Leeds 13

The brief for the end-of-year project was "come up with something thought-provoking",[7] according to Martin Wainwright in The Guardian newspaper. The group was interested in popular preconceptions about art, particularly the boundary between activities acceptable as art and those that were not.[8] They decided to produce a work with an activity not generally accepted as art,[9] and hoped the media would distribute news of the work to the public.[10] To be newsworthy, it had to be controversial.[11]

Deceiving donors then journalists was essential to the group's plan. They would pitch a conventional art exhibition asking for money to mount the show. Later, journalists would be told that the donations had been spent on a week-long holiday to the Costa del Sol (English: Sun Coast). The students would say they had made art and the exhibition out of themselves and their trip.[8][12] Finally, the reality would be revealed: the holiday had been a simulation and the donations had not been spent.[13] If the work provoked public debate on the nature of art then the students would consider it a success, and they called their project Going Places.[8]

The group applied to their students's representative body, Leeds University Union, for money to mount an exhibition and was granted £1,126.[14] The only business sponsor identified by the media was the owner of a Leeds art shop who donated £50.[12][15]

Evidence for the holiday included a performance art event, stories, props and suntans. The group's supposed arrival back from Spain would be staged at the local international airport for invited guests.[9] The students convinced airport authorities to simulate a flight from Málaga on the announcement boards and then let them exit arrivals for the event.[10][16] A prelude in an art space would gather the guests and set the Spanish theme before the event at the airport.[13]

The group would claim to have spent six days swimming, sunbathing and enjoying the nightlife on the Mediterranean coast.[17][18] They forged airline tickets, baggage labels and a postcard apparently sent from Spain to their tutor.[10][4] Spanish-themed props were collected to use as souvenirs and add local colour to a set of photographs supposedly taken on their holiday.[9] Beach shots were actually taken on the North Sea coast at Cayton Sands,[7] Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Pool shots were taken at a private open-air swimming pool in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. A blue lens filter gave the water and sky a Mediterranean look.[10] Other backdrops included Leeds bars and a wall mural, that reminded the students of Gaudí, at an abandoned Spanish-themed nightclub in Cayton Bay.[7]

In the week before the event, the group hid in their student accommodation. Using a hired suntanning bed and fake tan,[13] the students built up a skin tone that they later critiqued as "... (perhaps a shade too orange) ...", in their artist's statement published by The Guardian.[6]

On the evening of 6 May 1998, around 60 guests,[17] including tutor Atkinson and the head of the department Ken Hay,[11] arrived at East Street Studios, Leeds.[9] They found recorded flamenco music playing and sangria to drink but no artwork or students. After half an hour, an air stewardess appeared and led the guests to a bus that took them to Leeds Bradford Airport. There they saw the group apparently arriving back from their holiday.[13] The students invited the guests to the bar and after a couple of hours paid the bill supposedly with the last of the donations.[17][19]

Journalists had not been invited to the Going Places event,[20] but the holiday story spread across campus to the Leeds Student newspaper.[13][9] On Friday 15 May, they ran the story on the front page under the headline "Con Artists' Spanish Rip-Off" continued inside with "And They Call This Art?"[8] Two days later, the national Sunday Mirror newspaper picked up the story.[12] Regional newspapers the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post followed on Monday.[11][15] On Tuesday 19 May, when the hoax was revealed, the holiday story was covered on television, radio and in national morning newspapers including the Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times.[19][21][17][18][5]

Newspaper reports covered opposition to apparent misuse of money from the donors and support for Going Places as art from the students and their tutor. Atkinson said "It was quite a coup de théâtre. They were lucky because the plane could have been 12 hours late." to the Yorkshire Post,[11] "But an event like that is quite within the bounds of contemporary practice." to Leeds Student,[8] and "It's definitely art, but whether it's good or bad art is another thing." to The Times.[22]

