35 & Counting
35 & Counting: Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson
In early February we launched ’35 & Counting’, an exhibition and online auction, marking 35 years of supporting emerging artists.
All proceeds of the online auction, launching on Thursday 16 February (5pm), will support our artist residency programme.
To showcase the 29 artworks generously donated, we have asked each of the artists to remind us about their involvement with the gallery and what a residency means to them.
Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson
Since they started working together in 1994 Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson have been drawn to the ways in which power and authority articulate themselves, to the grammar and rhetoric that surrounds them. They are interested in spectacle and its cultural effects and have made work derived from military and biblical sources, from memorials and the uses of public space and most recently from the legacies of the nuclear and coal industries. The artists live and work in Manchester and Berlin.
“We first showed with Aspex in 2003 when we had a solo show with the gallery. It was a show we toured from Manchester City Art Gallery and Aspex’s involvement helped not only in giving the work a higher profile but also let us develop the show on tour.”
What does a studio/place to work mean to you?
The studio is really the centre of our practice. It so much more than a place, it’s a constantly shifting set of possibilities. It allows for a kind of thinking in space that you can’t replicate in any other setting.
How have funded residencies supported your professional development, and what impact have they had on your work?
We’ve never undertaken a formal residency.