a
-
n
the
artists
information
company
v
40
signpost
Q&A: KEVIN HUNT oN ARTIST-LED ACTIVITY
you graduated from north Wales
School of Art in 2005 and not long
after that you became involved in
The royal Standard. Why did you
decide to get involved in an artist-
led initiative of this kind, and what
benefits has it brought your practice?
After graduating I planned to move
back home to Liverpool temporarily
– eight years later, I’m still here.
Initially, I was just looking for a studio,
somewhere to continue to make work.
After a few false starts I heard of this
new space being set up in an old pub
in Toxteth by four recent JMU graduates
– I was one of the first artists to take
on a studio there early in 2006. After
a year or so in that building we had to
move out, and a decision was made to
evolve the organisation, appointing a
new team of directors (of which I was
one) to maintain its continuation and
move it forward. Double its original
size, The Royal Standard re-opened in
the summer of 2008 in the building it’s
still in today.
We all realised pretty quickly that
together The Royal Standard was
greater than the sum of its parts, and
its potential became enormous. We
secured Arts Council England funding
for a two-year programme, recruited
around 20 new studio members and
aimed high, programming exhibitions
and events. Eventually opportunities
came our way we would never have
dreamt of as a team of fairly recent
graduates. This process continues
today, with a rolling directorship
modelled roughly on other successful
artist-led spaces around the UK, and
The Royal Standard continues to
evolve and grow, recently expanding
to become double the size once
again. The constant change that new
directors brings really excites me.
The Royal Standard has provided me
with a great set of peers – artists,
curators, writers and those that run
galleries around the UK, who have
subsequently become friends and
collaborators over the years. This, out
of all the benefits being involved in
The Royal Standard has brought me, is
the thing I value most.
Do you have any advice for graduates
considering setting up their own
artist-led space?
I’d say be brave, ambitious and
take big risks. The Royal Standard
definitely wouldn’t be around today
if none of us had taken any risks. We
had no idea how to write a funding
application or secure a lease on a
building but we all had a great desire
to make things happen, to make this
work – and it paid off.
It’s frustrating that in a city like
Liverpool, despite all its cultural
caché, there aren’t more artist-led
spaces. This kind of activity seems
to come in waves, and often needs
a stimulus to spark it into motion.
With The Royal Standard, part of that
stimulus was an understanding of
the need for something to fill a gap
between all the hefty public galleries,
museums and institutions in the city
(the highest concentration in any
city in the UK outside London) and
recent graduate activity. At that time
there really was nothing on the level
that The Royal Standard continues
to position itself at, so my advice
would also be to do something that
is necessary, that matters, that is
urgently needed – you know, if you
build it they will come.
cAvE art fair in Autumn 2012 was
an amazing artist-led thing you
instigated. From the outside, it
looked like an enormous amount of
work and quite a risky project. Was
it?
I suppose my involvement with The
Royal Standard has given me a very
‘can do’ attitude to things as an artist,
and I honestly believe that if you are
passionate enough about a project,
about making things happen, you can
make it a reality. CAVE came out of
that ethos, working alongside fellow
Royal Standard studio member Flis
Mitchell.
CAVE was enormous in every sense;
we were propelling the idea of an
artist-led art fair as far as we could,
to see what would happen if nothing
else. Several other Biennial festivals
around the world have some kind of
commercial activity happen during
their opening weekend, so that
visitors to the festival and the city
can not only see great art but invest
in it. It makes complete sense, and
is illogical that until now Liverpool
Kevin Hunt:, Cave Art Fair, Liverpool 2012.
Kevin Hunt,
Deadpan
exhibition installation
view, The Royal Standard Liverpool 2010.