Some newspapers also ran opinion pieces on Going Places as art. Leeds Student said it was neither creative nor original because millions of people take package holidays every year.[14] Using the Going Places group and "... sheep-pickler Damien Hirst ..." as examples, the Yorkshire Evening Post condemned modern artists as more skilled at self-promotion than making art objects.[23] The Daily Telegraph contrasted Atkinson's opinion with those of two art critics. Brian Sewell dismissed Going Places, while Richard Dorment said "This is not a good work of art. It seems to me on the edge of being a hoax and quite a good joke. I think the joke wins."[17]

The students planned to replace the holiday story with the hoax reality a fortnight later in the next issue of Leeds Student but they "... decided to confess early when the issue became 'very hot'.", according to Damien Whitworth in The Times.[22]

On Tuesday 19 May 1998, a member of the group appeared on the BBC Radio 4 early morning news programme Today. He revealed the holiday was a simulation and the donations had not been spent.[13][10] Later that day, the Yorkshire Evening Post confirmed the hoax by checking facts about the event with a manager at the airport.[16] The entertainment media joined news outlets in covering the hoax.[10]

Before the hoax was revealed, the group told The Telegraph they aimed "... to force people to discuss whether there was any limit on what could be described as art." They continued explaining the holiday with "This is leisure as art.", "It is art and it was an exhibition." But the exhibition delivered was quite different from the one pitched so donors objected to misuse of their money.[17] This all matched the public and media's stereotype of art students as lazy and immoral.[24] So media outlets rushed to publish the story before their rivals instead of checking it was true, according to Wainwright of The Guardian.[10] By revealing the hoax, the students hoped the public and media would reconsider their initial responses.[6] They adopted the name Leeds 13 from the national media.[10] It was a name "... calculated to suggest ironic overtones of terroristic notoriety.", according to art journalist Paul Glinkowski in his book A BBC Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art.[25]

Head of department Hay told The Guardian that "[Leeds 13] have got everyone talking about the very things—the nature of art and its relationship with life—that lie at the heart of the course."[7] In the same article, art critic Adrian Searle wrote it was a fantastic work that played with preconceptions.[7] Artist and tutor John Stezaker and curator Ralph Rugoff both said the project was interesting art.[26][24] Germaine Greer wrote Going Places was a masterpiece of marketing.[27] Publicist Max Clifford complimented the group's public relations skills.[28] He also said the embarrassment of journalists who had been hoaxed was hilarious.[10] But art academics at other institutions said Going Places only showed the relationships between art and media. They also accused the group of further damaging the reputation of artists.[26]

Leeds 13 repaid the grant, but Leeds University Union decided its reputation and that of its students had been damaged by the group's deceptions. They demanded an apology for publication in Leeds Student. Leeds 13's members refused so they were banned from their students's representative body for life.[29] In contrast, a University of Leeds spokesman had earlier declined to condemn the group when it appeared they had been on holiday.[17]

In July, the members of Leeds 13 all received first class for their third year. According to a BBC News report, "Examiners praised them for challenging popular perceptions about how art is produced, taught and criticised."[30]

Leeds 13's place in art history was explored by Rugoff in the September-October edition of Frieze magazine. He wrote that Going Places was a "... perfectly executed double whammy." It had provoked public debate on the nature of art but Rugoff did not think the results had been illuminating. More interesting was that in distributing news of the work the media had added new facets to it. In Rugoff's view, Leeds 13, and contemporaries Decima Gallery, were the first artists to make the media their principal medium. He labelled them both Neo-Publicists.[24]

Leeds 13 ended 1998 with Going Places and its "... media frenzy ..." in The Times Higher Education Supplement news highlights of the year.[31]

In their artists’s statement for Going Places, Leeds 13 wrote “We have produced no tangible end object for market, …”[26] One member of the group explained the art was the impression that the project had left in people’s minds.[6] In spite of this, Going Places featured in two art exhibitions.

