Bloomberg New Contemporaries at Cornerhouse

Review by Marcelle Holt

Blank Media Collective rocked up in force to one of the most prestigious preview events in the Manchester arts calendar, stretching our complimentary glass of Cornerhouse vino across three floors packed with new and emerging art.

The Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition takes art out of its educational context and into the ‘real world’, showing the best work by art graduates from around the country. This annual group exhibition attempts to highlight the rising stars of the art world and invites us to think about the current art climate, about what’s hot, what’s relevant and what’s good.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that the majority of the work exhibited is selected from MA programmes at the capital’s art schools with just five artists from the provinces out of the 47 selected getting a look in. Is this the London centric art scene in action or are the art schools outside the capital simply not up to scratch?

Opinion was divided amongst Blank Media Collective members as to which were the exhibition’s stand-out pieces but here’s a selection that definitely deserve a viewing:

Rachel Maclean’s ‘Tae Think Again’ is a bonkers video art piece, a giddily grotesque and engaging spin on Scottish heritage. Such is the democracy of social media, the thing is on YouTube so here goes it:

Martina Lindqvist’s isolated islander photographic works ‘Ragskar Island’ Overheard in front of piece “textbook photograph”. This Blank blogger doesn’t know what that means but she thought it was stunning work, in a kind of oppressive, stifling way. [http://bit.ly/WQcm0]

There is a lot of collage work out there and also a lot of ‘book art’ but Jorge de la Garza’s book 1–4 is smashing, unresolved and disorientating. [http://bit.ly/T3avw]

From this Blank blogger’s perspective it was a reet good show – so good she saw it twice! All in all it was a tasty event, nice to see the Manchester art crowd out in force with some very nicely dressed folk too to add a bit of sparkle.

Do go and see it, it’s on at the Cornerhouse until 25th October 2009 before it moves to Foundation, Club Row, London 10th November to 20th December 2009.

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