Global issues and concerns are increasingly on the minds of everyone.

Using a variety of venues as galleries and the city’s sites and streets for projects, Crunchtime2010 offers a snapshot of artists’ responses to the issues of living in the early 21st century.

29th January to 6th February 2010, City of York, UK

Preview: 29th January, 6.30 – 9pm

Preview Venue:
Gallery 1. New schoolhouse Gallery, Peasholme Green, York, England.
Gallery 2. High Petergate will also be open on the night.

Directions:
Gallery 1.From City Centre, short walk down Stonebow till Quilt Museum. Turn into yeard and find us.
Gallery 2. Two minutes walk from York Minster.

Full details here.

Extract from brief sent to artists: When I conceived of the idea of Crunchtime2010 I was thinking of the current financial crisis, consumerism and its effect on society and individual lives. Yet this is not the only issue facing human beings but rather the one currently occupying our attention – how to stimulate growth and get consumers spending and banks lending – this against a background of uncovered greed, financial mismanagement, credit, debt, lifestyle, climate change, celebrity and spectacle, poverty and inequality, rampant consumerism, fragmentation of society, globalisation, pollution etc. All of these are part of a whole that we as individuals try to piece together and make sense of. They represent a network of issues regarding world and societal organisation.

Asking for artists’ responses to the global issues is perhaps a shorthand for how we as artists view what’s going on, what strikes us, what interests us creatively and how we express our experience of living in all this. I was not asking for answers or for artists to tackle the whole thing but to work from the aspects that interest and inspire them. Requesting responses from artists from around the world also creates the possibility of sharing and exchange about life and conditions elsewhere.

The whole event is designed to offer a mirror to the issues we are all face in relation to ‘the how and why of living’. (Robert Hughes)

It’s a snapshot of voices contained in work engaging with how the world and living is at the present time. We also anticipate that this will not necessarily be gloomy but can also cover positives, compassionate responses and possibilities. What we’re after is meaningful, skilful, imaginative and worthwhile artwork in this time of upheaval. It might be oblique, direct, analytical, witty, warm, personal, an alternative world model, highlight important issues, be rooted in the past, be about a single life or everyone’s!. We’re asking artists we think and feel about things and what’s going on, and working with their practices to make art.

Graham Martin, Curator, Crunchtime2010

Exhibition artists: Marco BAGNOLI (Italy) Grace NDIRITU (UK) Sean HILLEN (Ireland) Conrad ATKINSON (UK) George FIKRY (Egypt) Samba FALL (Senegal) Vitantonio RUSSO (Italy) Steingrimur EYFJORD + others (Iceland) Laila SHAWA (Palestine) Nicholas GALANIN (Alaska) Mario Bottinelli MONTADON (Italy) Peter DUNN and Loraine LEESON (UK) Rashad SALIM (Iraq) Guy WOUETE (Cameroon) Lizz TUCKERMAN (UKy) Patrick McGRATH (Puerto Rico) Ruppe KOSELLECK and BRANDSTIFTER (Germany) Beverly NAIDUS (USA) Waldo BIEN (Netherlands) Wild PANSY PRESS (UKy) Abdoulaye Armin KANE (Senegal) Jake ATTREE (UKy) Yan Wang PRESTON (UKy) Mladen MILJANOVIC (Bosnia) Stephen BAILEY (UKy) TAYLOR and WOOD (UKy) Jung-Hua LIU (UKy).
Visiting artists: FREE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, AMSTERDAM (Netherlands) Karl-Heinz JERON (Germany) Graham MARTIN (UKy) Patrick HEALY (Ireland) Clare CHARNLEY (UKy) with Patricia AZEVEDO (Brazil).
Associate Project: Cath FARR (Australia).
Special guest: Lucrezia De Domizio DURINI (Italy) Student of Beuys thought and International Curator.
Curator: Dr. Graham MARTIN

Note – Exhibition artists: Supplying works to show. Visiting artists: Will be in York presenting projects and talks etc. (UKy) indicates artist living or working in Yorkshire.