Overview of Business-Facing Arts Audience Research

This report is a review of public-domain research conducted specifically in order to inform arts organisations about their audiences. The research covered is driven by the demands of the arts industry to understand its audiences and to develop and broaden audiences for the arts. The report includes links to key publications and research organisations, and an overview of the key offerings

The Brussels Convention:a still born child?

Whether status of Brussels Convention as international treaty rather than EU treaty limits its potential and effectiveness

Death, art and mortality awareness: images of the dead in contemporary art

‘Death, Art and Mortality Awareness: Images of the dead in contemporary art’ Death, Dying and Disposal Conference, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, 2009. Dr. Mary O' Neill University of Lincoln.ac.uk [email protected] The knowledge of love and death can make us whole, it can complete us, or it can overwhelm us. We develop elaborate frameworks and rituals to contain this knowledge, to quieten its voice and to render it manageable. But at times it violently confronts us and we know it in a new way, too urgent, too immediate and physical to be pushed aside. This paper will discuss works of art that represent the moment when information about the death becomes knowledge of death and present the site of knowing - the dead body - not to frighten or shock but to share the knowledge that life experiences offer. Focusing on the work of Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook and the exhibition Life before Death which showed the work of Journalist Beate Lakotta and photographer Walter Schels, this paper will explore the risk that the dominant themes in discussions of contemporary art works which show the dead - issues of consent and possible distress to viewers - may be, in Zygmaunt Bauman's terms, overdoing ethics. Ethical concerns can be used in the service not only of death denial but more particularly of the avoidance of the painful emotions inherent in love, bereavement and loss. This suggests a way of viewing the works discussed which goes beyond conceiving of them as what Julia Kristeva calls the abject and which sees mortality awareness as part of love and life

On the boundary clash between EC commercial law and WTO law

Both the WTO and the EC have come to a crossroads in their development. The WTO is currently the subject of the Doha round of negotiations, while the EC, together with pillars II and III of the EU, is about to be re-constituted under the draft European Constitution. The issue of the articulation between these two legal systems, despite the best efforts of legal academics over the years, remains unresolved, as evidenced in the recent case of Biret International SA v. Council.1 Issues which were resolved in the early years of the EC on the nexus of therelationship between the EC and the laws of its member states, are now reappearing at the EC-WTO nexus. The EC-Member State principles of supremacy, 2 direct effect3 and state liability for the non-implementation of directives4 are now being echoed at the WTO-EC nexus, in the context of direct effect,5 legality control, and indirect effect. The Biret case raisedthe issue of “no-fault liability for the Community” for non-compliance with WTO law, echoing discourses many years earlier at the EC-MS nexus. The issue of the boundary demarcations between EC Commercial law and WTO law merits re-examination in light of these developments, with the continuing imperfect legal articulation between these two jurisdictions resulting in a boundary clash which requires a resolution. Ideally this resolution would come in the form of a treaty amendment drafted by the member states of the EU. In this respect the draftConstitution, which fails to adequately address this issue could be seen as a missed opportunity. The ECJ may well find itself obliged to develop on the Advocate General’s opinion in the Biret case

A lick: the performances of Angela Bartram

This short essay discusses the performances of artist Angela Bartram whose practice involves interactions with animals which often evoke revulsion in audiences