SARAH MAYHEW reflects on the legacy of the director of Modern Art Oxford Michael Stanley, below, after his death this week, as the gallery prepares to stage two new exhibitions

As an art student I used to make regular pilgrimages to Modern Art Oxford. While it’s curatorial style was quite populist during this period, I felt fortunate that this ambitious, mid-sized space was only a short train journey away.

I moved to Oxford in the autumn of 2008, and couldn’t have been more excited to find that in January 2009 Michael Stanley was moving from Milton Keynes Gallery to take up the position of Director at Modern Art Oxford, since which time the gallery has only gone from strength to strength. Michael Stanley’s reputation preceded him; young, relatively radical, wide-eyed, wonderfully open-minded, enthralling and inspirational. He had also been at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.

The Oxford art scene was shaken up, and given the confidence to believe in itself.

A truly charming arts ambassador Stanley reached out, engaged, advised and encouraged undergraduate art students, to curators and gallerists alike. Stanley engineered exciting and egalitarian platforms. Refreshingly for the art world, this was a director who didn’t appear to care who you were, or where you’d come from, he just wanted to know if you were any good, and if what you had could be developed, or deserved a platform from which to be launched.

On Saturday Modern Art Oxford announced he had died. David Isaac, chairman of Modern Art Oxford, said he will be hugely missed by everyone in the artistic community both nationally and internationally. “We have lost a great talent; our thoughts are with his family at this very sad time,” he said.

Moving on, this Saturday sees the opening of two exhibitions at Modern Art Oxford, one called Platform, a two-part exhibition and new initiative showcasing the talent of emerging artists from across the South East of England; the second exhibition is the first major solo show of celebrated French artist Jean-Luc Moulène. While this director’s legacy will live on long after the doors to the exhibitions that he had programmed have closed, appropriately the public will be invited to see work by artists from around the globe, at different points in their career, exhibiting alongside one another at Modern Art Oxford until November 25 from this Saturday. Would this have been the case without Michael Stanley at the helm, it’s doubtful.

Born in 1955 Jean-Luc Moulène is best known for exploring the longstanding French obsession of revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Blurring aesthetic boundaries much of his photography appears as peculiarly posed publicity shots or advertisements that conceal a secret, sophisticated message. His exhibition at Modern Art Oxford will feature a series of glass and bronze sculptures, as well as drawings and photographs revealing the artist’s ongoing commitment to the relationship between image and object. This exhibition has been curated as if structured like a procession presenting several series of works from the past couple of decades through to present day including a new film, The Three Graces, especially commissioned by Modern Art Oxford. Using black and white film as his tool for studying natural and cultural phenomena, in this instance Moulène references traditional art history by transposing the subject of his film to reflect upon the era of mechanized reproduction, the development of the industry, media and commerce. Moulène’s oeuvre reflects upon art itself: its form, cost, consumption, diffusion, and dissemination, using the tried and tested conventions of seduction and manipulation as a starting point for a more surprising discourse on presentation and flexibility, on the potential of art to extend beyond traditional limits making it a good fit alongside the separate exhibition, Platform.

Created to nurture new artistic talent, Platform presents the work of nine 2012 graduate artists from Oxford Brookes University , The Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art, Oxford Cherwell Valley College, and Reading University. Initiated through the contemporary visual arts network in the South East (CVAN), which is a coalition between Aspex, Milton Keynes Gallery, Modern Art Oxford and Turner Contemporary. Each of the aforementioned organisations has selected graduates from their local area to participate in this series of exhibitions, the first of which will be on display at Modern Art Oxford between September 29 and October 28, the second will begin on October 30 until November 25.

Ultimately a shortlist of artists will be nominated for the Platform Graduate Award, which includes a financial award of £2,500 and a 12-month programme of bespoke professional development.

The winner will be announced at Modern Art Oxford on November 22.

Long may this culture of nurturing early-career, cross-disciplinary, creative talent continue – it’s certainly been put in good stead in Oxford since January 2009.

Platform: Part I opens on October 29 and continues until November 28 alongside the Jean-Luc Moulène exhibition.
Platform: Part I will feature five artists; Laura Bleach (Oxford Brookes University), Alana Francis (Reading University), Lucy Garnett (Oxford Cherwell Valley College), Kamila Janska (Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art) and Amy Wilkins (Oxford Brookes University). Exhibition Tour: Melanie Pocock & Lucy Garnett is on November 6 at 3-4pm.
Join Melanie Pocock, exhibitions associate at Modern Art Oxford, and exhibiting artist Lucy Garnett for a tour of the Platform exhibition. Free, just turn up.
Part II of the Platform exhibition at Modern Art Oxford will begin on October 30 and run until November 25 and will feature the remaining four artists; Jack Eden (Oxford Brookes University), Hannah Mills (Reading University), Cara George and Jan Kaesbach (Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art).