Joshua Richard Compston (1 June 1970 – 5 March 1996) was a London curator whose company Factual Nonsense was closely associated with the emergence of the

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Golds ...

(YBAs).

Early life and career beginnings

Compston was born in

Putney Putney () is an affluent district in southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ...

. The son of a judge, he was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford. Encouraged by his parents, Compston became an enthusiastic collector of antiques and ephemera. In his adolescence, he developed a friendship with Sir Peter Blake, and would bring him gifts of found ephemera. Compston studied Art Foundation at

Camberwell School of Art Camberwell College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art and design university in London, England. The college offers further and higher education programmes, including postgraduate and PhD awards. ...

, followed by History of Art at the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. The art collection is known particularly for ...

. At Camberwell, Compston was the contemporary of Darren Coffield, who later became his biographer. At the Courtauld he soon became frustrated that the academic lecturing staff were taking insufficient interest in the work of living artists, and that as a result students were ignorant of major figures in 20th century art. Traditionally, students at the Courtauld had been taught in rooms hung with the masterworks from the history of art borrowed from the affiliated

Courtauld Gallery The Courtauld Gallery () is an art museum in Somerset House, on the Strand, London, Strand in central London. It houses the collection of the Samuel Courtauld Trust and operates as an integral part of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The Court ...

. Taking advantage of a relocation of the school to new premises in Somerset House, and newly empty walls in seminar rooms, he leveraged the Courtauld into exhibiting the work of contemporary painters on long-term temporary loan as 'The East Wing Collection' – a practice which continues to this day as 'The East Wing Biennial'. Past exhibitors in the Collection/Biennial include Mel Bochner,

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and art collector. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest ...

Howard Hodgkin Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction. Early life Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, Londo ...

, Michael Landy, Del LaGrace Volcano,

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 ...

Genesis P-Orridge Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson; 22 February 1950 – 14 March 2020) was an English singer-songwriter, musician, poet, performance artist, visual artist, and occultist who rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmi ...

and

Martha Rosler Martha Rosler (born 1943) is an American artist. She is a conceptual artist who works in photography and photo text, video art, video, installation art, installation, sculpture, site-specific art, site-specific and performance art, performance, a ...

. He graduated from the Courtauld in 1992. At this time, he was associated with the American gallerist Maureen Paley. Joshua Compston first worked in commercial galleries when he became David Taborn's agent, curating Taborn's show at Gallery 202, Notting Hill Gate in 198

Joshua Compston's initial exposure to pre YBA Shoreditch happened partly by accident, due to an infatuation with a daughter of writer Jocasta Innes and whose Spitalfields kitchen became a late night meeting point for Compston,

Will Hodgkinson Will Hodgkinson is a journalist and author from London (born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne), England. He is the chief rock and pop critic for ''The Times'' newspaper and contributes to ''Mojo (magazine), Mojo'' magazine. He has written for ''The Guardian ...

and many other creatives. This in turn led to renting a room at the next door house of Architect Sir Richard MacCormac.

Factual Nonsense

In 1993, he opened a gallery at 44a Charlotte Road,

Shoreditch Shoreditch is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Hackney alongside neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets, which are also perceived as part of the area due to historic ecclesiastical links. Shoreditch lies just north ...

, the first gallery to open in what was then a slightly run-down part of east London. European

Dadaist Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

manifestos, 20th century propaganda and the

Arts and Crafts Movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

were influences in his creation of the Factual Nonsense brand and concept of social philosophy. The name of the gallery and art movement was taken from the title of a painting 'Factual Nonsense' by David Taborn, whose work 'A Guide for the Perplexed' was also used by Compston as the title for the gallery inaugural exhibition. As well as working with many of the artists of the

YBA YBA or yba can refer to a number of things: * Young British Artists, a movement of British artists in the 1980s and 1990s * Yala language, a language spoken in Ogoja, Nigeria, by ISO 639 code * Young Buddhist Association, an association of Bud ...

movement, including

Gavin Turk Gavin Turk (born 1967) is a British artist from Guildford in Surrey, and was considered to be one of the Young British Artists. Turk's oeuvre deals with issues of authenticity and identity, engaged with modernist and avant-garde debates surround ...

Tracey Emin Dame Tracey Karima Emin (; born 3 July 1963) is an English artist known for autobiographical and confessional artwork. She produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, Neon lighting, neon text ...

, Sarah Lucas,

Angus Fairhurst Angus Fairhurst (4 October 1966 – 29 March 2008) was an English artist working in installation, photography and video. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs). Life and work Angus Fairhurst was born in Pembury, Kent. Having attende ...

and

, Compston's main collaborator was the printer Thomas Shaw, with whom he created numerous Factual Nonsense posters, prints and other printed matter. Compston organised events in Shoreditch as a part of his deliberate vision: to shape an artistic community and to create an urban regeneration, both of which became his legacy. The events included two summer fetes (''A Fete Worse Than Death''), and a picnic in Hoxton Square (''The Hanging Picnic''). Compston's lasting legacy to Shoreditch was celebrated by a revival of ''A Fete Worse Than Death'' in 2014. His archive is held by the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

Death

In 1996, at the age of 25, Compston died as the result of taking

ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group, a single oxygen atom bonded to two separate carbon atoms, each part of an organyl group (e.g., alkyl or aryl). They have the general formula , where R and R� ...

at his gallery in Charlotte Road, which was also his home. His coffin was painted with a

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

pattern by Gary Hume and Gavin Turk. His funeral was attended by several hundred mourners including leading figures of the London art scene. He is buried at

Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of North Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in P ...

. Compston's tomb, on which he is depicted laid out on his little

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

boat, was carved from Portland stone by the artist and cartoonist Zebedee Helm.

Published biographies

* Jeremy Cooper – ''No Fun Without U: The Art of Factual Nonsense'', 2000 * Darren Coffield – ''Factual Nonsense: The Art and Death of Joshua Compston'', 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Compston, Joshua 1970 births 1996 deaths Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art British art curators Drug-related deaths in England