Awards for Artists
Awards for Artists supports individuals at a timely moment in their careers, giving them the freedom to develop their creative ideas and contributing to their personal and professional growth.
“It is partly the money, and partly the recognition, and the sense that you’ve taken another step to being sustainable as an artist. A professional recognition that allows you to forge ahead.”
Juan Cruz was a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists recipient at the turn of the millennium and just five years after they were started. He recalls the excitement of being nominated but not knowing who had nominated him. “I remember we weren’t supposed to tell anyone we had been nominated, but we kind of couldn’t help talking about it.” He remembers filling in the form by hand, which feels extraordinary now, and not hearing anything for a long time, and then, suddenly receiving a call from Jane (Hamlyn, Chair of Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Visual Arts judging panel for the Awards).
On the day of the Awards ceremony, “We were asked to meet in a cafe in Soho and it felt a bit like a reality TV show, then we went back to the Foundation, which was near St. James’ Park at the time, to have some photos taken. I spent the afternoon looking for something to wear to the ceremony that evening and buying a very nice (reduced) Comme des Garçons shirt – which I still have!” He valued being part of the cohort that year, receiving the Award alongside Zarina Bhimji, Simon Starling, Anya Gallaccio and Rose English. Since then, he’s been asked to nominate a few times and has also been a judge, “which was a really great process.”
“People know about the Award, but there’s far less of the pressure and media exposure of the Turner Prize and that’s partly the criteria and the structure of it. Jane was very supportive and made it very clear to everyone personally that there were no strings attached and absolutely no pressure, and ensured people took that to heart.” The Awards remain rare in the arts for not being linked to an exhibition or specifying creation of new work; recipients are free to spend it as they see fit.
Cruz reflects that the Awards’ flexibility and trust is what gives it its power, enabling recipients to use it in tune with their stage of life and practice.
“For us, my time of life, it was all really quite domestic. I remember we also bought a flat soon after and that was made much more feasible by the Award. It was £10,000 a year over three years, so it was significant. At the time, that was a small salary. So it is partly the money, and partly the recognition, and also the sense that you’ve taken another step to being sustainable as an artist. A professional recognition that allows you to forge ahead.”
1999 turned out to be a milestone year for Cruz in more ways than the Award: “I had quite a successful year that year.” He recalls, “I was also the recipient of the Kettle’s Yard Fellowship and had several exhibitions, two at Kettle’s Yard as well as one at Camden Arts Centre and one at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton. We moved to Cambridge and during that year we also had our first child. When we returned to London, I started teaching at Goldsmiths in 2000.”
The move into teaching at Goldsmiths would turn out to be the start of a journey in higher education. First there, then at Liverpool School of Art and Design (Liverpool John Moores University), followed by the Royal College of Art. In September 2019, Cruz became Principal of Edinburgh College of Art (University of Edinburgh), one of the largest art schools in the UK with over 3,500 students and 800 staff working across art, architecture, design, history of art and music.
I ask when he decided that leading an institution might take up more time than his artistic practice. “It sort of crept up on me to be honest, that first Goldsmiths’ role was just part-time 0.5 [half a week]. Then I found myself interested and frustrated about how things worked or didn’t work, and increasingly wanting to get under the bonnet and improve things.”
Five years in at Edinburgh, he’s proud of the changes he’s effected, recognising that the School is better insulated against some of the recent shocks – from Covid to rising costs – than others, by virtue of both its size and context. It’s merger with the University of Edinburgh, which took place in 2011, has inspired and facilitated multi-million pound AHRC-funded programmes exploring the interface of creativity with the digital and AI, and involvement in the development of the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI), a new ‘front door’ to the University. Opening in 2022 and moving into its new home in the converted Edinburgh Royal Infirmary earlier this year, EFI is a research, learning and innovation space looking at the most complex, interdisciplinary opportunities of the future with data at its heart. Cruz is hugely excited about how it marries openness and leading thinking: “Anyone can enter off the street – it’s our front door to the University and we’ve just hosted the Edinburgh International Book Festival there.”
His confidence and success in the role of Principal makes for a stark contrast with his most recent artistic explorations – a show in 2018 at Matt’s Gallery in London, his fourth, entitled I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m trying very hard which started from a series of videos taken on his phone at the end of his weekly run. Writing has always been a core part of his practice, (he started reviewing and writing for Art Monthly almost before he graduated), and recently had a collection of his experimental art writing published under the title It Will Seem A Dream. He is a co-director of the International Awards for Art Criticism and a member of the International Association of Art Critics.
He marvels at the massive changes the art world has seen since 1999: “It is a much more diverse and international context now, and one that is also much more competitive. It’s harder for young artists to get by than it was then. There are many more students going through higher education and a lot more artists graduating today than there were in 1999, which is interesting given the difficulties of just surviving, never mind thriving as an artist.” He goes on: “There’s much more focus on how their programme of studies will help them find diverse forms of work once they graduate. My generation we were less concerned about that I think. The gap between what you can earn with a part-time job and what you need to spend on the cost of living has grown so much, so that’s very, very different now.”
Given the insight his current role affords, I’m not surprised to hear he’s been involved with a number of policy roundtables, most recently around the general election, exploring how to fund and support visual artists and the cultural sector better. His experience of leading an organisation that holds major AHRC grants awarded to effectively distribute to a large number of small, grassroots organisations, has given him a clear view of different ways funding can work, and the different approaches required to support people working in very different ways.
It makes him even-handed in his praise for PHF’s Awards for Artists scheme, recognising its crucial offer of support without agenda, while also noting that it’s only a range of funding to support both individuals and institutions (that in turn support individuals) that makes the whole ecology work.
“I understand the Awards are rooted in a compelling vision that art can contribute to a better world. And sometimes it’s clear artists are best helped without having to articulate specific outcomes. But you need an ecology – a mix of different kinds of funding – to allocate resources across arts and culture most effectively.”
Juan Cruz is an artist and Principal of Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh where he is also a professor of Fine Art.
He studied Painting and History and Theory of Modern Art at Chelsea College of Art, graduating in 1993, with time spent at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin on an Erasmus exchange. Following his studies Juan worked as an independent artist and writer, gallery hand and bookseller until 2000 when he took his first permanent teaching role at Goldsmiths.
Juan’s own work has had broad dissemination, being exhibited at Matt’s Gallery; Camden Arts Centre; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Serralves Foundation, Porto; Galería Elba Benítez, Madrid; the Edinburgh International Festival; the Melbourne Festival and MUSAC, Spain. In 1999 Juan was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists and in 2000 named Artist Fellow at Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge. Between 1995 and 1998 he was a regular contributor to the London-based magazine Art Monthly, and has continued to write on the work of other artists throughout his career.
Juan is a director of the IAAC (International Awards for Art Criticism), and a trustee of the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust and the Fruitmarket Gallery.
Awards for Artists supports individuals at a timely moment in their careers, giving them the freedom to develop their creative ideas and contributing to their personal and professional growth.
Awards for Artists supports individuals at a timely moment in their careers, giving them the freedom to develop their creative ideas and contributing to their personal and professional growth.