Professor Nick de Ville
The focus of his research is contemporary art, and its relation to the wider culture. He is interested in arguing for the relation of the work of particular artists to emergent thematics, and discourses. In writing about art he has a particular, on-going interest in the value of painting to a field of practice (visual art) which continues to widen in terms of its means of production, and where painting is in many ways a culturally discredited activity, although responsible for generating many of the concepts by which the values of contemporary art practice are still articulated.
Academic qualifications
1953–62 Abbotsholme School, Staffordshire
1962–63 Dept. of Architecture, Manchester University
1963–65 Dept. of Fine Art, Derby College of Art
1965–69 Dept. of Fine Art, University of Newcastle–upon–Tyne
Academic appointments
1969–71 Full–time Lecturer, Dept. of Fine Art &
Foundation Studies, Derby & District College of Art & Technology
1971–81 Regular part–time teaching, Dept. of Fine Art,
Goldsmiths' College and visiting lecturer at St. Martin's School
of Art, Royal College of Art (Dept. of Printmaking), Derby and District
College of Art, Brighton College of Art
1979–81 Tutor–in–charge – Printmaking Dept.,
Department of Fine Art, Goldsmiths' College
1981–82 Appointed Assistant Course Director, MA Fine Art,
Goldsmiths' College
1982–91 Appointed Course Director, MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths'
College
1987-97 Appointed Head of Department of Art, Goldsmiths'
College
1989 - Appointed Reader in Fine Art of the University of London
1993 - Co-director of Postgraduate Fine Art programmes
1996 - Appointed Professor of Visual Arts of the University of London
1997- Director of Research, Department of Art.
2004-05 Head of Department of Art, Goldsmiths College
External examining and academic consultancy
1985-89 External Examiner BA Fine Art,
Maidstone College of Art.
1987-89 CNAA Fine Art advisor to the Fine
Art Board.
1988-90 Member, Management Board, Blackheath
School of Art.
1988-89 External Advisor to Kent Institute
and advisor to the CNAA for the MA in Art & Architecture, Kent
Institute of Art & Design.
1992-96 External Examiner BA Fine Art,
Dept of Art, Birmingham Institute, University of Central England.
1992 Member of the Board, Jan Van Eyke
Akademie, Maastricht, Holland.
1992 Member of Advisory Board, John Hansard
Gallery, University of Southampton.
1993 External adviser to University of Surrey, Review of the MA
in Site Specific Sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art.
1994-98 External Examiner BA Fine Art,
University of Northumbria, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
1995 External adviser to Trent University, Faculty of Art &
Design for their review of Art & Design Research for RAE96.
1995-2000 Academic Advisor to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.
1996-2003 Advisor, Combined Arts Board, Arts Council of England.
1998 Appointed to a Specialist Reviewership for the HEFCE Subject/Programme
Review (Teaching Quality Assessment) for Art & Design.
1999-2003 Chair for London & South East Region of National Association
for Fine Art Education.
1999 Elected to International Association of Art Critics.
1999-2003 Member of editorial board of Journal of Visual Art Practice
2003 External adviser to Coventry University for the review of MA
Digital Arts.
2003 External adviser to Norwich School of Art and Design for the
review of MA Fine Art.
2006 External panel member, MA revalidation, Swansea Institute,
University of Wales.
Research interests
Another thematic of his research is concerned with the three-way relation between art practice, ‘folk art’ and design in an increasingly urban, built environment where design – rather than fine art – is the dominant cultural discourse. Here ‘design’ designates numerous creative activities – including architectural design – that produce the fabric of everyday life. He argues for a re-evaluation of contemporary folk art, and its self-identifying constituencies, seeing folk art (in counter-distinction to the themes of ‘amateur aesthetics’ and ‘the outsider’ - Deller, Kane) as having a more integrated critical relation with institutionally privileged norms of ‘good design’ and ‘high art practices’.
In relation to this he has recently written an essay about the work of the artist Graham Dophin in the form of fictional interviews. The authored book ‘Album’, published in 2003, prompted the essay. He is currently expanding the research undertaken here as the basis for a book about the relation between the production of popular culture and contemporary art practice. A particular focus of this research is the effect of the normative expectations of the design activity (understood in its widest sense), especially its instrumental subordination to discourse and to client relationships, on art practice, and on public expectations of what constitutes art.
A further thematic that he has researched extensively is the two-way influence between pedagogy and contemporary art practice and their mutual development in the modern period.
Selected publications
Publications and exhibition curatorship
1982 'Lenare – the Art of Society Photography'. Compilation, research and co-author with Anthony Haden–Guest. Published by Allen Lane.
1988 Between Shopping and Reification', Essay for Gerard Hemsworth catalogue, published by Matt's Gallery, London.
1989 Received research funding for the Arts Council of Great Britain to research exhibition entitled 'Art and Architecture in the Expanded Field'.
1990 June: Artist's project in ‘Over Schilderen’ (on painting), Rijksakademie publication, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1990 October: Co–curatorship with Gerard Hemsworth of 'Swimming Underwater: Art in a World Dominated by Design', the Imagination Gallery, London. Essay for the catalogue entitled ‘Design: Art's Anxiety’.
1991 'Art and the Over-production of Theory (in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction).' Essay for National Association of Fine Art Education Journal.
1991 'The Menace of Milk.' Essay for Ana Prada exhibition catalogue, published by Galerie Temple, Valencia, Spain.
