Art in Ruins is a collaborative interventionist practice in art and architecture, staging exhibitions and publishing texts, by Hannah Vowles and Glyn Banks. Alex Coles. ''Appearances are Against Us'', Art and Text, Los Angeles, July 2000. It was formed in 1984.

History and practice

Art in Ruins, based in

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

, London, uses 1960s conceptual art strategies utilized by

Art & Language Art & Language is an English conceptual artists' collaboration that has undergone many changes since it was created around 1967. The group was founded by artists who shared a common desire to combine intellectual ideas and concerns with the cre ...

and

Gilbert and George Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942) are artists who work together as the collaborative art duo Gilbert & George. They are known for their formal appearance ...

. Works include ''Trust Us'' (1997) and ''We Like You'' (1995). Their reaction to current art is ''"iconoclastic"'' with ''"a sort of supersensitivity to the politics of art."'' They curated the exhibition ''Our Wonderful Culture'' (St George's Crypt, Bloomsbury 1995) and collaborated with

Stewart Home Kevin Llewellyn Callan (born 24 March 1962), better known as Stewart Home, is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. His novels include the non-narrative '' 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess'' (2002 ...

, Ed Baxter, and others on ''Ruins of Glamour, Glamour of Ruins'' (

Chisenhale Gallery Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. The gallery occupies the ground level of a former veneer factory on Chisenhale Road, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, near Victoria Park, To ...

1986) and ''Desire in Ruins'' (Transmission Gallery, Glasgow 1987). Since the early 1990s, Art in Ruins have been satirising self-expression and focusing on art's economic basis. Like

General Idea General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994. As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated ...

and Group Material, ''Art in Ruins'' may be a group "but they are first and foremost a demolition squad whose target is the last vestiges of value........more than a name"'' Art in Ruins ''"is a whole programme." Frank Perrin. ''European Guerillas''. Kanal No 2, April/May 1992 Their work has been exhibited in major cities throughout Europe. They have been Visiting Professors at the

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, Germany. In the second half of the 19th centur ...

. In 1991, Art in Ruins were awarded the DAAD Künstlerprogramm Berlin Stipendium. An exhibition concerning Third World Debt and migration entitled ''Conceptual Debt'' was shown at the DAAD Galerie Berlin pp 56-60. followed by the discursive event on art activism "trap" with Stephan Geene and Büro Bert at

Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art The KW Institute for Contemporary Art (also known as Kunst-Werke) is a contemporary art institution located in Auguststraße 69 in Berlin-Mitte, Germany. Klaus Biesenbach was the founding director of KW; the current director is Emma Enderby. KW ...

Berlin in 1993. Art in Ruins has been in limbo since 2001. This "silence" is the subject of an artist's project and it has also been the subject of two editions of ''Wavelength'' arts programme on the community radio station

Resonance FM Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station specialising in the arts run by the London Musicians' Collective (LMC). The station is staffed by two permanent staff members, including Chief Executive Officer Peter Lance ...

. Their website is a
Art in Ruins
Art in Ruins have said of themselves: "it may be that it is our extremely visible failure to be indexed in the recent history of the dominant culture that is our greatest success."

Notes and references

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Art in Ruins British conceptual artists British contemporary artists British artist groups and collectives

History and practice

Notes and references

Further reading

External links