Projects ending in 2015 were:
- The Foundling Residency: Research residency award for artist to engage with the work and collections of the Foundling Museum
- Practice 360: Talks programme looking at the intersection between practice and other aspects of an artist’s life
Projects in 2015 carrying into 2016 were:
- AWP Internships: Our annual internship scheme providing funded internships at small scale arts organisations
- Outpost:Monthly studio visits with the Artquest team
- PEER FORUM (Now Artquest Independents): Funding for peer mentoring groups at organisations around London
- BNC Mentors: Annual one to one mentoring for New Contemporaries exhibitors and accompanying public workshops on peer mentoring
- Lifeboat: Studio residency award for UAL Postgraduates post university
- The Workweek Prize: Annual prize awarded during the Art Licks weekend for innovative grass roots projects
- Artquest Rates: Cut price access to facilities for artists at selected Artquest partner organisations
- PRIMER: Online publication to prepare students for working life as an artist after university
One-off projects in 2015 were:
System Failure
Six conversations in 2015 about the relationships between artists, galleries, funders, regeneration, education, and families.
Six stimulating and provocative conversations between art world professionals, including artists, curators, consultants, gallery directors, academics and researchers from November – December 2015 explored core problems in the structure of the art world, and seek to address its contemporary system failure. As well as diagnosing the problems, we aimed to suggest alternative ways that the art world might begin to function, in order to improve the status and earning power of visual artists.
Speakers included:
- Gilane Tawadros, CEO of DACS
- John Kieffer, independent arts consultant
- Duncan Smith, artist and director of ACAVA and the National Federation of Artist Studio Providers
- Kirsten Dunne, senior cultural advisory at the Greater London Authority
- Mark Gubb, artist and Paying Artists Campaign
- Angela Kennedy, artist and Artists Union England
- Ellie Rees, artist
- Lucy Newman Cleeve, director of Man&Eve Projects
- Doug Fishbone, artist and educator
- Soraya Rodriguez, leader of CSM Diploma in Professional Studies
- Kirsty Ogg, director of New Contemporaries
- Marijke Steedman, curator at Create London
The Source: Teaching and learning tools to assist course tutors to deliver professional development sessions for their art students
The New Economy of Art: book
A book on value, patronage and emerging business models in contemporary visual art, co-published by Artquest and DACS
Image courtesy the British Council/Cristiano Corte
The New Economy of Art, edited by Gilane Tawadros of DACS and Russell Martin of Artquest, brings together a range of perspectives on the current economic infrastructure supporting the visual arts in the UK, its impact on individual artists and their capacity to make art. It includes contributions by:
- Louisa Buck, writer and broadcaster
- Alan Freeman, economist
- John Kieffer, writer and arts policy advisor
- Courtney J. Martin, art historian
- Keir McGuinness, arts management consultant
- Lynda Morris, curator and art historian
- Andrea Phillips, Professor of Fine Art, Goldsmiths
- Andrew Wheatley, Director, Cabinet
- Kier McGuinness, art consultant.
As well as articles, the book contains specially commissioned art works by artists Sonia Boyce, Jeremy Deller and Barbara Steveni.
Collectively, the contributors expose the paradox of the UK’s art economy and ultimately, its fragility; where an unregulated art market grows at a rapid rate while individual artists’ capacity to make art is threatened by a vulnerable and precarious income.
The book was launched at the House of Commons in December 2014 at an event attended by MPs and senior art world representatives to discuss artists incomes and working conditions.
The New Economy of Art: debates
To deepen discussion around the issues raised by the book, Artquest and DACS organised a series of three debates and talks from December 2014 to April 2015.