To mark the launch of Baldwin Book’s latest publication ‘Joshua Compston: Factual Nonsense and the Rise of the 1990s Young British Artists‘ the Research Forum invites them to host a panel discussion celebrating the release of their publication, which features a foreword by Darren Coffield.
The book explores the life of Courtauld alumnus Joshua Compston, one of the enigmatic visionary figures from London’s 1990s avant-garde scene. Whilst Joshua’s life ended abruptly when he was just 25 years old, his progressive ideas continue to impact the art world in London and beyond. Arguably there is no other contemporary of his era that has had such a profound and ongoing influence on art education in this country.
Joshua’s unconventional projects, dynamic public events, happenings, and art exhibitions blurred the boundaries between art, marketing, design, fashion, public relations and urbanism in a way quite unlike any of his contemporaries. Joshua’s uncanny ability to bring together the eclectic artistic voices that later became known as the Young British Artists (YBAs) cannot be underestimated; helping to provide many with innovative platforms of expression to amplify their voices whilst opening previously unseen avenues for unconstrained experimentation.
About Baldwin:
Baldwin is a leading London-based gallery specialising in 20th Century and Contemporary works of art.
Organised by Sarah Wilson, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Courtauld.
Speaker biographies
Darren Coffield (b. 1969, London) studied at Goldsmiths College, Camberwell School of Art and the Slade School of Art in London where he received his Bachelor of Fine Art in 1993.Coffield has exhibited widely in the company of many leading artists including Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin, Patrick Caulfield and Gilbert and George at venues ranging from The Courtauld Institute, Somerset House to Voloshin Museum, Crimea. His work can be found in collections around the world. In 2003 his controversial portrait of Ivan Massow, former chairman of the ICA in full fox hunting costume was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Portraits of George Galloway and Molly Parkin (NPG, 2010) followed, and most recently a depiction of former Miners Union leader Arthur Scargill made entirely from coal dust. In the early nineties Coffield worked with Joshua Compston on the formation of Factual Nonsense – the centre of the emerging Young British Artists scene. He is the author of three cult books, Factual Nonsense: The art and Death of Joshua Compston, Tales From the Colony Room: Soho’s Lost Bohemia and Queens of Bohemia and Other Miss-Fits. In 2014, Darren Coffield was specially selected by the jurors of 100 Painters of Tomorrow as an artist who has made a significant contribution to the painting scene today.
Sarah Wilson is Profesor of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Courtauld. She was closely connected to Joshua Compston in his student days, when essays were handwritten: his particularly inky. She encouraged him to set up the East Wing Collection, and was the staff contact for now historic iterations of the EWC. Joshua’s formation of Factual Nonsense was inspired by Courtauld modernist teachings on Futurism, Dada, Surrealism. The vibrant interaction with the contemporary art world, a hallmark of so much Courtauld teaching was expanded at Somerset House, enriched by the EWC and continued by its VS1 iteration, which honours Joshua at Vernon Square. Sarah Wilson is known as an art writer, curator and expert on postwar Paris, and its extensions to Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Her books include Picasso, Marx and Socialist Realism in France, 2013, and The Visual World of French Theory 1: Figurations (French edition 2018) whose sequel is in preparation.
