 |
EAST exhibitions are capable of defining the arrival
of a new generation of artists with new attitudes towards making
art. EAST’s democratic
structure, with no rules of exclusion, allows artists to tell us
what is going on. The selectors’ choice reflects what they
learn from looking at more than 11,000 slides of artists work from
more than 30 countries. The EASTdiscourse held between the selection
and the exhibition opening, brings all the artists together so they
have the same information as the selectors and the curator.
We have spent the last 17 years building the trust of artists in
the fairness and non-exploitative values of EAST. We have had to
overcome criticism of open shows and find ways to attract the best
artists to go in for EAST. In this we have been helped by a magnificent
list of selectors many of who are artists. EAST has reinvigorated
the idea of open submission exhibitions in Britain. The trust of
artists in the democratic structure of an open exhibition has enabled
EAST to become an annual challenge to the expertise of the Contemporary
Art Establishment. Not a bad achievement for a small art school gallery
in a provincial city.
The artists of today have been nurtured on Post-Modern Theory. As
a result history, even art history, is now re emerging. The idea
of the artist as a moral force is reappearing, whether musician,
filmmaker or painter. Only the artists’ idea of moral choice
always challenges accepted morality. Democratic values expressed
simply and directly in the work of artists today, have replaced the
sophisticated confusion of a decade ago. As always changes in an
era appear first in the work of individual artists. What does that
tell us about the times we are living through?
This EAST suggests we are entering a period where
history and documentary are replacing art as fiction. In Eckermann’s
Conversations with Goethe we find the idea that: “All eras
in a state of decline and dissolution are subjective; on the other
hand all progressive eras have an objective tendency.”
|
|
|
EAST
2007 ____________________________________________________ EASTprojects 
