The Glasgow School of Art

Henry Rogers is the MFA Programme Leader at The Glasgow School of Art.
From 1997-2017 he worked at Birmingham School of Art where he was latterly Head of Postgraduate Taught Studies responsible for all postgraduate provision in the school. He led the Art-based Masters Programme, hailed as one of the best programmes in Europe, from 2009 – 2017. Whilst overall Director he was Programme Leader of MA Fine Art and in 2009 developed the MA Queer Studies in Arts and Culture, a unique award, the first to be developed in the UK.

In 1987 he gained a first class pass in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art where he was awarded the Watt Medal for Excellence in a field of study. In 1989 he gained a Masters in Painting from the Royal College of Art. In 1990 he was awarded the Mark Rothko Memorial Trust Award to live and work in the USA and in 2001 he became an Abbey Fellow at the British School at Rome. Since 1990 he has worked in art schools in the UK and between 1986 and 2002 he lived and worked in Florence, Paris, New York and Rome.

He is an interdisciplinary practitioner working with drawing, painting, photography and writing. He is concerned with formality, mediation and mimesis in art with particular reference to queer theory and queer strategies in art practice. He has initiated projects addressing the impact of performance and performativity on art-based production.

His research is concerned with:

• Subjectivity, the performativity of art objects and marginal representations that challenge norms in visual culture;

• Queer Studies and its implications for art based practice;

• Contemporary art with an emphasis on artists employing writing as a part of their practice;

• The relationship between making and writing within the context of doctoral artistic research.

Within educational contexts he made a significant contribution to learning and teaching, curriculum design, development and delivery with particular emphasis on research strategies in and through artistic practice thus enabling students to progress to doctoral research. He has supervised several AHRC funded doctoral students and has an exemplary record as a PhD supervisor.

Recent publications include: I See What You’re Saying: The Materialisation of Words in Contemporary Art, Edited publication with Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2013); Queertexturealities: queer methodologies in art based practice, Edited publication, Article Press (2013); Article 'Civil Partnership: All About My Mother’s Shame', Zetesis journal [refereed journal] (2012).

Research Initiatives

Forthcoming
ELIA Artistic Research Working Group
This project is intended to be an extension of the European Leagues of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) http://www.elia-artschools.org 2014 SHARE project that focuses on an aspect identified by ELIA/European University Association (EUA) as missing. This is with regard to policy of research degrees and funding in Europe. ELIA was charged by EUA to set up a working group to establish specific principles for artistic research across the art and design sector within the European context and to explore the augmentation of the existing 2010 policy which takes the form of the Salzburg II Principles and Recommendations. In December 2016 a refined document ‘The Florence Principles’ was presented at the ELIA conference where it was endorsed. The next stage of this working group’s activities has been to focus on the issue of supervision in Europe and is currently the subject of a three year Erasmus + Partnership Bid.

Creator Doctus Project Working Group
The Glasgow School of Art was invited to join this initiative that was launched in November 2015 in Amsterdam. The project was initiated by colleagues at the Gerrit Reitveld Academie in 2014. The idea for this award is now gaining ground across Europe with HEI in the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Lithuania and Greece all exploring the potential it may hold with regard to artistic research. This is currently the subject of a three year Erasmus + Partnership Bid. GSA and CCA are the partners in Glasgow.

Queering the Arts Council Collection
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery with host this exhibition in 2017. It is traveling from the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. This exhibition is a response to Coming Out: Queer British Art 1867 – 1967 hosted at Tate Britian in 2017.

For the Love of Caravaggio’s Boys: some thoughts on incredulity and bodily sacrifice
This article explores the surface of Caravaggio’s paintings of punch drunk boys e.g. Boy with a Basket of Fruit in relationship to their location in the Galleria Borghese and to the life of Scipone and a notion of the uncivil society. It draws on the work of Jean Luc Nancy and Rudolph Gasche – unpublished.

Research Supervision

Successful supervision of research students

2007 – 2010
Lisa Metherell
Glittering Orientations: Queer Encounters in Art.
AHRC Funded [Block Grant]. Successfully completed.
(Director of Studies, co-supervision with Professor Nick Stanley)

2008 – 2012
Jacqueline Taylor
writing//painting: l’ecriture feminine and difference in making.
AHRC Funded [Block Grant]. Successfully completed.
(Director of Studies, co-supervision with Professor Nick Stanley and Dr Anne Boltwood)

2007 – 2013
Amy Bourbon
Towards a New Aesthetics of Immersive Painting through the Application of Analogous Notions of Composition and Listening in Acousmatic Music.
AHRC Funded [Block Grant]. Successfully completed.
(co-supervision with Professor Nick Stanley)

Current supervision of research students

2014 – 2017
Alberto Condotta
To listen with open eyes: an investigation of non-homogeneous velatura as a means of exploring the impact of listening-oriented attention on still images.
AHRC Funded [Midlands3cities Consortium].
(Director of Studies, co-supervision with Professor Johnny Golding)

Jakub Ceglarz
BECOMING PALIMPSEST: an interrogation of underwriting (scriptio inferior) and queer enactments in processes of conceptual and material translation.
AHRC Funded [Midlands3cities Consortium].
(Director of Studies, co-supervision with Professor Johnny Golding)

Stuart Mugridge
Romancing the #BritishLandscape: an investigation of the transformative impact of digital systems in relationship to the aesthetic experience and sensing of the naturehuman. AHRC Funded [Midlands3cities Consortium].
(Second Supervisor, co-supervision with Professor Johnny Golding)

2012 – 2016
Grace Williams
The Supernatural Sex: Women, Magick and Mediumship Assembling a Field of Fascination within Contemporary Art
GABB Funded.
(Director of Studies, co-supervision with Professor Johnny Golding and David Cheeseman)

2011 – 2017
Sheridan Horn
Grief and Mourning in Contemporary Art: An enquiry into the approaches and art based practices of Contemporary Western Artists concerned with secular expressions of living with loss.
(Director of Studies, co-supervision with David Cheeseman)

Research Assessor
2015 PhD External Examiner, Winchester School of Art
2003 PhD Internal Assessor, University of Central England
2002 Mphil Internal Assessor, University of Central England
1997 Mphil Internal Assessor, University of Central England

Professional Activities

2016
Midlands 3 Cities Consortium
AHRC Panel Member – Panel B

2014
Journal of Visual Culture
SAGE Publications Inc., 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 – invited to be a peer reviewer for the journal.

2011
Journal of Homosexuality
San Francisco State University, USA. (This refereed journal is published by the publishers Taylor and Francis Group, LLC) - invited to be a peer reviewer for the journal.

2002
Abbey Fellow - The Abbey Fellowship involved a three month residency at the British School at Rome (January – March 2002). The Fellowship is awarded by the Abbey Council on behalf of the Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Trust. www.abbey.org.uk

Member (external) of review panels
2015 - Transart, Plymouth University
2015 - MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
2010 - MA Visual Arts Futures, Nottingham Trent University
2005 - MA Fine Art, Middlesex University, London.

External Examiner
Jan 2008 – 2012 MA Fine Art, UWIC, Cardiff
Dec 2005 – 2009 MA Visual Arts Futures, Nottingham Trent University