Art in Ruins was formed in 1984 as 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.]
History and practice
Art in Ruins based in
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions.
Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...
,
London, uses 1960s conceptual art strategies utilized by
Art & Language
Art & Language is a conceptual artists' collaboration that has undergone many changes since it was created in the late 1960s. The group was founded by artists who shared a common desire to combine intellectual ideas and concerns with the creati ...
and
Gilbert and George.
[ 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, 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.
Background
The organisation focuses on a programme of commissioned exhibitions, events, performances and talks.
The gallery occupies the ground level of a ...
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 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
Frank Perrin is a French artist based in Paris who has spent the last ten years exploring the notion of Postcapitalism and compiling a compendium of our contemporary obsessions.
From Joggers, and Yachts to Fashion Shows Postcapitalism is a metap ...
. ''European Guerillas.'' Kanal No 2, April/May 1992DAAD Künstlerprogramm Berlin
DAAD may refer to:
* The German Academic Exchange Service (German ''Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst'')
** DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
* Direct Action Against Drugs
Direct Action Against Drugs was a vigilante group in Northern Ireland t ...
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 Berlin in 1993.
Art in Ruins
Art in Ruins themselves have said: "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
Further reading
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* Article commissioned by Matthew Slotover
Matthew Slotover (born 1968) is an English publisher and entrepreneur. He is co-founder of Frieze, a media and events company, which now includes the Frieze Art Fair, ''frieze'' and Frieze Academy.
Early life
Slotover was born in London and ...
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External links
Art in Ruins
{{DEFAULTSORT:Art in Ruins
British conceptual artists
British contemporary artists
British artist groups and collectives