What Art have I seen?
Michaelangelo Pistoletto at the Serpentine Gallery (and I found the secret door to the Bidoun Library).
10 Rooms: Artists Take Over
Do you recognise this building in Ayr?
Holmston House used to be the Social Work HQ in Ayr, and before that was a purpose built ‘poor house’. It’s up for sale, but is going to be used over the ‘Open Doors’ weekend 3/4 September for a creative intervention – as far as I understand there will be five rooms, one each for artists to hang work, and five rooms, one each for artists to make site-specific installations on the theme ‘Buildings in Ayrshire.’
This isn’t my project, but I did think (making a mental leap) of the Artists’ Rooms and wondered what if Gordon Matta Clark was doing a room? What if Joseph Beuys was doing a room? Michelangelo Pistoletto? Marina Abramovic? (I’ve linked to pictures of the specific works in my mind’s eye).
Please feel free to add your own suggestions/links…
Art + Design Opportunities at NSGH
Creative Scotland: Find out about Art + Design Opportunities at NSGH.
The commissions in the New South Glasgow Hospitals Therapeutic Design and Art Strategy are beginning to be advertised. Ginkgo Projects, who I’m working for on this, together with Brookfield and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are holding an event for artists and designers to find out more.
The event takes place from 5.30-7.30 on Tuesday 19 July at the Pearce Institute, Govan Road, Glasgow.
I’ll be describing the way that Donald Urquhart, Will Marshall and I developed the Strategy around the patient pathway and bringing the landscape into the building. I will outline the projects, but I’m going to focus on skills and competencies – the ability to collaborate closely with architects & landscape architects; to work within the framework of interior design to challenge and develop exciting projects; to engage and persuade the wider team including commissioning managers, hospital staff, clinicians, amongst many others.
The projects have been developed so that they can be tackled from a wide range of practices from the strongly authorial through to the participatory and engaged.
I’ll flesh this out and explain more about the process on the 19th.
Policy intervention renews free University movement
The Copenhagen Free University existed from 2001 to 2007 as a radical pedagogical artistic project. The aim was to reclaim power and undermine the ‘knowledge economy’.
“We wanted to turn the tide. We took power by using the available means: a mattress became a residency, the bedroom a cinema, the living room a meeting space, the workroom an archive, our flat became a university. Opening our private space turned it into a public institution. The Copenhagen Free University was a real collective phantom, hovering.”
The Copenhagen Free University was abolished for the same reasons it was established: it is as important to abolish power as it is to take it.
Recently, members of the Copenhagen Free University received a letter from the Danish Government,
“In December 2010 we received a formal letter from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation telling us that a new law had passed in the parliament that outlawed the existence of the Copenhagen Free University together with all other self-organised and free universities. The letter stated that they were fully aware of the fact that we do not exist any more, but just to make sure they wished to notify us that “In case the Copenhagen Free University should resume its educational activities it would be included under the prohibition in the university law §33″. In 2010 the university law in Denmark was changed, and the term ‘university’ could only be used by institutions authorised by the state. We were told that this was to protect ‘the students from being disappointed’.”
As a result a statement (available here CFU Statement) has been issued,
“We call for everybody to establish their own free universities in their homes or in the workplace, in the square or in the wilderness. All power to the free universities of the future.”
A number of independent radical projects have reposted the statement as an act of solidarity including,
The University for Strategic Optimism
Please repost the statement.
CHRIS FREMANTLE 
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