Arts Labs


 * "May the various Arts Labs struggling toward the light around the country miraculously find some support in their areas. It seems that even as large a city as Birmingham cannot produce enough concerned individuals to generate a freedom castle." (One of John Peel's wishes for 1969, from his International Times column in the issue dated 1 January 1969)


 * "Letters from David Bowie scrounging money for building of, wait for it...the Beckenham Arts Lab. Reflections on Arts Labs generally, the limitless quantities of bullshit engendered therein and the effect of same - the deadening effect of same - on Eastern European music (incorporating the Silly Hat theory of advanced pop criticism" (from John Peel outlining his proposed "recollections of an English Gentleman" to his literary agent Cat Ledger in 1992. Reproduced in Margrave of the Marshes, p.402)

The Arts Lab movement was a feature of Britain's alternative, hippy-influenced culture of the late 1960s. It began with the opening of the London Arts Lab in 1967 under the leadership of the American Jim Haynes, who had made his name in Edinburgh as the founder of the Traverse Theatre and the Paperback Bookshop, both of which became centres for a youthful artistic avant-garde in the staid Scottish capital. The London Arts Lab was less successful, descending into chaos and closing after two years, but because "the arts" in most provincial British towns and cities were either non-existent or dominated by middle-aged supporters of traditional high culture, the idea of less formal "non-institutions", open to whoever wished to get involved, caught on. In late 1969 International Times was able to devote a full page to listing Arts Labs around the country (the Beckenham Arts Lab being represented by David Bowie's phone number).

tbc.....


 * Links to Peel (no more than two paragraphs, please)