JON THOMPSON

About

Jon Thompson (born 1936) is an artist, curator and academic known for his involvement in the development of the so called YBA artist generation. Thompson was instrumental is changing the way the art school system in the UK worked. He opened up the departments at Goldsmiths College in London and allowed students to move freely between the different specialisms, such as painting, sculpture, photography and printing etc. This separated Goldsmiths from the dominance of art schools like St Martins. In 1988 he was involved in the curation of the now legendary Freeze warehouse exhibition along with two sociology students and Damien Hirst whom Thompson had accepted on to the course and tutored since that time. Jon Thompson is now head of the MA Fine Art course at Middlesex University's School of Art (previously Hornsey College of Art) and continues to lecture on artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Piero Manzoni. He has also curated major shows at the Hayward Gallery in London including Gravity and Grace and Falls the Shadow with Barry Barker.