.