manchester

Free Trade

admin — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:19:20 +0000

Sub-Title

Date of Publication

October 2003

Location

Publisher

Manchester Art Gallery: Manchester

Designer

Anne Odling-Smee

Body

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Trade project includes historical research; drawings, models and photographs of the gallery installation; previously unpublished archive material, and specially commissioned essays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Through the idea of free trade it's possible to trace how national interests have been superseded by corporate priorities, and cultural goods have moved from being a by-product of economic wealth, to its source.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.

Description

ISBN/ASIN

0-901673-61-9

ArtWords Link

Free Trade Spread

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Installation
Free Trade, Manchester 2003

Free Trade Trafford park

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Great Exhibition
Trafford Park, Manchester 2002

Free Trade Model

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Installation planning
Free Trade, Manchester 2003

Free Trade Films

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Film Stills
Free Trade, Manchester 2003

Reflective Practice

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Reflective Practice

Dan Smith's essay for the catalogue of the project Free Trade

The footnotes are missing

Gallery 9 occupies a key position in the newly reopened Manchester Art Gallery. It looks unassuming enough, a room that amounts to little more than an antechamber between the grand staircase leading up from the main entrance and the sumptuously arranged collections of nineteenth-century works that populate the first floor. However, it is inevitably the focus of much of the traffic that passes through the building, a pivotal location on the potential routes that visitors might take. Many - if not most - visitors would pass through Gallery 9, and would probably do so as either the first or last of the galleries that they encountered. Gallery 9 is a point at which the types of experiences made possible within the rest of this museum may be subtly influenced, altered or determined. That museums in general are spaces which frame and condition certain modes of behaviour and experience has already been proposed and much discussed (particularly within the field of Museum Studies). One aspect of this is addressed in an essay by the artist Julian Walker, in which he refers to the fact that some museums will insist that visitorsâ€™ bags be left in a cloakroom. This insistence, he suggests, is not for the convenience of the visitor, but rather an assertion of the importance of objects on display over a visitorâ€™s personal belongings:

Free Trade Cover

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cover
Free Trade, Manchester 2003

Art Wealth and Riches

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Art, Wealth and Riches

By William Morris

A lecture by writer and critic William Morris, was first delivered at a joint conversazione of Manchester Societies at the Royal Institution, Manchester 6th March 1883.This version was redelivered by actor Steve Whitehouse, on the 10th November 2003 as part of Free Trade and is reprinted in the catalogue.

Art, Wealth, and Riches are the words I have written at the head of this paper. Some of you may think that the two latter words, wealth and riches, are tautologous; but I cannot admit it. In truth these are no real synonyms in any language, I mean unless in the case of words borrowed from another tongue; and in the early days of our own language no one would have thought of using the word rich as a synonym for wealthy. He would have understood a wealthy man to mean one who had plentiful livelihood, and a rich man one who had great dominion over his fellow-men. Alexander the Rich, Canute the Rich, Alfred the Rich; these are familiar words enough in the early literature of the North; the adjective would scarcely be used except of a great king or chief, a man pre-eminent above other kings and chiefs. Now, without being a stickler for etymological accuracy, I must say that I think there are cases where modern languages have lost power by confusing two words into one meaning, and that this is one of them. I shall ask your leave therefore to use the words wealth and riches somewhat in the way in which our forefathers did, and to understand wealth as signifying the means of living a decent life, and riches the means for exercising dominion over other people. Thus understood the words are widely different to my mind; yet, indeed, if you say that the difference is but one of degree I must needs admit it; just so it is between the shepherdâ€™s dog and the wolf. Their respective views on the subject of mutton differ only in degree.

Unknown Lady

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Unknown lady
Screen Tests, Manchester

A Joy Forever II

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A Joy Forever (and its place in the Market)

By John Ruskin

Lecture II of A Joy Forever
Extracted from a lecture first delivered at the Manchester Athenaeum, to coincide with the Art Treasures Exhibition, July 10th 1857. This version was recreated by art historian and former actor Paul O'Keefe, on the 26th November 2003 as part of Free Trade and is reprinted in the catalogue.

manchester

Free Trade

Sub-Title

Date of Publication

Location

Publisher

Designer

Body

Description

ISBN/ASIN

ArtWords Link

Related Films

Related Projects

Related Publications

Free Trade Spread

Free Trade Trafford park

Free Trade Model

Free Trade Films

Reflective Practice

Reflective Practice

Free Trade Cover

Art Wealth and Riches

Art, Wealth and Riches

Unknown Lady

A Joy Forever II

A Joy Forever (and its place in the Market)

The Accumulation and Distribution of Art