Pop-up art school inspires kids to see that Art is for All

Artist, agitator and former parliamentary candidate Bob and Robert Smith was at the West Bretton park yesterday ahead of the opening of an exhibition he has curated at YSP next month, which invites ideas and responses toward an art curriculum for a digital 21st century.

Smith, aka Patrick Brill, is a British artist and long-term campaigner for access to art education. He stood against former education secretary Michael Gove in the 2015 election in an attempt to move the arts to the centre of the political conversation.

The exhibition, entitled Art for All, includes pieces selected by Smith from the National Arts Education Archive (NAEA), which is based at YSP and celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.

Smith said: “The NAEA is one of the great repositories of material relating to the development of the arts in the post war era. It’s also a place of hope. To look through the material and understand the competing initiatives and investigations by artists and teachers in that period is to recharge one’s batteries.

“Art for All celebrates this and asks the question: what must we do now to reinvigorate art education at all levels and once more get kids excited about inventing the future?”