‘I got offered a gram of cocaine for a painting’: is Slawn art’s latest enfant terrible?
From The Guardian
His critics call him a talentless chancer, but the 23-year-old street artist from Lagos has found success through brand collaborations, Saatchi backing – and manifesting his goal of becoming the ‘biggest artist in the world’
Slawn turns up to our interview in his London studio two hours late and holding his two-week-old son under his arm like a rugby ball. Dressed in a black T-shirt, shorts and work boots, the 23-year-old Nigerian (real name Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale) looks like a well-dressed scaffolder on his lunch break. In actual fact, he’s the art world’s latest, and most in-demand, enfant terrible.
The Lagosian mixes skating’s bravado and street art’s break-the-rules approach and is having a lot of success doing it. He claims he’s already made £1m, and this afternoon – 24 hours before the launch of a show at his new gallery, Saatchi Yates sandwiched between Pall Mall and Mayfair – Slawn has been spending some of it.
Who Will Clinch the U.K.’s Top Art Honor? Inside the Turner Prize Exhibition
From Artnet
The socio-political meets the personal in works by Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur, Pio Abad, and Delaine Le Bas.
The U.K.’s annual Turner Prize exhibition opens at Tate Britain in London on September 25, presenting all four nominated artists to the public before a winner is announced on December 3. If a thematic thread can be woven through the suite of exhibitions by Pio Abad, Jasleen Kaur, Delaine Le Bas, and Claudette Johnson, it must be how each reflects on the ways in which the histories we inherit continue to inform our lives.
Founded in 1984, the Turner Prize once thrived on controversy, stirring up heated debate about the nature of contemporary art while spotlighting future titans like Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, and Steven McQueen. Now in its 40th year, the award is a more low-key affair but continues to recognize important achievements by artists either born or working in Britain.
MFA or Nah? 8 Key Takeaways From a Conference on Art Schools and Residencies
From Artnet
Hundreds of artists and art-world denizens gathered in person and online on September 19 for the conference “In Session: Perspectives on Art School in the 21st Century,” where experts debated the merits of graduate degrees and pulled back the curtain on some of the country’s most prestigious residency programs. It all took place at the Art Students League, the venerable New York school that is soon to mark its 150th birthday and counts among its alumni artists from Pacita Abad, Ai Weiwei, and Romare Bearden to Isamu Noguchi, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Cy Twombly.
The morning’s panel, “Degree or Non-Degree: That’s the Question,” surveyed the same burning issue that the moderator, Artnet News national critic Ben Davis, addressed in the 2016 article “Is Getting an MFA Worth the Price?” With him on stage were professor Doug Ashford of New York’s Cooper Union, School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor Dushko Petrovich Córdova, Brooklyn College professor Patricia Cronin, assistant professor Adama Delphine Fawundu of New York’s Columbia University, and Art Students League director of programming Robert Telenick.
Jean Dubuffet’s Cozy Parisian Studio Hits the Market
From Artnet
The studio was designed in the 1920s by Auguste Perret.
The long-time Paris home of French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet has arrived on the market for €12.5 million ($13.9 million).
In 1945, the artist rented a cozy studio nestled in a cul-de-sac in the 6th arrondissement, a one-time hub of artist studios between Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He would remain there until his death in 1985. It was, Dubuffet felt, an ideal artist’s home, offering him aesthetic pleasure and privacy—the father of the style known as Art Brut received guests only on Thursdays.
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