All Too Human Exhibition: Get Touched By Art: ‘I Want The Paint To Work As Flesh Does’ (So That’s The Secret….Lucien Freud): Let’s Talk About Art In More Places, More Of The Time….

Above Celia Paul’s 1985 painting Family Group, below Paula Rego’s The Dance 1988, Frank Auerbach’s Head of E.O.W(2), E.O.W (1), (1959-1960) Lucien Freud’s Head of Leigh Bowery (1991), all works that take you inside something that the All Too Human Exhibition at Tate Britain, open now until 27th August 2018.

it’s a fantastic contrast to From Ear To Eye at Nottingham Contemporary until Sunday 4th March, The Real DMZ at New Art Exchange until 15th April and powerful new art supporter Syson Gallery is producing its Penny Podcast season as part of The Grand Tour series. 

So lets…make art…let’s observe the world, the detail, the reality that we live. Often art is presented as if it’s a product, an asset:as if it’s one thing (I’ve done that in this blog post really) when I know that art is our shared existences, contested histories, our own bulletins, our news…written, spoken, played, imagined, every day. All we need to realise is the difficulty of finding a space to turn the shocks of the old, old, old world into a place where more people, more of the time can surprise us.

I got a £50 voucher for the brilliant Bonington Art Shop at christmas so I will be making art from my news….watch this space…..below images of the local art shop inside Nottingham Trent University (watch this on value for money in higher education)

The shop opened in 1996 four years after Trent Polytechnic became one of the first new universities.

Above the interior of Bonington’s Art Shop, off Shakespeare St on Dryden, below Bonington Art Gallery   Opening a gallery inside the university was an opportunity offered by a culture where staff could put their plans into action. Look at the way De Montfort opened its own onsite art gallery in 2016. Just wow.

De Montfort has developed their gallery inside the institution while the Bonington gallery inside Trent has enabled the development of many galleries. Both have the vision of wanting to reach more people, more of the time. All these institutions need now are more staff and volunteers at every level that reflect the social, gender and ethnic composition of Nottingham and then they’ll really be energised and even more productive. You ain’t seen nothing yet.