Pierre d’Alancaisez is a curator and critic. In his PhD research, he investigates interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and the relationship between artists’ access to non-arts skills and the impacts of artistic practices.
For a decade, Pierre was the director of waterside contemporary in London, where he pioneered social practice and art activism approaches in the art market. He has curated exhibitions with artists that included Turner Prize nominee Oreet Ashery and has commissioned works with artists such as Mirza and Butler which travelled to Artes Mundi and Sydney Biennale.
He has also been a cultural strategist in higher education and the charity sector, a publisher, a scientist, and a financial services professional.
Say No to Art School
The art school is a special thing. It promises to take young people at the threshold of adulthood and turn them into lifelong dreamers, creators, and critical thinkers. But the art school is also big business, intimately involved in reproducing neoliberalism and its subjects. For many graduates, art school is the first step in a career of fierce competition, low earnings, and horrific work conditions. What can we do about this?
recent work
How to lose a culture war
In the 1960s, the German Marxist activist Rudi Dutschke proposed that the road to the revolution would involve a ‘long march through the institutions’ first. A few decades on, Dutschke got what he wanted but the revolution isn’t coming. In its place, a reactionary backlash.
Toby Green, Thomas Fazi: The Covid Consensus
Evidence is mounting that ‘following the science’ was all politics and the horrific human and economic cost of pandemic policies necessitates a full inquiry into the making of the Covid consensus.
Non-Fungible Token, A Eulogy
The success of the Non-Fungible Token reveals a severe ‘speculative deficit’ haunting our culture. Its passing marks the urgent need for art to break its aesthetic limits.
Benevolent Edgelords
Knee-jerk accusations of fascist thought and the refusal to embrace aesthetic ambiguity have meant that that ‘the left can’t meme’. It’s all Walter Benjamin’s fault – but artist like Joshua Citarealla and Monira Al Qadiri offer alternatives.
Universal Basic Artist
Supporting artists to make art, or make-work for workless artists? The concept of state-provided incomes for artists may be hiding a whole bunch of consequences – unintended and otherwise.
The Dearth of the Clinic
The Monkeypox outbreak exposes the failings of the technocratic biopolitical rule and the erosion of our ability to act as moral agents that plagued the Covid pandemic.
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