Iain & Andrew Foxall took a trip to Nottingham last week to visit the gallery. Whilst here they also took a look around the various workshops and met with technicians and teaching staff, all in preparation for their ‘Publishing Rooms’ project taking place in the gallery next year in April. Inspiration was found all across the site, here’s a few snaps taken by Andrew during the day…
Bonington Gallery was at the National Theatre yesterday for the launch of ‘Creative Industries – Routes to Finance’, a guide that outlines various funding sources available to the creative industries. In addition to the guide there was also the announcement of the new 40 million pound Edge Creative Enterprize Fund.
Despite this positivity and the increased acknowledgement of the value of culture and the ‘creative industries’ to the national economy, with the government announcing it’s spending review next week it’s still a tense time…
We have some copies of the guide at the gallery if anyone wants to take a look, just drop us a line.
Here’s Ed Vaizey MP making his contribution:
Over the next few weeks we’re going to feature the work of five renowned designers, giving you an introduction to the life and works of the individuals who have helped shape the design world over the last century and inspired the Alan Kitching and Monotype exhibition.
Alan Kitching Collection
Born in Germany in 1914, Frederic Henri Kay Henrion worked in Paris as a textile designer before moving to the UK in 1936 to work on a commission as a poster designer. During World War II, Henrion was employed by the British Ministry of Information and the US Office of War Information. Post-war, he established himself as a poster and exhibition designer, going on to work for companies across Europe and becoming ” the founding father of modern corporate identity in Europe”. Henrion’s work can still be seen today, including logos and identities that he created for KLM, Tate & Lyle and Blue Circle Industries.
Read about the many faces of FHK Henrion over on the Creative Review website.
I would advise young people to look at everything they encounter in a critical light … Then I would urge them at all times to be self-critical.’
The next featured designer from Alan Kitching and Monotype is designer and teacher, Josef Müller-Brockmann.
Alan Kitching Collection
Famed for his instantly recognisable clean-cut designs and use of grid systems, Josef Müller-Brockmann’s work and writing has inspired many throughout the years, including Alan Kitching.
Read an in-depth interview first published in Eye Magazine no. 19 vol 5, 1995, and find out more about the influence of JMB’s work through the accounts of Joanne Meister, a graphic designer who met him whilst studying at University in 1989.
Known for his often playful designs and book covers, Paul Rand was one of the foremost designers in the mid 1900’s. Some of his most famous work (some of which is still used today) includes corporate logo designs for IBM, ABC and UPS. Rand also wrote several books on design theory and lectured at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
As well as designing for several public service agencies and companies such as Guinness, Gillette, KLM and the Post Office, Tom Eckersley also helped to establish the UK’s first undergraduate Graphic Design course in 1945.Take a look through a selection of Eckersley’s poster designs, find out more about his work, and read an interview between Eckersley and Abram Games (another featured Pioneer of the Poster).
Nottingham Art Map represents a collective of visual arts venues, artist-led spaces and galleries from across the city of Nottingham. It offers you a go-to place to get the most out of what Nottingham has to offer in the visual arts scene – all in one easy place!
As well as the interactive web version, you can download the Art Map as a PDF. You’ll also pick up a copy from any of the venues listed, or from numerous cafes and shops across the city. Keep your eyes peeled!
Artist Giorgio Sadotti made a visit to the gallery today to meet the team and start to discuss ideas for his solo exhibition in 2017. Giorgio studied on the Art Foundation and Fine Art programmes at NTU from 1977, so this will be a major anniversary of sorts… We asked Giorgio to text us an image from his journey back to London, this is what he sent (somewhat reminiscent of the work he showed/performed in Speaking Parts at Raven Row earlier this year):
Alan Kitching and Monotype: Celebrating Five Pioneers of the Poster opens in just under 3 week’s time! Ahead of the opening, Alan sat down with LeftLion to discuss the origins of the exhibition, the changes in design over the last century, and what it takes to stand out as a designer – plus much more…
You originally showed this exhibition in 2014, where did the concept come from?
