It’s graduate-show season at British art colleges, when final-year students share their best work with an audience of family, friends, art-industry folk and people who’ve wandered in to look at the art… Or just to find out if there are any free drinks.
Attending these exhibitions is a rite of passage for art students whether it’s their own work that’s on display or that of people further up the school. Visiting other colleges’ shows is also de rigueur: we aim to see who is doing interesting things, check out the facilities of rival institutions and, hopefully, meet like-minded artists. Critiquing the curation, quality of work and allotted space is part of the experience, as is, if you’re me, feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all and needing a quiet sit down to digest the vast art buffet.
So, end-of-year shows are a big mood. Everything feels festive, imbued with meaning and, as with Christmases past in mediaeval and Tudor times, when the tables of society would briefly turn and a servant could briefly become a master (the Lord of Misrule), so the graduating students for a brief, final hurrah become the most important people in the school.
At my college there’s obviously a sense of pride that comes with seeing our seniors knocking it out of the park, but also because, as I’ve written about before, we helped clear the space, paint the walls and give the place a cool, white backdrop in order for them to do so. I may have gone to check out how some corners I’d taped and painted were holding up (brilliantly), but I also gasped when I saw how the other half of the room had been transformed into a warm, dimly lit space housing sculptures that called to mind the most sacred sites of some ancient religion.
(If you fancy having a look at the City and Guilds of London Art School class of 2024, check out the college’s Instagram. Both of the paintings that I was absolutely obsessed with were bought this week, which I’m thrilled about, although I sorely wish I’d had the readies to buy one of them myself.)
Another tradition at CGLAS (pronounced “see-glass”, which foxed me when I started there, thinking people were talking about soft-edged sea glass washed up on the shore), is that the first and second years put on their own interim show. As is traditional, students are given a bit of money by the college to help towards renting a venue, but after that they’re on their own. Fundraising, location scouting, contract signing, marketing, curation and installation are all done by students without any input from tutors. The second years have the upper hand in that they know the score from the year before, but it also means that they can feel more pressure to make this event successful.
Sign-up sheets, meetings, bake sales and spreadsheets were organised over WhatsApp and - to cut to the chase - the show took place last week. There was pulling together and a remarkable lack of falling apart. I hoped it would go well, and it did, but what I hadn’t foresee was a moment during the afternoon before our private view when I felt a bubble of emotion rise in me. Looking round at the venue, which was being transformed into a gallery, it felt magical.
None of the works on the walls existed a year ago. I barely knew most of these people a year ago. We did this! We called this art into existence. We took the responsibility to put on an exhibition seriously and it led to this moment of pride, and this overwhelming feeling of being touched by everyone’s hard work. I’d anticipated a learning experience and I’d thought, loftily, that it would be a jolly good thing for some of my peers to learn a bit more about how the world works. What I hadn’t realised was how much it would teach me about trusting others, about knowing when to step back and when to step up.
*** Weird cat-related art incoming ***
Given that I write a Substack about myself and come from a family of fairly enthusiastic show-offs, it might sound like false modesty to say that I was nervous about sharing what I made for the show. I read an interview with the artist Joe Bloom recently and something he told the interviewer really resonated. “I was terrified because the worst part of making art is having to share it,” he says of his most recent work, in which he “invites strangers walking over London’s bridges to share their thoughts on life through an old-school red telephone, and pairs each recording with an introspective, carefully chosen piece of music” before sharing on his Instagram.
Because it’s one thing to fall in love with an idea and want to spend every waking moment bringing it to life, seeking out the perfect materials to honour it and cherishing it as it grows. It’s another to stand in a gallery next to a soft sculpture of a bald cat in a pram watching WTF pass wordlessly over people’s faces. I did my best to explain the thinking behind Familial, which consists of a small, wrinkled Sphynx in a 1980s pram I’d bought from a lovely lady in Pinner, accompanied by motion-activated audio of a creaking lullaby and set next to two tiny oil paintings, one of me cradling the cat, the other of my version of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Madonna and Child but with less child and more cat.
I was, I explained, exploring themes of repulsion and attraction, childlessness, vulnerability and female stereotypes. Some people found the cat sculpture creepy, others poignant, others cute. I’ve no doubt others didn’t think much of it at all. But it existed, and I shared it. I showed my paintings, which is a big step as I think I’m pretty rubbish with a brush, especially compared to my talented peers. Above all, I turned up to my practice and I turned up to help set up and be part of the show. And now it’s time for me to have a quiet sit down and digest the experience.
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*** Weird cat bit is over ***
Here’s work exhibited by just a few of my brilliant peers:
Have you had a graduate show of any kind? What’s your favourite memory of putting on a group event? What did you learn about yourself and your fellows? Did you celebrate the end of an academic year in a different way? I’d love to hear about it.
Love this! I am in the 'cute' group. X
Powerful… and yet I still found the little cat cute. ☺️