Out of SPACE | Care S1, E4: Looking after the art

Wed 1 Sept 2021

This episode of Out of SPACE’s Care series asks what happens to an artwork after it has been made – from a practical point of view.

Artists are often so focussed on producing art that everything else is put to one side. Other episodes of this podcast look at promoting art but this looks at what happens to an artwork after it leaves the studio. It’s an area that’s rarely talked about and it’s hard to find good practical advice out there on the subject. Generally there is an element of trial and error, or learning after terrible mistakes have already been made.

In the series’ fourth episode, Cathy is in conversation with artist Mimei Thompson and consultant registrar Daniel Smernicki. Together they take a deep dive into how we should care for our artworks, and what happens after they leave the studio. 

Listen to episode 4 here >

Further reading and references  from this episode:

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Host
Cathy Lomax is a London-based artist, the founder of Transition Gallery and the editor of Arty and Garageland magazines. She is currently researching the role of makeup and artifice in the creation of the Hollywood female star image for a PhD at Queen Mary University of London. Cathy’s paintings and installations assimilate the seductive imagery of film, fame and fashion, juxtaposing it with personal narratives and the everyday. Her particular interests are femininity, masquerade and the way that popular culture is constructed, consumed and related to. In 2014 Cathy was an Abbey Painting Fellow at The British School at Rome and in 2016 she won The Contemporary British Painting Prize. Her 2017 solo exhibition The Blind Spot is profiled by Matt Price in The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting. Recent exhibitions include Star Bar, Broadway Cinema, Letchworth Garden City (ongoing), The Immaculate Dream, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London (2019) and Dear Christine, Vane Gallery, Newcastle (and touring) (2019).

Guests
Mimei Thompson has a BA in Fine Art Photography from the Glasgow School of Art, a Fine Art MA from Central St Martins and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. She has been selected for Jerwood Contemporary Painters, Studio Voltaire Open, the Marmite Painting Prize, Exeter Contemporary Open, Creekside Open and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. She has organised numerous group exhibitions, including at the Herbert Read Gallery Canterbury, and at Blyth Gallery and Transition Gallery in London. She has work in a number of public and private collections including Arts Council England and Clare Hall College, Cambridge. Mimei has recently had solo shows at Trade Gallery Nottingham, Queens Park Railway Club Glasgow and Art First Projects London.

Daniel Smernicki is a consultant registrar who works with museums, galleries, collectors and artists to manage the care and logistics of their exhibitions and collections. He was previously Senior Exhibitions Registrar at Tate Modern, and Registrar and Production Manager at Tate Liverpool. In these roles, he worked on major survey exhibitions of Keith Haring, Yves Klein and Egon Schiele, as well as newly commissioned works by Hague Yang, Moon & Jeon and Project Artworks, and the 2016 and 2018 editions of the Liverpool Biennial. Before working at Tate, for 10 years Daniel was Gallery Registrar at Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh where he worked on its programme of gallery exhibitions, offsite projects and international art fairs.

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Out of SPACE is a new podcast series featuring artists from across SPACE’s studios. Artists are in conversation with writers, critics and art professionals, offering a closer look into what happens behind closed studio doors. Out of SPACE is hosted by artist / curator Cathy Lomax. Over the next 8 episodes we will be exploring the theme of care from multiple viewpoints, ranging from artists and parenthood, to caring about the community and about the work itself.