Wrong sort of art movement

Published: August 11, 2011

IF architecture and vicinity have a direct influence on its occupants, then Central Saint Martins students have a right to be worried about their imminent decant to King’s Cross (Art school move sparks paint protest, July 29).

Previous alumni of CSM are much championed and it is no aesthetic accident that the conditions were austere. Or that the chaos factor of taking field trips to Soho strip clubs and book stores was actively encouraged by tutors. CSM’s seminal moments are endless: the first Sex Pistols performance, the first haute couture by Alexander McQueen.

It is the breaker’s yard for trial and error. But it’s in the decrepitude and lineal surroundings that the fear of failure is not so tangible, and a reminder that no one there has “arrived” just yet. As one student said: “We felt we were better than these halls, and had to work hard to get on out.”

In recent years I have come across many art students picking among the bones of King’s Cross. Sent by tutors who knew the artistic force, albeit dark, of this ground was fast receding.

There is a long list of visionaries who have drawn from this artistic force: William Blake, WB Yeats, Arthur Rimbaud, Aidan Dun, Richard Wentworth, to name a few.

In the past decade many poets, photographers, and artists have gladly accepted sponsorship from Argent developers – continuing for Argent a public relations policy of emasculating all dissenting voices.

What most young students need is a Dostoevsky blizzard blowing through cracks in the window panes. The minimalist symphonies of bursting pipes.

The unwitting new techniques found in the spalling paint on walls. Not as the art school spokesperson quoted in said article: “Some courses will be very pleased not to have to vacate top floors when it rains and can look forward to efficient heating in winter.”

If the work is good enough, adrenalin alone will keep you warm.

Now the Cubits Granary building stretches across the Railway Lands like a sarcophagus.

The high-specification finish will inhibit art practitioners. It will feel closer to an internship at a law firm where the complexities of intellectual copyright will be well-versed.

The final-year shows will surely sell out, bought by nouveau collectors wealthy enough to live in King’s Cross, having paid a premium for the cultural banquet on their doorstep.

A new dawn of professionalism awaits the students and they will have a cross to bear.

There is hope though, with the tentative protests inside the Lethaby building, that the inmates in the new compound may bring King’s Cross back to its disorientating best. That decommissioning a new order may become an unofficial course.
MARK NEWELL
Maiden Lane, NW1