Retro Techno

'Retro Techno’ celebrated all things Visual Pop. We have some of the hottest art designers and artists in the north looking at the cross pollination of Graphic Design, Art and Rock and Roll. Technology and nostalgia converge right here in The ArtSpace, and, my, what a sight. These are changeling days. Fans download music to MP3 players and then buy LPs to hang on their walls. Doug James of our featured artists especially looks at the tactile experience offered by 12” and 7” vinyl album covers, surely the most eloquent and most missed art form of our dizzyingly mutating epoch. Grafiklee charmed us all with highly popular designs, especially ‘Up York!’

lsquo;Retro Techno’ looked at less social issues than ‘Femininity...’, exploring instead imagery informed by market forces, artwork that mirrors our penchant for entertainment and retail therapy. The opening night was supported by local rockers ‘Death Cigarettes’.

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From The ArtSpace Magazine, Retro Techno issue, April 2006.

The otherwise spartan page furniture of our artzine has been given a makeover of colour and art direction, courtesy of graphic design titans, Mode. That’s not because we’ve come over all Dorothy of Oz (though the thought doth tempt), rather our latest exhibition ‘Techno Retro’ celebrates all things Visual Pop. We have some of the hottest art designers and artists in the north looking at the cross pollination of Graphic Design, Art and Rock and Roll. Technology and nostalgia converge right here in The ArtSpace, and, my, what a sight. These are changeling days. Fans download music to MP3 players and then buy LPs to hang on their walls. Doug James of our featured artists especially looks at the tactile experience offered by 12” and 7” vinyl album covers, surely the most eloquent and most missed art form of our dizzyingly mutating epoch.

 Our ‘Femininity: Sugar, Spice and All Things Nice?’ exhibition garnered national media attention (cheers The Guardian). It was a success in every way. ‘Techno Retro’ looks at less social issues, exploring instead imagery informed by market forces, artwork that mirrors our penchant for entertainment and retail therapy (see page 6 ). Those of you who are stuffy muthas out there are going to hate it.

Whereas you edgy, thirsty, restless hot things are going to love it! There are sure to be other things to sing about – Gillygate, Fibbers, Golden Lion, VJs... let us know what rocks York theartspace@hotmail.co.uk Gig reviews, cafe reviews, gallery reviews – spread the love! Hell yeah.

The consumer does not only consume beer, chips, DVDs and Betty’s tea. Art sells too!

The art police are still grumbling over the validity of the type of work in our latest exhibition. Fine Art and Graphic Design are, for some, two opposing super powers, the Lenin and McCarthy of the visual stage. York with its ornate buildings generates a lot of traditional art, sometimes fine art, sometimes treacly twee tat. The rest of the UK can enjoy shockingly thrilling conceptual installations, but York still bows down to tried and tested paintings. Such work supposedly packs a commercial punch, but these are lean years for the traditional art world, indeed Coney Street is suffering through association, coming 24th in the High Street charts with poppier rivals Leeds and Manchester storming in at higher positions. York and its faithful brotherhood of traditional artists may have to rethink their antiquated stance. Graphic Design can seem relatively radical in this city because it comes from a different mindset, a mindset removed from Vikings and Romans and steam trains. York’s trad artists are at times guilty of over reverence for the city’s charisma and are squeamish about meddling with its modern potential. Too much respect can boil the fun out of art. It’s the same as, say, Noel Gallagher plucking with a pedestrian frown at his guitar strings, or a young man rendered impotent because of his awe for women: over reverence can kill the execution (or the erection in the case of the young man). For true finesse you need a dose of derring do.

Graphic Design, with its breathless aesthetics, its militant insistence on glossy colour palettes, its trigger happy referencing of cinema posters, LP covers, the net, cartoons and fast food logos irritates, sometimes shocks York’s canon of art elder statesmen. But shocking people is a key function of good consumer art. Consumer art should appal some people, yet enchant the person for whom it was made: the consumer.

To hammer home the point that The ArtSpace is ready to march into battle, we’re holding four conceptual experiment nights of installation art, every Friday in April. The final Friday will be open to you, dear reader. Come and watch! Devilishly good crack will be had by all (or nearly all).

Greg McGee, April, 2006