Free Trade

The catalogue that accompanies the Free Trade project includes historical research; drawings, models and photographs of the gallery installation; previously unpublished archive material, and specially commissioned essays

The idea of Free trade is fundamental to the city of Manchester.

In 1812 the anti-corn law league set out to break the restrictive practices of the aristocratic landowners, and their ability to lobby Parliament to impose import duty on grain. The middle class merchants and manufacturers who advocated Free trade understood that cheap food would mean cheap labour and increased profits. The subsequent triumph of Free trade enabled Manchester to become the largest import/export and distribution centre in England, and subsequently the British Empire. Throughout the mid 19th century the expansion of trade enabled the city to evolve into the second largest centre for commercial banking and joint stock trading; transforming itself from a manufacturer into the centre of a global market-place. Of course, the explosion of trade and extrusion of wealth began to find expression in a different kind of ‘cultural’ capital.

A stunning example of the complex web of financial and cultural exchange in Manchester, and a perfect vehicle by which to trace their movements is the Beatson Blair Bequest. George Beatson Blair was one of three brothers -James, Alexander, and George- who were all partners in a cotton import/export and shipping company. And like other newly wealthy middle class merchants, James and George turned their financial profits into cultural goods.

On George’s death, the executors of the estate estimated the collection to consist of around 30,000 artefacts, of which 5,000 were paintings. The collection filled the five entertaining rooms, twenty bedrooms, offices for staff, bathrooms, attics, halls, landings, staircases, workshops and even the pig-sty’s of the brothers house in Whalley Range. Each room was overflowing. An inventory of 4894 objects exists in the gallery archive, of which around 458 objects were eventually accessioned by the Manchester Gallery.

Free trade is not only a historical event, it is the origin of the forces of globalisation

Through the idea of free trade it's possible to trace how national interests have been superseded by corporate priorities, and cultural goods have moved from being a by-product of economic wealth, to its source. In Manchester for instance manufacturing has been replaced by music and television industries, sport has become business, and museum and gallery visits -linked to tourism – have become beacons of economic regeneration.

Directors Foreword, Virginia Tandy

Free Trade/free art Art Historian Julian Stallabrass

An essay that suggests that the autonomy and supplementary 'freedom' (see Ruskin below, and Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory) of art, masks the violence implicit in Free Trade.

Reflective Practice Artist and writer Dan Smith

With the memorable phrase [.....] 'in other words, the world has taken on the resemblance of Manchester in its era of radical development'. Dan Smith's essay locates the Free Trade project within a wider context of our practice, current 'museum' interventions by artists, and the historical development of Manchester.

Global Markets investment manager Toby Nangle

The scale and complexity of deregulated -read free- financial debt markets, overshadows the entire production and circulation of goods, of the planet. Financial debt, drives free trade and we are all caught within its vortex.

Also features rare lectures previously delivered in Manchester

John Ruskin A Joy Forever; And its Price in the Market.

10th & 13th July 1857.

Ruskin’s extraordinary lecture attempts to build a political economy for art. He suggests that all economies require the wise management of labour, and could easily be divided into three components.

1. applying your labour rationally
2. preserving its produce carefuly
3. distributing its produce seasonably.

With devastating effects, this ideal economy is then laid over the production, storage and distribution of the art of his time; a model that seems unchanged and still relevant today.

And William Morris Art Wealth and Riches

read on 6th March 1883 at a Gathering of the Royal Manchester Institute.

In this brilliant and provocative lecture, writer, craftsman and socialist William Morris challenges the merchants and manufacturers of Manchester. He suggests that Free Trade, and the industrial reproduction of ugly and uneccesary things denies equality, freedom, and happiness for all. Consequently, contemporary art - produced under theses conditions - is nothing but the pretence of art. With uncanny prescience, in this challenging and provocative lecture Morris describes our current confusion; between art and fashion, art and entertainment or art and celebrity.