New Modes of Art Writing

Art Writing and New Media Outlets in the North

Thursday 18 May 2017

9am 6pm

Although the academic thesis or journal is seen as the main output of writing for PhD
students, there is a wealth of opportunity in arts journalism to explore different modes
of writing and feed academic research into the arts ecology. While many of the
bigger, glossier art publications embrace the homogenized, beautified vision of
contemporary art as a global brand, there is a platform of smaller, more
independently-minded magazines and journals. These smaller, independent journals
offer what American critic Gwen Allen describes as, potential opportunities for self
reflexivity and critical distance that may help mediate our relationship to
globalisations pervasive effects.

In the north, some of the most interesting sites for reflection and distance on
contemporary art originate in new media outlets. In recent years these have
appeared online, enabling many of them to flourish outside London, the traditional
base for art and media funding and administration alike. These new media outlets
are spaces where art and writing meet, and provide an avenue in which to
disseminate your critical reflections on art and humanities to a wider audience.

This event will involve presentations and workshops from active people and
publishing platforms in the North, with a focus on skill development and career
opportunities in arts journalism. The aim is to entice debate around the
characteristics and role of art writing in relation to wider readership, the current
political and economic climate and the changing conditions of publishing in the
North. As well as, explore ideas of experimental writing within and through these
publishing platforms, and discuss potential collaborations between artists and
writers. By bringing researchers, journalists and publishers together, the aim is to
increase cross-fertilization of ideas and build networks of those interested in the
space of art and writing. Event two will relate by drawing on alternative modes of art
writing within academia.

Funded by the AHRC NWCDTP.

Conference Schedule

0900-10.00 Coffee and Registration

10.00-10.30 EMMA FRY: On Being Curious

10.40-11.10 LAURA ROBERTSON AND MIKE PINNINGTON OF THE DOUBLE NEGATIVE:

Masterclass Writing For the Audience

11.15-11.30 Break

11.30-12.00 GWEN ALLEN In Conversation with Bob Dickinson (Recorded via Skype)

12.00-12.30 MICHAEL HOWARD

12.30-13.30 Lunch

13.30-14.00 MICHAEL BUTTERWORTH AND LARA EGGLETON of Corridor 8

14.10-14.40 POLLY CHECKLAND HARDING Art Writing For Publication: An Insiders

Guide

14.45-15.00 Break

15.00-15.30 PANEL/DEBATE (participants TBC): Art Writing in the North

15.30-16.00 TONY TREHY: Presentation and Performance

16.00-16.30 Performance TBC

16.30 WINE RECEPTION

http://newmodesofartwriting.harts.online/about/
PARTICIPANTS

EMMA FRY

Biography:

Emma Fry is a freelance project manager, producer and arts partnership consultant
with nine years experience of working in the arts and cultural sectors in the North
West and South East. Clients currently include Contemporary Visual Arts Network
North West and Heart of Glass. Emma was previously Head of Learning at MK Gallery
(2010 2014) and Engagement Manager at Cornerhouse (2008 2010) holding
strategic responsibility for education and participation programmes across film and
visual arts. Emma was awarded a PhD in 2008 from Manchester Metropolitan
University.

PRESENTATION SUMMARY

On Being Curious

Emma will discuss #writecritical, a cross-regional, multi-partnership critical writing

talent development programme delivered by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network
North West (CVAN NW) between 2014 and 2016. Funded by Arts Council England,
the programme supported the development of over 20 emerging and mid-career
writers from across the region and led to the publication of On Being Curious: New
Critical Writing on Contemporary Art From the North-West of England. Presented as a
brief case study, this talk will consider #writecriticals key achievements and assess its
impact on partners and participants.

THE DOUBLE NEGATIVE - LAURA ROBERTSON AND MIKE PINNINGTON

Mike Pinnington and Laura Robertson co-founded arts criticism platform The Double
Negative in 2011; pooling experience in journalism, independent art spaces and
widening participation to respond to art scenes in Liverpool and the wider North of
England. Robertson is now Editor-in-Chief, alongside working as a Lecturer in Visual
Arts at the University of Salford and guest lecturing at art schools across the UK.
Pinnington is Content Editor at Tate Liverpool. Both write for international publications
including Frieze, Art Monthly, ArtReview, a-n, and The Art Newspaper.

PRESENTATION SUMMARY:

Masterclass: Writing For the Audience

Theres nothing worse than feeling like you dont belong. Art galleries can be
intimidating; institutional spaces where jargon serves to promote not only a deficit in
understanding but also alienation from the arts. The kind of language we use to talk
about artists, artwork and their attendant artistic movements can be the difference
between turning somebody into a regular visitor or somebody who might never
return. Concurrently, newspapers and magazines are ditching permanent art critics
amid decreasing space for critical analysis. Where do audiences and language
intersect, and how? Can we apply fresh thinking to the idea of writing for the
audience that contributes to a healthy, diverse and vibrant arts landscape?
MICHAEL HOWARD

Michael Howard is a Fellow of the Royal Society and taught the History of Art to studio at Manchester School of Art and Design
for over 30 years. He has published widely on European art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, his books include: L. S.
Lowry: A Visionary Artist, The Impressionists by Themselves and Monet, published in association with the Muse Marmottan, Paris.
His most recent publication is Ghislaine Howard: the Human Touch, which was published by MMU in April. In 2004 he worked on
the film Degas and the Dance which won the International Peabody award for best documentary broadcast for that year. He
has curated numerous exhibitions at many venues including the Imperial War Museum North, Manchester Art Gallery and the
Lowry. He is also a practising artist in his own right.

