It’s worth looking at the work of Timorous Beasties. Their Glasgow Toile is a textile fabric designed to look like typical Toile de Jouy wallpaper, but on closer inspection you realise it depicts Glasgow drunks. Trading on audience expectations, their work uses traditional domestic surfaces and is designed to be used as well as appreciated for its conceptual precision. See images above.

Another Leeds gallery space I have never mentioned; Harewood House. There is an issue here though, they charge entry fees and you have to get a bus to get there. The 36 from opposite the Grand Theatre. However like all the other art spaces mentioned it will have specific characteristics that can be examined. It is perhaps an ideal space within which to practice your critical theory writing. In the art gallery or museum, you are watched while you look. Foucault sees the art gallery as a place in which cultural values are authorized and specific behaviours encouraged as a means to produce socially acquired knowledge. However Lacan’s concept of the Gaze demonstrates how processes of display in the museum or art gallery produce cultural knowledge/cultural capital by a process of ownership. See others watching you acquire your cultural capital whilst adding to the coffers of the aristocracy. Even so, Michael Raedecker and Graham Crowley are both fine painters and I shall probably go just to see their work. Harewood House also has an El Greco on show and an excuse to see that is always a good one.

Home Truths, Harewood House, 3rd April - 5th July 2009 To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the laying of Harewood House's foundation stone, this exhibition entitled 'Home Truths' explores the powerful concept of home, what is home and what home means to us all. JMW Turner's watercolours of Harewood House were the catalyst to the exhibition. Rarely seen in public due to the risk of fading, this series of work epitomises much of the thought process behind the exhibition: a naturalistic style set against a backdrop of contrived landscape design. Home Truths places a broad range of works of contemporary art alongside pieces from Harewood's own collections of paintings, furniture and ceramics. It aims to inspire discussion and debate by juxtaposing historic and contemporary works and placing both within new contexts in order to challenge our notions of `home'. Some of the works are not for the faint hearted, borrowed from renowned galleries around Europe, such as London's Saatchi Gallery, acclaimed artists such as Michael Raedecker, David Thorpe, Graham Crowley, Sarah Woodfine, Kerry Harker and George Shaw show their work alongside the masters. Extraordinary modern works of art sit alongside extraordinary works and furnishings of the 1800s. Others fit naturally within the home initiative with architectural plans of Harewood at its concept, combined with today's plans for our own homes of the 21st century. The Home Truths Exhibition opens at Harewood House on Friday 3 April and continues until Sunday 5 July 2009 (Open every day 12noon - 4pm). Entrance to the exhibition is free with a House and Grounds ticket.

How to find us

Harewood is located: 7 miles between Leeds and Harrogate on the A61;10 miles from Leeds/Bradford Airport; 22 miles from York; 5 milesfrom A1 and 8 miles from A1/M1 link. The No.36 Bus to Harewood from Leeds and Harrogate travels every 20 minutes daily from Central Leeds. Entry to Harewood is half price with your bus ticket. Entry to Harewood is free all day on Wednesdays for individuals with a valid NUS or ISIC card. http://www.harewood.org/

At the opposite end of the spectrum there is another opening at MAP. Friday 17th April (6 till 11pm)

Goldfish 17th to 21st April
MAP, Hope House, 65 Mabgate, Leeds, LS9 7DR
Inquiries 07814459032 Facebook event Search “Goldfish MAP”

One last thing, have you ever tried writing an exhibition review. See: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=429&storycode=3136570&c=2
It’s a review on Asta Gröting’s show at the Henry Moore Institute. As an artist you may at times have to do this sort of work to broaden your portfolio. What’s interesting here is that the review is written for an audience of architects.