Feature - a-n The Artists Information Company

An artwork by Kevin Hunt created as part of Signpost that aims to draw attention to some of the most superb activity being facilitated by emerging independent artists and curators right now in the UK.

Over the course of four years, artists, curators and writers were invited to select blogs from the a-n site. Their choices highlights the range and depth of practice discussed on a-n’s artists’ blogging platform at that time.

In 1999 John Carson made a passionate call for a more rigorous approach to arming graduating art students with knowledge of where their work and practice fitted within the wider world and interfaced with audiences. Sarah Rowles, commissioned by a-n to research the state of professional practice provision on BA fine and applied art courses, offers a perspective on the situation now.

Critical commentary and contextualisation of contemporary art exhibitions and events across the UK and beyond. Read, comment and post your own reviews at www.a-n.co.uk/interface. This month Kevin Hunt goes to Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art (GI) and selects reviews from Interface and beyond, giving a taster of the great things going on in the city and across Scotland.

Highlighting a-n’s long-running interests and the wealth of historical knowledge held in our archive.

Here, we profile a selection of courses offering postgraduate level study for artists seeking to develop their practice further within creative, supportive and critically challenging environments.

Artist S Mark Gubb talks to Magazine Coordinator Chris Brown as he prepares the last ever issue of a-n Magazine.

We’re proud of what a-n Magazine has achieved over its thirty-two years. On the occasion of the last print edition we invited many of our collaborators and contributors to help us celebrate and mark this moment by giving us a ‘few words’ – a short testimonial of what a-n means to them. Here, they reflect on our significant role for artists and on the value of a-n Magazine, publications or initiatives.

Front: David Shrigley, What The Hell Are You Doing? originally featured as the cover image to What the Hell Are You Doing?: The Essential David Shrigley, published by Canongate, 2010. Back: David Shrigley, Progress.

A round-up of projects that explore approaches to making and siting art beyond conventional white cube spaces – from travelling fairgrounds and riverboat processions to site-responsive installations and public sculpture.

A-n Magazine May 1998: Increasingly, interdisciplinary or collaborative working processes are being used by artists, both as a means of extending their knowledge and personal experience and to create partnerships in which artists move beyond the close confines of the art world and can more readily address social, political and environmental concerns, we asked six artists, for whom collaborative working is a driving force, to describe their approaches and concerns and to provide some analysis of the issues an questions which have arisen.

Critical commentary and contextualisation of contemporary art exhibitions across the UK and beyond. Guest selected each month from the wealth of user-generated reviews uploaded to Interface. This month’s guest selector is Jeremy Millar. You can read all the reviews in full at www.a-n.co.uk/interface

Kirstie Bevan on Neil Armstrong

Masa Kepic helped instigate a-n’s first live Twitter debate, here she gives an overview of the issues raised.

Jack Hutchinson gets to grips with the latest digital networking tool and asks: how and why should artists be using it?

Flow is a tidemill, a floating building on the River Tyne that generates its own power using a tidal water wheel and houses a range of musical machinery that responds to the river. It is one of the twelve Artists taking the lead’ commissions to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. ~Flow is the brainchild of the artist group Owl Project and producer Ed Carter: To bring their fantastical idea to life required the skills and expertise of a diverse range of professionals, including Nicky Kirk, a chartered architect; Amble Boat Company; and David Willcox, a waterwheel designer. Here David, Ed and Owl Project talk about their experience.

Annie Carpenter, Defying Entropy Attempt #1, sculpture, 2011.

Angela Smith, Canine, gloss, enamel and oil on canvas, 38x38cm, 2011.

Phil Lambert, the illusion of colour and space no 1, 414x517mm, oil on wood, 2011.

Artists talking Online Editor Andrew Bryant looks to the Projects unedited blogs to consider the enduring question: Why be an artist?

Artists Sally Lemsford and Elizabeth Murton reflect on AIR’s first annual members forum, OpenAIR: Effecting Change. Interview by Jack Hutchinson.

Profiling two education programmes that provide a variety of entry points to artistic practice and encourage audience participation via tours, symposia, courses and workshops as well as performances and events.

In April 2010 six young people from North Glasgow were given the unique opportunity to explore life in a completely different way and to interpret what they saw using photography within contemporary art.

Adam James, The Booger Dance

Last month’s announcement that June would be the final copy of a-n Magazine in print has generated some questions which we’re responding to here for the benefit of all readers.