In 2013 I was invited to New York by Monotype and Eye Magazine as part of a week of seminars, talks and things, and Monotype asked me to participate in one of their publications. I told them that I don’t do books but I’d do a series of sheets folded up in to a slip case, and they agreed to that. When I got back to London I had to think of what to do. My girlfriend then was Naomi Games, the daughter of Abram Games, the English poster artist. She had written about her father extensively, and in her latest book the very first sentence said that when he was born in 1914 there were four other designers born in the same time: Paul Rand in America, Josef Müller-Brockmann in Switzerland, Tom Eckersley in Britain, FHK Henrion in Germany. They were all were very influential and important graphic designers, all born in the same year, and they more or less all died around the same time.
So, for the Monotype publication – 2014, when we published this series, it was their centenary – I invented five monograms based on their initials to go on the sheets, and this is where the idea for the exhibition came from. Although they were all graphic designers, they all did very different work and I based the monographs on their style of design. On the other side of the sheets was a little biography, and that’s also part of the exhibition. The rest of the exhibition is the work that these five guys did – posters, books and whatever to show the background of what they did and where they came from, to make more sense of my monograms.
Graphic design, and typography – like all art, goes through fashions. Do you have a favourite period?
Rand, Eckersley and Games and so on, they were artist designers, if you like. And it changed, the whole thing got more commercial, so by the time the sixties arrives, new designers came along. I was brought up in the design of the sixties which was Fletcher Forbes Gill, and Derek Birdsall. They were the hot shot designers when I first came to London – the scene had started to change. Graphic design wasn’t what it is now. The clients were different, they were more of a commodity and used in corporate ways. Now it’s almost come to its conclusion but then it was still in an embryonic stage. There were very individual styles, you could recognise their work, it had a very distinctive touch to it whereas nowadays it’s very difficult to know immediately who’s done something.
Can you pinpoint what it is in a designer/their work that elevates them to something more than the standard?
It is difficult. To go back a bit. The designers I knew – Birdsall, Fletcher, Gill – they were all very well-read people. They were intelligent. They were very smart. They were bright. … You have to have a certain amount of intelligence to do design, you have to be well-versed in all sorts of levels of knowledge. The good designers have got that, they can draw on references – they know about music, literature, all sorts of things which they can pull on and make connections with. This shows in people’s work.
It’s not just a question of being good at visual manipulation of images anymore, you have to understand the background to it all. … An American artist called Ben Shann … did wonderful lettering, he used Hebrew letters and Arabic letters, and all his lettering is kind of wrong. The stress is wrong. It’s all back to front and odd, but very beautifully done. What I’m getting to is, to do something like that, a very refined version of something, you’ve got to know where it’s coming from – you’ve got to know how to do something the correct way before you can do it wrong.
You can read the full interview in the September issue of LeftLion, or download a digital copy of the feature (pdf).
Tom from the gallery attended ‘The University Gallery’ symposium on Friday at the Sluice Art Fair, hosted by NEUSCHLOSS – ‘a group of artists, writers and curators working at or with Northumbria University with specific relation to experimental exhibition or curatorial practices’.
Guest panelists included Gavin Wade (Eastside Projects), Andrea Phillips (Professor of Art and head of Research, Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg) and Prof Matthew Cornford (Head of Fine Art University of Brighton).
The symposium’s quest was to explore the function and role of today’s ‘University Gallery’ by discussing several case studies both past & present, and refer to new research on the subject from Northumbria University.
Although sadly time ran short, the speakers made some very interesting points and this discourse is certainly consistent with the programme/strategic research currently taking place here at Bonington.
Work continues in the gallery with the extension and re-clad of certain walls. Here’s Josh and Bruce fitting sound-dampening plasterboard to the left hand wall…
Work is well underway to extend some of the shorter walls in the gallery to the full ceiling height, along with a few more exciting measures. We feel this will help bring more visual consistency to the space and enhance the presentation of our forthcoming programme. Here’s our good old friend Bruce Asbestos getting to it…
Spatial development and curatorial planning happening concurrently in the gallery, exciting times ahead.
