From the AXIS RANT page
Feel free to bark back…

Our new Ranter-in-Residence for February, Shaun Belcher, starts off on a topical, if controversial note, asking ‘has Arts Council England (ACE) failed? Do we really need it anyway?’.

Shaun asks if the lottery years have set ACE up for a fall as we move into tighter financial times and political pressures are heightening.

Respond here:
http://www.axisweb.org/dlForum.aspx?ESSAYID=18075

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JOIN MOOGEE’S CRUSADE AGAINST MEDIOCRITY

http://www.facebook.com/groups.php#/group.php?gid=181984094372

Name:
School of MOOGEE V School of Saatchi
Category:
Entertainment & Arts – Fine arts
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JOIN THIS GROUP IF YOU BELIEVE THIS IS SIMPLY PR FOR SAATCHI NOT ART AND THAT CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE U.K. HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A SUCCESSION OF PR STUNTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CREATORS.

X-FACTOR FOR ART?

Artists bid to catch Saatchi’s eye

(UKPA) – 17 minutes ago

Six hopefuls are aiming to be the next big thing by being granted the tutelage of art world supremo Charles Saatchi in a new TV talent search.

At stake is the chance to be given exposure on the international scene by art industry “kingmaker” Saatchi by featuring in one of his exhibitions.

The virtual unknowns – Suki Chan, Matt Clark, Eugenie Scrase, Saad Qureshi, Ben Lowe, Samuel Zealey – have been whittled down from an initial 12 who will be seen starting the series in the first episode of School Of Saatchi, broadcast on BBC Two.

Despite lending his name to the series and making the final judgment on the winner, publicity-shy Saatchi is not actually seen on screen.

Expert panellists in the show, including Tracey Emin, art collector Frank Cohen and the critic Matthew Collings, helped to advise Saatchi during the selection process

The six artists – chosen for their raw talent and creative edge – will be seen attending a unique art school, established just for them, where over the course of ten weeks they were able to develop their skills.

Collings said: “Opportunities like this do not arise every day and in most people’s lives they never arise. These artists have got to come up with something that’s got to be impressive so there’s a great deal of pressure that Saatchi is putting on them.”

Saatchi will eventually choose one of the artists to exhibit their work at Newspeak: British Art Now, his exhibition at The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Also at stake is a free studio which the winner can use for three years.

(read less)
JOIN THIS GROUP IF YOU BELIEVE THIS IS SIMPLY PR FOR SAATCHI NOT ART AND THAT CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE U.K. HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A SUCCESSION OF PR STUNTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CREATORS.

X-FACTOR FOR ART?

Artists bid to catch Saatchi’s eye

(UKPA) – 17 minutes ago

Six hopefuls are aiming to be the next big thing by being granted the tutelage of art world supremo Charles Saatchi in a new TV talent search.

At stake is the chance to be given exposure on the international scene by art industry… (read more)
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Open: All content is public.

Bloomberg reports that the London art market has fallen 80% in a year and that Sotheby’s and Christie’s sales alongside this year’s Frieze fair will collapse from £107 million to nearer £20 million. In the current climate people are not spending or looking for better value for money which means the Affordable Art Fair will probably de well..

http://www.affordableartfair.co.uk

http://www.friezeartfair.com/

Bloomberg report

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=af38gWeq_1pQ

Twang Scaffold

At Last!

A collaborative regenerative interpretive art solution for urban squares
utilising cross disciplinary theatre, building trades/ schizophrenia and gaffer tape and puppets

Backed by several leading academic institutions, a bloke from Hucknall who runs a scaffold business and a few art students.

‘cutting edge building materials ‘ said The Builder

‘helps people in two minds to make it up’ said Mind Journal (eventually)

Regenerates urban spaces with scaffolding in a subtle almost invisible way….apart from the scaffold’ – Nottingham City Council Arts Department ( ring Mondays only)

‘Tremendous and fab’ Community Arts for The Dispossessed and Afghanistan Council

‘its a bloke hitting a scaffold pole with a brick..that’s not art’ – a philistine member of the public

nottingham CREATIVE BUSINESS awards

It has come to my attention that the Arts Council of England. A glorious body of noble souls are at this time perusing some submissions for a large wad of cash – 12 X £5000,000 – for specific art projects related to the glorious Olympiad of 2012.

Now I thought that every hair-brained, stupid artistic nonsense in the world had been explored..but no..where there’s money there’s crap to reverse the old adage…

An individual has proposed a fake hill somewhere in a Midland City centre…….yes you read rightly..a hill……there being no real, natural or god help us any reshaped urban landscape already available….hills are hard to come by these days…..

On said hill would occur many an artistic event, you name it the application scrapes it up..interventions, installations, finger painting , rap concerts..it is as wonderful a fiesta of all that truly original and beautiful in the U.K. arts scene as any arts officer has ever seen….maybe even a dolphin in an aquarium if the money doesn’t run out?

In yours and my name the infallible Arts Council will build a tawdry heap which no doubt will collapse after construction and how much carbon will be used in constructing this edifice to stupidity???

Enough is enough! That such a stupid piece of self promoting garbage has actually got through the submission process shows the gullibility and fatuous nature of our supposed Council of the Arts…..

I suggest a pressure group to stop this kind of garbage in its tracks before it pays the protagonists mortgages and leaves everybody else bemused and angered….