Go Away: Artists and Travel at the Royal College of Art (RCA) Galleries, London ran from 17 April to 6 May 1999. Mounted by RCA students on the MA (Visual Arts Administration), the exhibition included works by over thirty artists. Leeds 13 showed Going Places holiday photographs, ephemera and a video of the project's television coverage.[2]

f.k.a.a. (formerly known as art) at The Wardrobe, Leeds ran 16–18 March 2000 and featured work by local artists.[32] The members of Leeds 13, who all graduated the previous year, showed a collection of Going Places items wrapped and priced. These included a bikini top for £69.96, Frisbee for £110, men's shorts for £80,000 and the holiday photographs in an album for £13 million. A member of the group explained to the Yorkshire Post "It's not really a finished project, it's a processing of the items, that they themselves have become legitimate as art."[33] In his review of the exhibition for The Guardian, Wainwright credited Leeds 13 with re-energising visual arts in Leeds. But he also noted concerns that the group's critique of the art market and its prices was becoming ridiculous.[32]

The group was interested in the art exhibition phenomenon and two types of relationships in the art world. First, the relationships between works of art that gave each one its significance relative to others. Second, the relationships between art world participants including artists and private sector patrons.[3] The group decided to mount an exhibition showing a diverse collection of borrowed work by other artists.[35] Leeds 13 would present the exhibition as art in itself and called their end-of-year project The Degree Show.[36]

Leeds 13 gained corporate and local business sponsorship for the exhibition.[36] Property developer Hammerson hosted the show in West Riding House, Leeds.[37] The borrowed works, valued at around £1 million, were by over thirty artists.[38] They included sculpture by Duchamp and Barbara Hepworth, bronze by Rodin and Henry Moore, paintings by David Shepherd and Damien Hirst, collages by Kurt Schwitters, a poster by Jeff Koons, photographs by Jo Spence, the BANK fax-back service and performance by Decima Gallery.[36]

Leeds 13 hung, lit and secured the work. They also created the catalogue, wall labels and advertising.[3] The borrowing continued in the introductory essay, a literary collage of art writing. It explained the concept with "As Hugh McDiarmid said 'the greater the plagiarism the greater the work of art.' If we can accept this dissident posture we can take this exhibition as a work of art in itself."[36]

The Degree Show was open to the public 8–18 June 1999.[36] Leeds 13's tutor and art historian Ben Read told The Times that students normally showed their own work. He continued by asking "Have they made these works their own art?" Read concluded that the exhibition had stimulated debate on the nature of art.[39]

However, other responses to the exhibition as art in itself were negative. Most media reports included a re-run of Going Places.[40][41] Some reports raised the possibility that The Degree Show was another hoax containing forgeries.[35][42] As the students had not shown their own conventional artwork that year or the previous one, questions were asked about what had they been doing.[38] Critic David Lee of Art Review magazine told The Guardian "[Leeds 13] made a shrewd point last year by the way they hoodwinked the media and the art world, and maybe this year confirms the important point that the path to success in modern art is through notoriety. It sounds like a complete abrogation of responsibility as a degree show."[35]

In contrast, the response to The Degree Show as an exhibition was positive. According to a local gallery owner, who lent work by Rodin and Moore, the mounting of the show was excellent.[35] She also appreciated the inclusion of work by artists with Leeds connections: Hepworth, Hirst and Moore.[41] Shepherd, who exhibited two paintings, said the show was a good opportunity for the public to view such a diverse collection of work.[35] And Read noted The Degree Show had more visitors than any of the department's previous exhibitions.[39]

Leeds 13's members were given upper second class for The Degree Show, the studio practice half of their marks.[43] This was added to their individual marks for art history/theory. The day after the show opened, the fourteen students received six first and eight upper second class degrees.[34] But seven students appealed saying the examiners had rushed marking The Degree Show due to industrial action. Their appeal was successful and in September they all received first class degrees.[43]