Highlights from the 2024 CSM Postgraduate Art Show
- Written byKat Newman
- Published date 04 July 2024
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Written by Post-Grad Community Ambassador Kat Newman (MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins 2025)
On display was the culmination of multiple courses: MA Fine Art, MA Art and Science, MA Fine Art: Digital, MA Contemporary Photography, Practices and Philosophies, MRes Art: Exhibition Studies, MRes Art: Moving Image and MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy.
The private view installed at the Central Saint Martins, Kings Cross campus, filled up quickly, visitors wandered with glasses in hand speaking excitedly with one another and flowers were tightly clutched by proud students as family and friends insisted on photographs of the artists next to their work. As a current first year MA Fine Art student at Central Saint Martins, I was eager to celebrate the achievements of my peers and enjoy new artworks. The show had drawn a large crowd, sometimes making it hard to see all the work, but the scale and ambition of the artists shone through, and it was clear this was a very talented group of students.
The showcase was spread over 4 distinct spaces: Lethaby Gallery, Window Gallery, The Street and ground floor studios.
My visit started in The Street, where the work on display was a mix of MA Art and Science. All the works were large: a towering column of used blister packs, a living room on a stage with a lamp/bookshelf with its strangely fleshy innards pulled out, a stirrup style metal chair on stage which you are unsure if you can sit on and many more.
Entering The Street, I was confronted by a swinging animal carcass sculpture and the skeletal hull of a ship. I was particularly taken by theses works. The carcass is accompanied by the large face of a female fighter who beckons the visitor into a gym like set up.
The work by Sandra Zanetti (MA Fine Art), is the outcome of a durational performance where the artist began training as a boxer under an alias, Sandy “Chicago Steel” Barbella, an act inspired by a disillusionment which developed due to a tumultuous relationship. The artist brought the gym to life with a performance during the private view.
The looming ship sculpture flanked the gym set up and is by the artist Joshua Obichere (MA Fine Art). At least 4 metres high, the ship threatened to sail away powered by the large unstretched painting where the sail should have been. The painting depicts multiple black male nudes in various poses with all the eyes whited out and a translucent African wax print motif painted on top.
The artist is critically exploring the colonial history and cultural significance of black masculinity, aiming to challenge its objectification and reshape its narrative.
On the evening of the private view, the ship transformed into a stage as four black male performers, wearing only white shorts, climbed in and around the ship, supported and tenderly embraced on another.
Obichere’s performance, drew a large crowd and visitors stood all the way up the stairs and along the bridge to get a good view. Obichere’s work, Take Me to Freedom, 2024, has been shortlisted for the YourNOVA People’s Choice Award.
The show then makes a right turn into studio spaces, these rooms showcase a mix of work from all postgraduate courses.
I stopped to take a closer look at a microphone hanging above what looked like a large petri-dish filled with liquid. The artwork invited me to gently swing the microphone and, as if my magic, the work began to omit low reverberating sounds every time the microphone swung over the liquid surface. This work is by Wanbo Li (MA Art and Science) as shortlisted of the Maison/0 This Earth prize.
As I continued to weave through the space, I saw an anthropomorphic clay swan and fox having a meal together, a coffin brimming with multi-coloured plushie toy like tentacles, a series of prints made from the microscopic view of an etching plate, a flat screen hung upside down from the ceiling threatening to drop another television on you, two human size tufted asparaguses, and some small and delicate drawings cover an entire wall.
There were so many unusual and creative works in this space thit is hard to mention them all, but I particularly enjoyed Shirin Majid’s work Everything you see here (MA Fine Art Digital). Majid’s installation mixed video, sculpture, painting and textiles in a re-imagining of her studio as a utopia. At first glance the work can seemed twee and girly, but the artist played with texture, scale and modes of display in a way that invited the viewer to engage with and explore nooks and crannies. Ultimately, I enjoyed this work because I found it generous and unexpected.
Exiting the studios, the audience moves through a large corridor which had been transformed to showcase the work of the Central Saint Martins MRes students.
Along the walls, screens, shelves and magazine racks had been installed and running down the middle there were display cases. Objects of research furnish these modes of display, and the viewer is invited to take a closer look.
We are presented with cassettes, books, garlands, photographs, clothing, bagel etc., objects of research all considered important to this year’s MRes graduating cohort. These students take seriously everyday paraphernalia as objects of valid academic study, and this was fun and liberating to see.
At this point, I was becoming overwhelmed by the size of the show. An art school show is bigger and more varied than any other art show you are likely to see. So, after a glass of water, I decided I would leave the private view via an exploration of the work on display in the Lethaby gallery.
The gallery was busy and lively when I arrived, with guests shuffling around the room, stopping momentarily to engage with an artwork. There was a freestanding pair of paper mâché legs and buttocks wearing a thong, Andy Warhol style prints of brain scans, a giant balloon oscillating upwards and downwards above a fan with an eyeball projected onto it and an oil painting of plasticine like characters in what looked like a depiction of Dante’s inferno.
I really liked Munirah Almehri’s video installation Nuclear Winter (MA Contemporary Photography; Practices and Philosophies),which skilfully mixes surfaces, objects, text, scale, and projection to produce a video work which suspends linear time as they re-articulate queer Arab archives as a way to imagine a different world.
Feeling utterly exhausted but happy I said my goodbyes. As my train hurtled along the tracks, my mind mulled over what I had seen and experienced that evening. Concluding I need to see the show again, I promised myself I would go back later that week, there were surely many rich and thought provoking works I missed.
After such an enjoyable evening, I feel proud of my fellow students, their accomplishment and ambition is inspiring and I am excited for my own postgraduate show in a year’s time.
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