The serious study of fairground art and design is often dazzled by the vivacity and overt playfulness of the art and its function - consideration is condensed into a focus on painting and carving. This created a body of analysis, writing and photographic assemblage suggesting either or both of a simple practitioner level (with a history of the artists and their spheres of influence), or a simple receptive level (in terms of influences in output style). This takes us up to the start of the 1980s with key works by David Braithwaite and Ward and Weedon, but something new emerged in last 30 years that escaped definition and analysis in the existing framework.
Firstly we saw the emergence of lights, metal and plastic as overt features of design - emphasising the expression of STRUCTURE as key in advertising the THRILL of the machine. Secondly we saw a new movement of airbrush art bringing in levels of 'immediacy' that reflected a pervasive accelerated culture and a fluid digital age. Within this framework it became evident that thrill was central to the fair, and to understand the look and feel of the fair (on all sensory levels) would necessitate a new type of dialogue.
A new enquiry into fairground art and design must achieve the following objectives:
An investigation into what constitutes how fairground art and aesthetics might be understood by those whose function it is to respond to it.
From this standpoint we can propose a pair of new broad definitions that work together in informing the investigations and content in this section of our website. We offer a definition of the fair and follow this with a definition of the art and design of the fair:
"The principal function of the fairground is to offer a seditious, riotous and jarring sense of celebration in a temporary and transitory construct. This sense of celebration takes multiple and evolving forms, and interacts with other popular pursuits, the wider field of popular culture, and the technological development of what is possible on the fairground."
"Fairground art and aesthetics creates a seamless and totalising suspension of disbelief to set in motion and support this principal function of the fair. Fairground art entices and entraps the punter to immerse themselves in and engage with the various expressions of the fairground."
