YVAN Publishes Untitled #04

Simon Wallis portrayed by Shanaz Gulzar for Untitled #04

YVAN has been successful in winning the commission to edit the last of the four ‘Untitled’ magazines being published in the run-up to the British Art Show.  It’s a 1,000 print run magazine with heavy distribution around the region (focusing particularly on Leeds & West Yorks, of course).  Untitled #04 will be particularly important as it will be available during the run of the British Art Show itself.

We chose Nick Ahad, formerly Arts Editor of Yorkshire Post newspapers and now playwright, film-maker and broadcaster as our guest editor and Paul Miller as our designer.  The theme we have proposed for the magazine is ‘BAS to the Future:  Art in Leeds and the Yorkshire Region after the British Art Show’.   We will ask how Leeds and the wider region can optimise the legacy value of landmark projects and how can it maintain cultural momentum between major events?  Can audiences attending major visual arts events be engaged to become regular cultural consumers?  How can an appetite for cultural consumption be translated into a popular mandate for a local, regional and national visual arts agenda?  In addition, Nick will bring to the table his personal crusade for clarity in writing about art.

YVAN has unique insight: it is a dedicated regional visual arts network and part of the national Contemporary Visual Arts Network.  YVAN’s understanding of the region’s visual arts ecology has recently been informed by Nourish, a commissioned programme of curated conversations with artists and arts professionals across the four sub-regions.

The magazine includes contributions from Simon Wallis, Andrew Dixon, YVAN Chair, Adrian Friedli and one of YVAN’s recent writing bursary holders, Grace Harrison.