PRESENTATION SUMMARY

The list of inspirational writers on art and related matters who have dared to use the word poetry in discussing the nature of
our activities is surprising. Even more so are those, such as Barthes, Derrida and Bonnefoy, who have discussed the specific
usefulness of Japanese haiku writing techniques in relation to our discipline. This paper will propose how the ideas and
procedures involved in writing haiku can operate as a critical, creative and investigative academic tool for those engaged in
our subject, whatever the specific nature and purpose of the finished text or presentation may be.

GWEN ALLEN

Gwen Allen is Associate Professor at San Francisco State University, where she
specializes in contemporary art, criticism, and visual culture. She writes for
publications including Artforum, Bookforum, Art Papers, Art Journal, and East of
Bourneo. She is the author of Artists' Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art (MIT
Press, 2011).

CORRIDOR 8:

MICHAEL BUTTERWORTH

Michael Butterworth is a UK author, publisher and editor. He was a key part of the UK
New Wave of Science Fiction in the 1960s, contributing fiction to New Worlds and
other publications. He then founded Savoy Books with David Britton, and co-
authored Brittons controversial novel Lord Horror (1989). In 2009 he launched the
contemporary visual art and writing journal, Corridor8. His most recent book is The
Blue Monday Diaries: In the Studio With New Order (2016), a memoir of his time spent
with the band in 1982 whilst recording Blue Monday and Power, Corruption and
Lies. A regular contributor of fiction, fact and poetry to Carter Kaplans annual
anthology Emanations, published by International Authors, he is currently at work on
a new memoir, provisionally titled The Sunshine Island, based on his childhood.

LARA EGGLETON
Lara Eggleton is an art writer and historian based in Leeds, and publishes across
academic and art world contexts. She likes to think about art across time and
cultural spaces, inspiring her blog folly matters andcontemporary art collaborations
such asMedieval helpdesk. Lara is managing editor ofCorridor8and writes forArt
Monthly,The Double Negative, a-n,Doggerland,Axiswebandthis is tomorrow.She is
a visiting lecturer at the University of Manchester and a tutor at Open College of the
Arts.
CORRIDOR 8 PRESENTATION SUMMARY:

Since its conception as a small press literary magazine in the 1960s,Corridorhas

explored the creative and conceptual border zones of writing in the North of
England. Founder Michael Butterworth explains the origins and past incarnations of
the publication, with its roots in speculative science fiction. Lara Eggleton,Corridor8's
managing editor, presents recent developments and future plans, reflecting on the
evolving role and increasingly fluid genre of contemporary art writing.

POLLY CHECKLAND HARDING

Polly Checkland Harding is a Creative Writing PhD student at Manchester

Metropolitan University, Exhibitions Editor at award-winning online arts and culture
magazine Creative Tourist and a freelance journalist. Formerly Editor of Creative
Tourist, she won the Made in Manchester Award for Digital, Media or Creative
Professional of the Year 2016 and was also City Editor for Manchester for WOW247,
an affiliate website of Johnston Press. She was selected from over 100 applicants to
take part in The Double Negative and Liverpool John Moores Universitys Be A Critic
programme, and has been published in a-n News, Aesthetica, The Skinny, TimeOut
Manchester, Corridor8, Manchester Wire, Northern Soul and The Lowrys programmes
for both The Peony Pavilion and Dance: Sampled. She was Guest Reader for Culture
on a Shoestring and has delivered well-received Critical Writing workshops for both
MA Visual Culture students at MMU and the Womens Institute Blogging group.

PRESENTATION SUMMARY:

Art Writing for Publication: An Insiders Guide

The first challenge of getting published as an arts writer is landing a commission

when you havent already been published. This presentation will address this
Catch-22 situation, as well as the other nuts and bolts of getting your name in print,
with tips on pitching, writing style, receiving repeat commissions and getting paid.
Former Editor of award-winning online magazine Creative Tourist, winner of the
Made in Manchester Award for Digital, Media or Creative Professional of the Year
2016 and freelance journalist Polly Checkland Harding outlines a framework for
building a profile as an arts journalist - including an overview of arts magazines in the
North, and what they publish.

TONY TREHY

Tony is Director of Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre, curates and creates art
projects around the world and is a writer of 6 volumes of poetry. He writes criticism
when he is angry or when someone asks him to.
Just as William Carlos Williams brought American speech into the
long tradition of making poetry in English/American literary
usage/language, so Tony Trehy has introduced the lingo/thinking
(style) of mathematics into the poem-containing-history well
emboldened by passionate, personal knowledges of his own - Robert
Grenier.

PRESENTATION/PERFORMANCE SUMMARY
Starting from the imperative that art must be useful, this presentation will focus on
the need for art criticism to be artistically useful also, for it to grasp what it means to
see the world through the artwork it critiques at the moment of its creation.