Jill Randall – Tate Project

I spent a lot of time studying an issue of “Aspects” magazine No 24, Autumn 1983 TGA 20042/5/2/6/2 APG., which included reports on student placements at 4 art schools – Newcastle, Bradford, Manchester and Dartington, and the new courses – like Art & Design in Social contexts, which were just springing up.  Being a student myself at the time, I know these courses were not highly regarded  as being ‘ mickey mouse’ and an inferior substitute for a ‘proper’ Fine Art degree course.This was probably snobbery and prejudice? or were they flawed?A lot of these courses seem to involve mural-painting and slightly patronising work with disabled people. This feels recent to me but its already history, borne out by the vintage typefaces and makeshift layouts.

…”Although most art colleges in Britain could probably cite numerous examples of student projects like these, there are only a handful of colleges where such projects are pursued as a matter of policy, within an academic structure that specifically supports them…Clearly, investigation of this area is not new or unique. Twentieth century art history can be viewed as a whole string of attempts to relate to a social need. But the take -up of these attempts within education has been slow. Seemingly, art educators have been happy to settle for the relatively peaceful world of studio-based art and the solitary artist.” From Introduction by Chris Crickmay.

…..Students should not be ignorant of what they purvey in the name of culture  ;nor should they simply assume that the world is just a larger canvas on which to spread themselves. Only a very responsive art strategy can work…..Live project work within art education is a way of raising crucial questions about art in our time. It also proposes a new and constructive relationship between educational institutions and the community at large.

……The best work done with reference to Placement has a very special quality that comes from a close contact with a real setting. It is, we think, more use to a student in their subsequent career than would be a similar studio based experience, because they develop their understanding of art with reference to the world and its needs, rather than in isolation from it.From article “Student Placements at Dartington”, Chris Crickmay.

….(I’d like to think that we’d managed to persuade ‘the system’ to invest in that vital ingredient of NOT KNOWING-something it is prepared to do with the sciences and technology, but not as far as I’m aware has it done so for art.)”article from same issue by Barbara Steveni ‘Artist Placement APG 1966-1983’.

From statement by Stuart Brisley, Studio International article : I like what Stuart writes-he talks good common sense.
“…Environmental work evolved as a challenge to the use of art as a commodity. It validates other relationships between art, people and the artist.Through ceasing to make exclusively marketable work the artist is able to establish a practical economic relationship between himself, the public and his art which, extending into the environment proposes a new relationship between the artist and industry which recognises this problem as part of the larger issue. The understanding that the artist can play a significant role in association with industry, which would inevitably change both the artist’s behaviour and industrial outlook, is critical in terms of using the artists potential as an arbiter of change in both an industrial and social context.
In this way the artist steps back into society as a significant force actually (and symbolically when the immediate effect of the work is isolated in time as an artistic and historical phenomenon) affecting the structure of society by innovating change through his own behaviour as an artist….”    TGA 20042/3/3/8/2 APG.

Great comment by Works Foreman about work of artist on a placement:-

‘what do you mean HE made it?

WE made it.”

‘We’re not against objects if by that word we mean evidences of important occurrences, but its the observations and the events that count, and these are not meaningful except in a context.’  John Latham..”