1991 'Designing For The Music Industry.' Essay published in Design & Craft, Vol 164. South Korea.
1992 'Elsa Cesar.' Essay for Elsa Cesar exhibition catalogue, published by Cooperativa Arvore, Porto, Portugal.
1992 ‘Snapshot Politics – The Camera as an Instrument of Art’ – curatorship of touring exhibition, Provinciaal Museume, Hasselt, Belgium and Centrum Beeldende Kunst, Rotterdam, Netherlands, April – July 1992. Essay for the catalogue entitled "The Snapshot Mentality"
1992–93 Curatorship of the Arts Council of Great Britain touring exhibition entitled 'Refusing to Surface: Art and the Transfiguration of the Ordinary'. Exhibition toured to John Hansard Gallery, Ikon Gallery, South London Gallery. Essay for the catalogue "The Noumenal and the Everyday’.
1993 Edited book: ‘Space Invaders – Issues of Presentation, Context and Meaning in Contemporary Art’ co–edited with Stephen Foster. Contributed essays entitled 'The Indeterminate Object Theorised' and 'The Discursive Plastic Form'. Published by the John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton. Second edition 1997.
1994 Edited book: 'The Artist & The Academy - Issues in Fine
Art Education and the Wider Cultural Context' co-edited with Stephen
Foster. Contributed essay entitled "The Interdisciplinary Field
of Fine Art’. Co-author (with Stephen Foster) of the introductory
essay entitled "The Artist & The Academy’.
Published by the John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton.
1994 'An Appreciation of Jane Harris's Paintings (which is also
a dispute with Douglas Crimp's "The End Of Painting" in
which he asserts that the codes of painting are bankrupt and, thus,
that the end of painting is overdue)'.
Catalogue essay for a Jane Harris exhibition. Published by the Anderson
O'Day Gallery, London.
1994 Received Art Council funding to research an exhibition entitled ‘Small Truths - Repetition and the Obsessional in Contemporary Art’.
1995 'Maria Lalic: Recent Paintings'. Catalogue essay for a Maria Lalic exhibition. Published by the Todd Gallery, London. Reprinted in German translation in a Maria Lalic catalogue published by the Galerie Renate Bender, Munich, April 1997.
1996 ‘Ana Prada' - essay for Witte de With, Cahier no 5, October 1996. Published in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
1996 Received Arts Council of England funding to research an exhibition entitled ‘Ocular Witness - Transparency & Figuration in Contemporary Painting’.
1996-97 Small Truths - Repetition and the Obsessional in Contemporary Art’. Exhibition curatorship and catalogue written. John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton. Exhibition touring to the Todd Gallery, London, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, Leeds City Art Gallery in 1997.
1997 'Thomas Grunfeld and Dinos & Jake Chapman'. Essay for Contemporary Visual Arts. Winter 1997 Vol 17
1998 'Ways Of Seeing and The Pleasures of the Visual' - essay for Contemporary Visual Arts, Spring 1998. Vol 18
1998 'The Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity'. Review for Contemporary Visual Arts, Summer 1998. Vol 20.
1998 'Altered States'. Catalogue essay, Gerard Hemsworth exhibition, John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton. November 1998.
1998 'The Theory/Practice Intermundium' - essay for Drawing Fire, Vol 2, issue 3. Autumn 1998.
1998 'Basil Beattie: Ur-architecture & the Sign' - essay for Contemporary Visual Arts. Vol 21. December 1998.
1999 'Unfinished Business' - essay for Contemporary Visual Arts. Vol 22. Spring 1999.
1999 'Bankside and the museum of modern art: experience, interpretation and some conventions' - essay for Engage 6, Spring 1999.
1999 'Marcel Duchamp' - book review. Contemporary Visual Arts. Vol 23. Summer 1999.
2000 'The Artist As Witness' - essay for Drawing Fire, Vol 2, No.5, Summer 2000.
2000 'David Salle' - essay for Contemporary Visual Arts. Vol 29, May/June, 2000
2000 'Richard Hamilton: Art Schools & Influence: a Case History' - essay for book, "Things: Assemblage, Collage and Photography since 1935". Published by Norwich Gallery, Norwich. ISBN: 1 872482 42 2
2001 'Artmaking And Complex Matter' essay for catalogue of "Makeshift' ,University of Brighton Gallery, March. ISBN 1 901177 91 2
2001 'Malcolm Morley - Life After Death?' - Modern Painters, Autumn. ISSN 0953-6698
2002 'Nigel Cooke: Entropy's Cold Desert' , Contemporary, March. ISSN 1475 9853
2002 'British Art Schools and the Influence of Art Education, chapter for 'From Blast To Freeze, British Art of the 20th Century', published by Hatje Cantz Publishers, Germany. ISBN 3 7757 1248 8.
2002 'The Double', essay for catalogue of 'Once Again', John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, September/October. ISBN 0854 32778 9
2003 'Album: Style and Image in Album Design', book, published by Mitchell Beazley, London, ISBN 1 84000 605 6
2005 'Basil Beattie' essay for catalogue 'Basil Beattie - Marking A Year', published by Eagle Gallery/EMH Arts, London.
2006 Thirty-three & A Third - Graham Dolphin, Essay 'On Falling Down: Writing a Catalogue Essay for Graham Dolphin, Even' Seventeen Gallery, London. ISBN 0 955 437504