Art 2010

Art 2010

22 December, 2009
by: Tom Jeffreys

Tom Jeffreys asks some of the most influential figures in the London art scene about their predictions for the year ahead.

Illustration © Julie Khan

Two options occur around this time of year: 1. Reminisce leisurely about what took place over the year gone by, or 2. Look forward and attempt to work out what 2010 has in store for us. We, of course, are plumping for the latter, because we’re, like, so dynamic. But the best people to ask about the future of art in London? Why, the very people at the heart of it of course. Artists, critics, gallerists, curators: we’ve approached the best. And from the answers they’ve given, it looks like, in London’s art world at least, 2010 is going to be a year of excitement, innovation and the occasional contradiction. And we’ll all be wearing handkerchiefs. Splendid.

Charles Thomson
Artist and Co-founder of The Stuckists
www.stuckism.com

Critics who have rubbished the substantial achievement of Damien Hirst's paintings in a massive over-reaction to their previous deluded adulation for his vacuous conceptual art will slowly back-peddle until they end up finding an excuse to say that he is a good painter after all.

Billy Childish will gain increasing respect with his forthcoming show at the ICA. The Tate will maintain its inexorable transformation into Alton Towers. Edgeworth Johnstone and Shelley Li will curate at least as many Stuckist shows as they did last year, and Joe Machine will paint even more anguished fellated sailors.

Laura Oldfield Ford
Artist and Activist
www.lauraoldfieldford.com 

The Royal College painting department looks strong this year. I’m really looking forward to their show this May; particularly the work of Majed Aslam, Chris Barr and Tuesday Nesbitt. There's a sense that something interesting is emerging from the ashes of postmodernism. I'm anticipating the emergence of a new militancy in 2010, which will be played out in the streets and through college occupations and wildcat strikes.

I think we'll see an increasing interest in bricolage, flyposting and street interventions triggered by anger over issues like climate change and the continuing carnage in Afghanistan. The work of performance artist, poet and sculptor Robin Bale will articulate this cultural shift.

The architectural historian and cultural theorist Owen Hatherley's new book coming out on Verso is a cause for excitement after the success in 2009 of his book Militant Modernism.

Beverley Knowles
Art Consultant, Curator and Writer
www.beverleyknowles.com

I love predictions. An opportunity to make a complete tit of yourself when it turns out a year from now you couldn’t have been wider of the mark. Still, encouraged by the fact that I couldn’t possibly make a bigger tit of myself than Sebastian Horsley did [in last year’s installment of this feature] I will confess that I have no idea what anybody else will be doing in 2010.

But I will be watching out for … Artists – Helen Carmel Benigson, Kevin Harman and Tom Badley. Galleries – Rokeby. Commentators – JJ. And the word for 2010 – Integrity. Jeff - your 15 minutes is nearly up, please prepare to leave the arena.

Amanda Moss
Artist, Director of Corsica Studios, and Co-Founder of The Elephant Rooms
www.corsicastudios.com 

My prediction for 2010 is connected to fashion attire and I believe that the handkerchief will be making a comeback and we will see a feast of fashionable takes on this must-have item.

Alex Chappel and David C West
Decima Gallery, Hackney Wick
www.decimagallery.com

Decima predict in 2010 that artists Rart and Sete – whose works Bill and Bender have in the past caused massive impact – will be breaking though into the mainstream, as will Dr Adolf Steg whose controversial works have already been heavily endorsed by the more underground press.

Other artists set for a lift in 2010 are Joy Collie with her ASBO series based on the cartoons of Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids, and Eleanor Lindsay Fynn, who took the above picture and was Prince Harry's favourite artist from Decima’s recent Piccadilly exhibition After the Ball. Both Simon Ould and Vicki Gold are also sure to make a big splash this year.

I think we may be seeing more art happening outside of the capital: keep your eye on Jersey… As predicted last year, in Hackney Wick the lunatics have very much taken over the asylum, giving us a damp squib for a so-called ‘festival’ this year. Please let them quit while they are ahead...

Hector Proud
Director of Idea Generation
www.ideageneration.co.uk

Well, if 2009 was the year of the crash, with all and sundry lining up to denounce the contemporary art scene as overblown, overhyped and overvalued, then 2010 will be the year when art forms on the margins take centre stage.

Expect more excitement around Outsider Art (the Museum of Everything wowed the critics in ‘09); craft (fairs like Collect and artists like Grayson Perry leading the charge); photography (A Positive View at Somerset House is going to blow everyone away); and graphic design (Pick Me Up – the first ever graphic design fair in April).
 
We'll inevitably be looking to the East – there’ll be some very interesting collaborations between London and Berlin artists, designers, musicians and filmmakers. Not least, the 'Art of Conversation' project at Idea Generation Gallery in May and the Baghramian/Barlow show at The Serpentine in May/June. The year of Ber-Lon, perhaps? (Apologies.)

Bianca Brigitte Bonomi
Art Critic and Co-Founder of Crunch Festival
www.artfestivalathay.org

In 2010, we’ll see a displacement of celebrity artists. What started with a doomed exhibition at the Wallace Collection will continue with the usurpation of Tracy Emin and her YBA cohorts by edgier figures hunting out social substance amid the sugar of the commercial art world. Increasing dissatisfaction will be channelled into jokes about the scene’s excesses.

We’ll see more art about art, with a focus on appropriated images, styles and forms; self-referential and socially engaged. New York artist William Powhida, recently proclaimed the ‘anti-Koons’, and Bert Rodriguez, whose neon spiral take on Bruce Nauman is titled 'The True Artist Makes Useless Shit for Rich People to Buy', will come to the fore.

Robert Devcic
Director of GV Art
www.gvart.co.uk

I predict there will be a rapid growth of interest in artists collaborating with scientists leading to greater curiosity and knowledge of the arts. Less art fairs telling us what good art is supposed to be. The general public will get wise to some of the current overhyped names in London’s art scene and will investigate new artists in their own way.

GV Art’s Skin show in June will make us all more aware that our skin is our largest organ and that we all feel the same pain: a discourse that will add to the global movement of collective responsibility for our planet and all life forms on earth.

More independent private galleries will close due to lack of support, whilst the big publicly funded institutions will continue to compete at any expense. Post-recession, the contemporary art market will be a more sober, fulfilling, accessible and rewarding experience.

Click here to read Spoonfed’s recommendations of the Top 10 Exhibitions 2010.

Click here to see all London exhibitions.
Click here for things to do in London.

Tom Jeffreys