“Have you got a ticket for Martin Creed?”
“Have you ?”
“No”
“No, neither have I”

MARTIN CREED
Central Saint Martins: The Cochrane Theatre
24 November
6.30 pm

SOLD OUT

Read the poster that lined the boards outside Red Lion Square accompanied by a rather cheeky portrait of Creed smiling broadly at his soon to be audience.

It seemed the tickets were as coveted as Golden Tickets to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with hope among students high, that the experience would be equally exciting!

“I hear he is doing a performance of some kind”
“Yeah, he is going to get people to come in and do something on stage”

Conversations lined with vague attempts to guess what was in store for the audience of the fore coming event.

Full of anticipation, The Cochrane Theatre bar was buzzing. The audience filter from the bar to their seats, eagerly awaiting Creed’s arrival onto stage.

(more…)

Photo by Gillian Kalisky

His shoes would not look out of place in a Tim Burton film; the curious yet enchanted creations were once merely an urban myth created by Sex in the City’s Carrie Bradshaw a decade ago, yet now have an affirmed place in every shoe fetishist’s heart. Indeed the ‘shoe sculptor’ is famous for contextualising each shoe – giving a name and history to each and every creation spanning his 30 year career within the industry.

The legend lives on through their creator, Manolo Blahnik. The designer, born in the Canary Islands to a Czech father and Spanish mother, recalls his youth and family home; “Our property had no neighbours apart from my grandfather’s house. It was just bananas, the sea and us….a sort of paradise.” The family often travelled to Paris and Madrid, where his parents ordered clothes from his mother’s favourite couturiers, like Cristobál Balenciaga, and his father’s tailor. Sometimes his mother improvised and she persuaded the local Canary Islands cobbler to teach her how to make Catalan espadrilles from ribbons and laces. Manolo loved to watch her making them. “I’m sure I acquired my interest in shoes genetically or at least through my fingers, when I was allowed to touch them as they were made,” he later claimed. She also subscribed to fashion magazines, such as US Vogue, Glamour and Silhuetos, which would dock at the Canary Islands months after their original publication having been shipped from Cuba and Argentina with the children’s comics.

(more…)

Manolo Blahnik and Tim Blanks

Blahnik was last night speaking to an eager crowd that descended on – and queued round the corner of – Central Saint Martins’ Cochrane Theatre to hear the designer share his shoe insight: heel-less shoes are comfortable – “if you know how to wear them”, said Blahnik. “I love the shape of the foot. Shoes create instant transformation – in a second you walk differently.”

More details on Vogue.com

Do read a review of the evening by CSM student Emma Berg.

Visit:
- The CSM events section
- The CSM Presents playlist on YouTube

Here are two student reviews of our recent CSM Presents: event Isaac Julien

Location:
Before the sold – out, much anticipated Isaac Julien conversation, I’m in the Cochrane Theatre (at the bar)
An overheard conversation:

“So, who’s this interview about?”
“Oh this guy, Isaac Julien who used to go to St. Martins. He’s mostly popular because he’s black, working class and gay” and dyslexic, which I learnt later.

I semi frowned (to myself) in some sort of defence against an allegation which I thought sounded unjust

I abruptly met Adrian Searle, Chief Art Critic at The Guardian, outside the theatre before the interview, I eagerly shook his hand and said, “What is the premise of this interview review?” He coolly replied “You sit down and we talk” – and that’s exactly what we did…

Having been given a brief biographical introduction to Isaac Julien’s career by Professor Anne Tallentire; the theatre fell dark and the audience were plunged into a projected extract from (the single screen version of ‘TEN THOUSAND WAVES’ ) entitled ‘Better Life’

A hypnotic, high contrast calligrapher sweeps a brush across the screen suggesting an unfamiliar character.

The sound of Liverpudlians frantically reporting drowning Chinese Cockle pickers off Morecambe bay.

Cut to China where a camera crew follow a Chinese woman in heels.

A serene Chinese Goddess (Hong Kong Cinema legend Maggie Cheung), in white, floats looking down on an unseen scene.

An extremely sensual collision of actuality footage, broken 180 degree lines and beautifully mythic imagery. Equally powerful, thought provoking and immersive

The audience applaud and the conversation begins –
(more…)

‘Make more with less’ was the title of Tom Karen’s talk at Central Saint Martins last night, a race at high speed through the career of one of the UK’s great product designers.

