EASTinternational, often shortened to EAST, was an annual open-submission exhibition selected by invited guests – artists, critics, museum directors and gallerists – that occurred in Norwich University College of the Arts between July and August from 1991 to 2009. Organised by Lynda Morris, devised with artist-educator Manuel Chetcuti, it formed a central part of the Norwich Gallery programme where Morris was curator from 1980–2007. EAST took place in the nineteenth-century art school studios and hallways in the summer months after the degree shows ended, in the Norwich Gallery space, and, occasionally, in off-site public locations around the city of Norwich. Known initially as EAST National Open Art Exhibition, when it began in 1991 the name alluded to the art school’s regional geographical position in the east of England and, as Morris later recalled, the end of the bipolar western order augured by the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

in 1989 – the opening up of the east.

Selectors

Selectors for each EAST were invited by Lynda Morris (EAST curator) and the EAST steering committee to reflect emerging political, social and artistic trends. The choice of selectors for EAST''international'' was an expression of Morris’s social and professional networks. The selectors, in turn, utilised their social and professional networks. Typically, an artist was invited first to select EAST who, in turn, invited someone. *1991 Alexander Moffat and Andrew Brighton *1992

Helen Chadwick Helen Chadwick (18 May 1953 – 15 March 1996) was a British sculptor, photographer and installation artist. In 1987, she became one of the first women artists to be nominated for the Turner Prize. Chadwick was known for "challenging stereotypic ...

and Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton *1993

David Tremlett David Tremlett (born 13 February 1945 in St Austell, Cornwall) is an English/Swiss sculptor, installation artist and photographer. He lives and works in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, England. He is married to Laure Genillard who runs an art space in Lo ...

and Konrad Fischer *1994

Jan Dibbets Jan Dibbets (born 9 May 1941, in Weert) is an Amsterdam-based Dutch conceptual artist. His work is influenced by mathematics and works mainly with photography. Life and career In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he started as an art teacher at ...

and Rudi Fuchs *1995

Giuseppe Penone Giuseppe Penone (born 3 April 1947, Garessio) is an Italian artist and sculptor, known for his large-scale sculptures of trees. He is interested in the link between man and the natural world.

and Marian Goodman *1996 Richard Long and Roger Ackling *1997 Nicholas Logsdail and

Tacita Dean Tacita Charlotte Dean CBE, RA (born 1965) is a British visual artist who works primarily in film. She was a nominee for the Turner Prize in 1998, won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008. She lives ...

*1998 Alan Charlton and Michel Durand-Dessert *1999

Peter Doig Peter Doig ( ; born 17 April 1959) is a painter of Scottish nationality who has lived and worked between Trinidad, Canada, the USA, Germany and Britain. He settled in Trinidad with his family between 2002 and 2021, when he moved back to London. ...

and

Roy Arden Roy Arden (born 1957) is an artist who is a member of the Vancouver School. He creates sculpture from found objects, oil paintings, graphite drawings and collage, and curates and writes on contemporary art. Career Arden graduated from Emily ...

*2000

Keith Piper (artist) Keith Piper (born 1960) is a British artist, curator, critic and academic. He was a founder member of the groundbreaking BLK Art Group, an association of black British art students, mostly based in the West Midlands region of the UK. Early li ...

and Sebastian Lopez *2001

Mary Kelly (artist) Mary Kelly (born 1941, Fort Dodge, Iowa) is an American conceptual artist, feminist, educator, and writer.Walker, John A''Art and Outrage: Provocation, Controversy and the Avant-garde.'', London: Pluto, 1999 page 83 Kelly has contributed extens ...

and

Peter Wollen Peter Wollen (29 June 1938 – 17 December 2019) was an English film theorist and filmmaker. He studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. Both a political journalist and film theorist, Wollen's ''Signs and Meaning in the Cinema'' (1969) helped ...

*2002

Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an artist born and raised in New York City. One of the central figures in the formation of Conceptual Art in the 1960s, Lawrence Weiner explored the potentials of language as a scu ...

and Jack Wendler *2003 Toby Webster and

Eva Rothschild Eva Rothschild RA (born 1971) is an Irish artist based in London. Eva Rothschild was born in Dublin, Ireland. She received a BA in Fine Art from the University of Ulster, Belfast (1990–93), and an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, Londo ...

*2004

Neo Rauch Neo Rauch (; born 18 April 1960) is a German artist whose paintings mine the intersection of his personal history with the politics of industrial alienation. His work reflects the influence of socialist realism, and owes a debt to Surrealists ...

and Gerd Harry Lybke *2005

Gustav Metzger Gustav Metzger (10 April 1926, Nuremberg – 1 March 2017, London) was a statelessness, stateless artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the ...

*2006

Jeremy Deller Jeremy Deller (born 30 March 1966) is an English people, English conceptual, video and installation artist. Much of Deller's work is Collaboration, collaborative; it has a strong political aspect, in the subjects dealt with and also the Idealiz ...

and Dirk Snauwaert *2007 Matthew Higgs and

Marc Camille Chaimowicz Marc Camille Chaimowicz (25 January 1946 – 23 May 2024) was a French contemporary artist who was based in London. His works are found in the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Victoria and Albert Museum collections. His cross-disciplinary wo ...

*2009 Raster Gallery and Art and Language

EAST award winners

An award of £5,000 is given to an artist chosen by the selectors to help develop their work. *1991 Alexander Guy *1992 Victoria Arney, Naomi Dines *1993 Kenny Hunter *1994 Stephanie Smith *1995 Mary Evans *1996 Jacqueline Mesmaeker *1997 Tomoko Takahashi *1998 Martin McGinn *1999 Lucy McKenzie *2000 Jananne Al-Ani,

Hew Locke Hew Donald Joseph Locke (born 13 October 1959) is a British sculpture, sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton, London. In 2000, he won a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists, Paul Hamlyn Award and the EASTinternational Awar ...

*2001

Zarina Bhimji Zarina Bhimji (born 1963) is a Ugandan Indian photographer, based in London. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007, exhibited at Documenta 11 in 2002, and is represented in the public collections of Tate, the Museum of Contemporary Ar ...

*2002 Adam Blumberg, Clare Iles, Daniel Milohnic/Dirk Paschke, Hiraki Sawa, Jessica Jackson Hutchins *2003 Richard Hughes *2004 Justin Mortimer *2005 Award shared amongst all artists *2006 Jarrett Mitchell, Ruth Ewan *2007 Patricia Esquivias

Critical Reception

Almost every edition of EAST received critical attention, whether in the art press or regional and mainstream national newspapers. William Feaver, art critic for ''

the Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', was an early advocate in 1991, as was Adrian Searle writing on the very last edition in 2009 for the same paper. Aside from sporadic reviews in ''

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

'', ''A-N Magazine'', ''Third Text'' or ''Modern Painters'', ''

Art Monthly ''Art Monthly'' is a magazine of contemporary art founded in 1976 by Jack Wendler and Peter Townsend. It is based in London and has an international scope, although its main focus is on British art. The magazine is published ten times a year ( ...

'', the leading chronicle of British art, ran reviews of almost every edition.

References

External links

* {{coord missing, Norfolk Art exhibitions in the United Kingdom Norwich University of the Arts 1991 establishments in the United Kingdom Recurring events established in 1991 Annual events in the United Kingdom