UK Art
New UK digital art school provides artist workshops and supplies for NHS mental health units
Service users at mental health units across England will have access to free art materials under a new initiative established by the UK charity Hospital Rooms. The three-year Digital Art School project will also include free monthly, artist-led workshops available to watch live or on demand.
Participating artists include Abbas Zahedi, Dolly Sen, Giles Deacon, José Parlá, Ken Nwadiogbu, Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Sarah Dwyer, and Sutapa Biswas. Each inpatient site will also receive a bespoke materials box designed by Parlá and filled with art supplies donated by Winsor & Newton.
An attraction near York is set to be the first in the country to host a “remarkable” new art exhibition.
‘The Botanical World of Mary Delany’ opens on Tuesday, September 10, in the National Trust’s Beningbrough Hall, near York.
Beningbrough Hall is the first venue in the United Kingdom to host this international touring exhibition, presented in partnership with the British Museum. The art will be honouring creative women, including specially commissioned sculptures by Rebecca Stevenson.
According to a new report, the UK has some of the lowest levels of government spending on the arts in all of Europe.
Titled The State of the Arts, the report by the University of Warwick and the Campaign for the Arts gathers data on funding, education and employment in the arts in the country.
Between 2009 and 2023, there were significant cuts to UK state funding for the arts, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)—the government agency responsible for backing cultural organizations in the UK—reducing its core funding by 18 percent.
Read more: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/uk-arts-spending-low-levels-europe-report-1234712562/
Former employees of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London claim that their dismissals were linked to their pro-Palestine activism. The Cultural Workers Against Genocide (CWAG) alleged last Friday that fourteen ICA staff members were informed of their impending redundancies in March and the group included all employees who had received informal warnings in October for their involvement in drafting and publishing a letter urging the ICA to boycott Israel amidst its war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
According to the Art Newspaper, the letter was published on the ICA website without the management’s authorisation. The CWAG statement also noted that despite the workers’ union pushing for pay cuts at the senior level to mitigate redundancies, only three positions were saved.
Moreover, the statement outlined several demands for the ICA, including severing ties with the law firm Mishcon de Reya, which has close connections to the Israeli state; fully committing to the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel; and divesting from companies that “contribute to or profit from the Israeli occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.”