Karen was in conversation with Stephen Hayward, associate professor, in front of an audience packed into the Cochrane Theatre, seated alongside to a pristine orange Bond Bug, one of his best-loved vehicles from 1970. Also parked casually on the stage was a Raleigh Chopper, and next to Karen a marble run, the toy he designed for Kiddicraft, and which was subsequently copied endlessly.

Karen began by talking about his life in Brno, where his family were well-off and lived in an elegant mansion with 17 servants and a swimming pool at the end of a large garden. In March 1939 all that changed and the family was forced to flee, first to Prague and then, with the start of the Second World War in September that year, to France. In 1942 the family settled in Britain. After the war Karen studied aeronautical design at Loughborough and, after a brief spell working in the industry, joined Central School of Art’s Industrial Design MA. His career as a product and vehicle designer began when Ford came recruiting.

Read the rest of this article on the Blueprint website

Brian Bolland, British comic artist best known for his work on Judge Dredd for 2000AD as well as Batman collaborations with Alan Moore, part 1:

Brian Bolland, part 2:

Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre – The painting of modern life

(more…)

Photo by: Gigi Kalisky

Tom Clark, BA Fine Art student has written the following review of Stolen & Contaminated – the form, the function and the ornament

Providing context and theoretical ‘justification’ for her practice, Vanessa Jackson’s lecture was a wide reaching journey through art history and the continued influence of geometry and system in visual and physical experience.

I approached this lecture somewhat wary of her particular use of phenomenology and abstraction but it was interesting to see how these questions intersected with her continued, and unchanged practice in our over-developed and culturally available contemporary context.
For me, the most interesting aspect of the talk arose out of her ritualistic use of abstraction and geometric form. She noted how, at the beginning of her practice, abstraction seemed to provide a transcendental democracy, balancing the velocity of modernity [1] and ideas in the highly politicised art school of the early 1970s. Now, this seems outmoded and by her own admission ‘somewhat unable’ to fully deal with the current context.
(more…)

Photo by Gigi Alexandra

Anna Reading, 3D, BA (Honours) Fine Art, writes:

Jannis Kounellis, a key figure in the Arte Povera movement, joined Adrian Searle on Monday 26th April in conversation at the Cochrane Theatre, organised by CSM. The discussion explored key works from his career spanning 40 years and their relationship to the broader themes of his practice.

Kounellis’s major new show at Ambika P3 features a monumental K shaped sculpture. Kounellis described a recent visit to China and his reaction to such an abundance of signs and symbols that were undecipherable, that just stood as symbols. Similarly with the K the audience are left wondering about its hidden meaning is, what it signifys. Kounellis however refused to disclose any hidden meaning stating that ‘its just a K’. Searle probed further, noticing, ‘it’s the initial for Kounellis and Kafka’. Kounellis responded, ’oh I never thought of that, there is no intended literary or personal reference.’ Kounellis only revealed that it was the 10th letter of the greek alphabet, suggesting that the K represented a symbol without one clear meaning.
(more…)

Photo by Gigi Kalisky

This review is by BA Graphic Design student Sunny Park: The world of comics resides in everyone’s childhood. 2000 AD, Camelot 3000, Batman, just to name a few. Our very own Brian Bolland, who was a student at the Central School of Art from 1973-4, is the man who drew this world.

Bolland kindly revisited Southampton Row to meet the house full of students who dream of following his footsteps. Unfortunately, his name did not mean much to me as I grew up with Korean and Japanese comic books, however I could not wait to see the face of the man who could sketch such characters as the Joker. The atmosphere loosened as Bolland began the story of his childhood influences and invited the audience to ask questions any time. ‘I loved dinosaurs, it was before superhero comics were really popular, I loved anything with a dinosaur on it,’ he explained. ‘That little boy chose my career for me’, he said, pointing to a photo of his young self. The first question of the day – what seemed to be the most recurring one – was to enquire about the inspiration behind his peculiar characters. ‘It was all in the script,’ he humbly recalled, ‘there wasn’t much time to think about it. As an artist, you’re far more preoccupied by getting lines on paper.’
(more…)

James Ridler’s review of the talk can be found here.