Garth Evans Selected by Richard Deacon

Garth Evans : An Arts Council Collection exhibition selected by Richard Deacon

Garth Evans is one of Britain’s most prolific sculptors whose practice has largely been defined by the use of geometric, asymmetrical forms and a commitment to simple, everyday materials. Part of the generation between Anthony Caro and New British Sculpture, Evans is noted for a body of work that offers a bridge between 1960s modernism and the lyrical experimentation with a broader range of materials that followed in the late 1970s. Born in Manchester in 1934, Evans studied at the Slade School of Art (1957-60) and during the 1960s he taught in the Sculpture Department at St Martin’s School of Art where Richard Deacon studied under his direction. In 1979 Garth Evans made a radical break with the UK scene and moved to the US, since when his work has become relatively unknown here.

This exhibition, which presents the Arts Council Collection’s significant holdings alongside key loans from the artist and UK collections, has been selected by his friend and former student, Richard Deacon and promises a fresh view of a fascinating and diverse practice during an important period of inquiry and development. The show also celebrates the launch of Garth Evans Sculpture: Beneath the Skin – a major new monograph on the artist and his work, published by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd.

 

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Installation images.

All works © the artist and all photos © Jonty Wilde.

2006 - 60: Sixty Years of Sculpture

Sixty Years of Sculpture in the Arts Council Collection

2006 was the 60th anniversary of the Arts Council Collection, the most exciting collection of post-war and contemporary British art in the world. A collection without walls of more than 7,500 works, it is loaned to public spaces across the UK and internationally. The Hayward Gallery, which manages the Collection, planned a year-long celebration kicking off with 60, an exhibition which featured sixty key sculptures from Barbara Hepworth to Damien Hirst at the Longside Gallery, YSP, and culminated in a major show at the Hayward in September 2006.

 

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Kaleidoscope: Colour and Sequence in 1960s British Art

An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition

British art of the 1960s is noted for its bold, artificial colour, alluring surfaces and capricious shapes and forms, yet these exuberant qualities are often underpinned by a strong sense of order, founded on repetition, sequence and symmetry. Bringing together outstanding examples of painting and sculpture from the Arts Council Collection and other major UK collections, Kaleidoscope examines 1960s visual art through a fresh and surprising lens, bringing into view the relationship between colour and form, rationality and irrationality, order and waywardness.

As the first Arts Council Collection survey of 1960s British art in over twenty years, Kaleidoscope assumes a wide angle, looking across media and movements to find fresh correspondences. From this perspective, the mind-bending surfaces of Op Art, the flattened repetition of Pop, the mathematical order of Constructivism, and the sequential placement of brightly-coloured abstract units found in New Generation sculpture find a common language shaped by sequence and symmetry.

Kaleidoscope represents the work of over twenty artists including: David Annesley, Anthony Caro, Robyn Denny, Tess Jaray, Phillip King, Kim Lim, Mary Martin, Eduardo Paolozzi, Bridget Riley, Tim Scott, Richard Smith, William Tucker and William Turnbull

 

DOWNLOAD the Kaleidescope Education Pack written by teachers to inspire ideas and ways of working with the exhibition.


KALEIDOSCOPE TOUR DATES & VENUES 

Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
1 April – 18 June 2017

Nottingham Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham
15 July – 24 September 2017

Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick
5 October – 9 December 2017

Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool
24 February – 3 June 2018
 

 

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Explore this Exhibition

 

Sam Cornish, co-curator of Kaleidoscope: Colour and Sequence in 1960s British Art, discusses some of the ideas and themes behind the first Arts Council Collection survey of 1960s British art in over twenty years.

Below (left): Artist John Dee talks about his 1966 work Revelation, reflecting on the ideas and processes behind the work as well as his time as a student at the Slade.

Below (right): Artist Tess Jaray discusses her painting, St. Stephen's Way, 1964, as well as reflecting on her artistic career and the influence of Italian architecture and Islamic art in her work.

Works in Focus

Bridget Riley

Movement in Squares, 1962
Anthony Caro

Slow Movement, 1965
Tim Scott

Quinquereme, 1966
Joe Tilson

Zikkurat, 1967
Tess Jaray

St. Stephen's Way, 1964

Find Out More

Kaleidoscope Education Pack

Learn more about some of the ideas and themes behind the first Arts Council Collection survey of 1960s British art in over twenty years.
Kaleidoscope Teachers' Day

Watch a short film about our Teachers’ Day programmed alongside Kaleidoscope at Longside Gallery in partnership with Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Kaleidoscope Exhibition Catalogue

With an introductory text by curator Natalie Rudd and an in-depth new essay by curator and writer Sam Cornish, this compact publication presents the work of over 20 artists.
Kaleidoscope Gallery Guide

Download the Kaleidoscope gallery guide featuring information on each of the 25 artists included in the exhibition in a handy printable format.

2013 - 2014 - Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain 1966 - 1979

Curated by Nicholas Alfrey, Joy Sleeman and Ben Tufnell, this exhibition features work by some of the most important British artists of the last 50 years including Tony Cragg, Antony Gormley, Richard Long and Anthony McCall. In the late 1960s artists on both sides of the Atlantic turned away from the enclosed space of the gallery and went out into the landscape to forge a new form of art. This art was made in radically new ways often using earth, water, sun and even fire as raw materials, and went under several names: Land art, earth art, process art, and conceptual art. Drawing largely from the Arts Council Collection and supplemented by important loans from artists and major public institutions, Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain 1966 – 1979 takes a fresh look at the art of this period and considers what was particular about the way Land art developed in Britain.

