Glasgow School of Art Degree Show
Visited my old college yesterday. ( I graduated from the Dep of Environmental Art in 2001).
The photographer Harry Benson is about to be made Honorary Professor and there was a private party for him in the Macintosh Room.
The Degree show, always worth a visit is outstanding this year. No point in listing individuals. Just go to the college web site.
The Painting Department is awash with rumours of the extraordinary sums that students have sold their work for. One is reputed to have made £20,000. I chat to another young man who has sold his double light box to a Dubai millionaire for £1,500.
But the students say it puts a lot of pressure on them to commodify their art and one expressed a certain envy at the environmental art students who are not under this same pressure to sell to galleries.
I recall six years ago one tutor telling me when I was about to graduate and I expressed a certain concern over my ability to earn a crust to support my artistic endeavours:”We don't care a toss whether you can earn a living afterwards. That’s not what we are about.”
Times have certainly changed at Glasgow School of Art…
