Arts Exchange: The Close Link With Dresden

05/08/2024 This is the full text of an article which was published on the Coventry Association for International Friendship website:

“The Coventry/Dresden Arts Exchange is an artist-led initiative founded in 2012 by John Yeadon from Coventry and his Dresden counterpart Jean Kirsten with the aim of developing dialogue and communication between artists from our two cities.

Since then there have collaborative partnerships, exhibitions, educational projects and forums. The partnership was very much strengthened by the Artists In Residents (AIR) programme, set up  in 2017 to enable individual artists to visit a partner city and work there for a month or more. AIR has been supported by Arts Council England and so far, there have been ten residences in Coventry and Dresden.

Here John Yeadon describes his three visits to Dresden this year (2024) including the day he received the Fama Award for Lifetime Achievement, this awarded for artistic achievement and commitment to the partnership over an extended period of time…”

Since Coventry Dresden Arts Exchange was launched in 2012 I usually manage a visit at least once every two years to take part in collaborative exhibitions with Dresden artists. But the 65th anniversary year of twinning was exceptional. In celebration of this  anniversary I was invited by Dresden Council to exhibit at the Rathaus (the Council House) in May and to select two other artists to show their work alongside three Dresden artists and three Wroclaw artists (the Polish city of Wrocław’s was also celebrating its 65th anniversary of twinning with Dresden). The other two Coventry artists who came with me were painter Jack Foster and printmaker Sharon Baker. Both had studied at Coventry University and had been on our residents’ programme working in Dresden. Both Jack and Sharon are excellent ambassadors for Coventry.  (Sharon’s home page is here and there is a report on Jack’s past residency is within Coventry Curating Coventry website here).

The exhibition, our tenth such collaboration, was titled 3×65 Wroclaw, Coventry, Dresden. It was well received and reviewed in Dresdener Neueste Nachrichten, the local newspaper. Over the years our exhibitions have been reviewed in Dresden more than twenty times, but we have had little response from Coventry media or awareness from Coventry Council. At the opening of the exhibition the Deputy Mayor of Dresden welcomed the artists and I gave a speech of thanks, the evening was humorously hosted by Falk who was the print making resident artist last year in our partnership with Coventry University.

Ashley Spindler a Coventry artist also came with me on this visit for his month’s residency in Dresden . This was good timing as Karen Koschnik, a Dresden artist was on a residency in Seoul, Korea and kindly gave her studio to Ashley to work in and also sleep there free of charge. We have learnt how to do activities with very little money operating as a friendship society. However, we would welcome an further official  printmaking residency at the Grafikwerkstatt studios  but this would a require a reciprocal financial commitment.  The Grafikwerkstatt (the link is https://grafikwerkstattdresden.de/en/ ) and Dresden Council are keen we have a regular printmaking exchange every year. 

My second visit, this one in June, was less high profile. However, I managed to bring my painting (‘Dignity and Impudence’) that was to be exhibited at the Palais Sommer in July for the Fama Award.

I was picking up the work of the three Coventry artists from the Rathaus to bring back to Coventry. To deliver and collect our exhibitions as baggage or extra baggage on a flight is much cheaper than shipping the art.

Best of all this second visit coincided with the joint Neuer Chor and Spires Chorus concert at the Frauenkirche (the main church in Dresden) which was reported in a previous blog. This was a reciprocal visit from when Neuer Chor came to Coventry back in 2019. In fact, this earlier concert coincided with a Coventry Dresden Arts Exchange exhibition in the Lady Chapel Coventry cathedral, an exhibition that was also shown in the Kreuzkirche in Dresden earlier in the year. 

The return Frauenkirche concert had been much delayed due to Covid so we were all pleased that this visit finally took place. Spires Music couldn’t afford to bring the orchestra (I play the cello in the orchestra) but it was great to be in the audience for a change. On the day of the concert, Helmut Heinze’s and George Wagstaffe’s sculptures were exhibited in the Frauenkirche, (Helmut and George were recipients of last year’s Fama Award).

Not long afterwards I made a third visit to Dresden as I was honoured to receive the Fama Award (below) for Lifetime Achievement, this alongside Max Uhlig, a renowned Dresden artist.

This took place on Friendship Day (25 July) of the Palais Sommer, the summer arts festival, and was attended by the deputy Mayor of Dresden and sponsored by the Mayor, the Frauenkirche Foundation, the New Saxon Art Association and the KFA Culture for all gGmbH. On a personal note it was a special day for me, my niece and nephew travelled to Dresden to commemorate the day with me. It was also very gratifying to meet with the many Dresden artists who we have worked with and who have been to Coventry.

This was the second time this award had been given, George Wagstaffe and Helmut Hienze received it last year. Helmut created the Choir of Survivors in Coventry Cathedral Ruins. I had long thought that it would be a great idea to somehow get George and Helmut together, George being the most notable public sculptor in Coventry and an old friend. But what could we do, a sculpture exhibition? That would be vastly too expensive. Instead the meeting took place under the best possible circumstance – receiving the Fama award, 2003. This we were able to do with the support of Coventry Dresden Arts Exchange, CAIF and the New Saxon Art Association.

During the ceremony there were speeches, the Germans like their speeches, from the Deputy Mayor of Dresden, Maria Noth of the Frauenkirche Foundation and the art historian Anke Fröhlich-Schausell. All this was introduced by Reinhard Pontius, who has been such a support for the exchange. It all felt rather too flattering, but it showed not so much what Dresden thinks of me but what Dresden thought of our Coventry Dresden Arts Exchange. I’ve said in the past that Dresden likes Coventry artists more than Coventry. Not only art and artists, but poets and writers who have been on exchanges and music too such as the Spires choir. And not just classical music, Daniella Dee from Coventry performed after the Fama ceremony. (The clip below comes from the Palais Sommer programme site – unless blocked by your settings there is a video of one of Daniella’s performances: https://palaissommer.de/programm/friendship-day-danniella-dee-uk/ )

I hope that through events like these we can bring Coventry’s attention to cultural activities in Europe.

Oh! I think I’m going to have to visit Dresden again this year, for the fourth time! To pick up my painting from the Palais Sommer. Maybe the painting could stay in Dresden like George’s sculpture of lasts year’s Fama Award. 

Here is the link to the article as published on the CAIF website