Matthew Collings

Matthew Collings (born 1955) is a British art critic, writer, broadcaster, and artist. He is married to Emma Biggs, with whom he collaborates on art works.

Born in London in 1955, Collings missed secondary education, receiving therapy instead at the Finchden Manor Community, a haven for disturbed teenage boys established by G.A.Lyward, in the Cinque Port town of Tenterden, in the Ashford District of Kent in South East England, whose former residents included James Robertson Justice, Robert John Godfrey, Tom Robinson and Alexis Korner. Collings then studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, and Goldsmith's College, both in London.

Collings has a regular monthly column in the art magazine ArtReview ("Great Critics and Their Ideas"), in which he "interviews" historical figures whose influence on art has been decisive. In one of these Søren Kierkegaard says of today's art enthusiasts, "What they're not baffled about, because to them they are as natural as breathing, are the morally indefensible moves that have to be made all the time in order to keep something as trivial as the artworld going."

In one of his books on art, Collings states that in his early teenage years he hung around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family, and that he ran away to Canada and for many weeks was the object of an internationally coordinated police search.

He began his career working at Artscribe beginning in the production department in 1979 and later took over as editor, filling that role from 1983-7, bringing international relevance to the magazine. In 1987 he received a Turner Prize commendation for his work on Artscribe. Collings later moved into television working as a producer and presenter on the BBC The Late Show from 1989-95. In the early 1990s he brought Martin Kippenberger into the BBC studios to create an installation, and he interviewed Georg Herold while this Cologne-based conceptual artist painted a large canvas with beluga caviar. He gave Jeff Koons his first sympathetic TV exposure, and Damien Hirst was introduced for the first time to the UK TV audience by Collings.

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