 

Visit the exhibition website here.

 

The exhibition  tour is:

Southampton Art Gallery, (10 May – 3 August 2013)

National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, (28 September 2013 – 5 January 2014)

Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, (18 January – 8 March 2014)

Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, (5 April - 15 June 2014)

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2003 - In Good Form

In Good Form: Recent Sculpture from the Arts Council Collection

In Good Form was the Arts Council Collection's inaugural exhibition at Longside Gallery. Surveying British sculpture from the early 1990s to the present day, the exhibition featured over twenty works by major artists in the collection. It included David Batchelor, Damien Hirst, Shirazeh Houshiary and Cornelia Parker which demonstrated the continued inventiveness of British sculpture. 

 

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2003 - Bad Behaviour

Bad Behaviour charted a subversive streak in contemporary art, focusing on a generation of artists who challenged conventions and overturned established principles and social codes. Featuring over 50 works from the Arts Council Collection, the Touring Exhibition from the Hayward Gallery, South Bank Centre presented contemporary British sculpture, installation, photography and video from the 80s to 2003. It opened at Longside Gallery in November 2003 before it toured extensively around the UK.

 

Tour details

Longside Gallery (7th Nov – 11th Jan 2004)

Aberystwyth Arts Centre (31st Jan – 21st Mar 2004)

The Metropole Arts Centre, Folkstone (27th Mar – 9th May 2004)

The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (15th May – 27th Jun 2004)

Newcastle University, Hatton Art Gallery (3rd Jul – 15th Aug 2004)

Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown (2nd Oct – 14th Nov 2004)

Djanogly Art Gallery (6th Nov – 19th Dec 2004)

Tullie House, Carlisle (15th Jan – 27th Feb 2005)

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2004 - Off the Beaten Track

A striking feature of Longside Gallery is its vast wall of windows offering stunning views across Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The unique setting provided the perfect backdrop for Off The Beaten Track - an exhibition of sculpture and works on paper from the Arts Council Collection on the theme of outdoor exploration. Off The Beaten Track presented over 25 works to reveal the many ways in which artists have approached the subject of landscape from the 1970s to the present day.

 

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2005 - Antony Gormley: Field for the British Isles

Antony Gormley: Field for the British Isles

The British sculptor, Antony Gormley, is renowned for his distinctive representations of the human form. Field for the British Isles is one of his most famous works of art. This mesmerising installation comprises a sea of 40,000 miniature terracotta figures and has been described by the artist as ‘twenty-five tons of clay energised by fire, sensitised by touch and made conscious by being given eyes ... a field of gazes which looks at the observer making him or her its subject.’ The figures were handmade in 1993 by a hundred people, aged seven to seventy, from a community in St Helen’s, Merseyside.

Since the Arts Council Collection acquired Field in 1995, the work has been seen in venues as diverse as a disused railway shed, a church, cathedral cloisters, art galleries and an empty department store. Field is presented in a new light at Longside Gallery. Framed by the Yorkshire landscape, the work is seen within a rural context for the first time, enabling the relationship between Field and nature to come into view.

 

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2005 - Size Matters

Size Matters: Exploring scale in the Arts Council Collection

Size Matters considered the way in which artists have experimented with scale in recent British art. It brought together recent sculpture, painting and photography representing recognisable objects that had undergone a disorientating shift in size. Featuring chairs of dollhouse proportions and a postage stamp enlarged to the size of a billboard, the exhibition prompted the viewer to feel gigantic and tiny in turns. Despite the playful, participatory nature of the exhibition, Size Matters posed serious questions as to why scale is so important in art. The exhibition included work by Eric Bainbridge, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Abigail Lane, and Elizabeth Wright among others.

 

Tour details

Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (19 Mar – 5 Jun 2005)

Millais Gallery, Southampton Institute, Southampton (1 Jul – 20 Aug 2005)

Djanogly Art Gallery, Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham (27 Aug - 2 Oct 2005)  

Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster (17 Oct - 25 Nov 2005)

Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich (4 Feb – 26 Mar 2006)

Gallery Oldham, Oldham (1 Apr – 21 May 2006)

ArtsDepot, London (1 Jun – 16 Jul 2006)

 

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2007 - Janice Kerbel

Catch This: Janice Kerbel

This exhibition featured the radio play Nick Silver Can't Sleep, 2006, the first sound piece ever to be acquired for the Arts Council Collection.

Artist Janice Kerbel has created a sublime love story which features the voice of Rufus Sewell and concerns two species of plant, one who desperately desires the other but who are destined botanically never to meet. The narrative intertwines Kerbel's botanical research with material gleaned from interviews with insomnia sufferers. Home Garden Climates, 2004 consists of nine plans for plausible yet improbable gardens that could flourish in indoor climates such as a launderette, a restaurant or a Victorian terrace house.

 

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The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

With more than 8,000 works by over 2,000 artists, it can be seen in exhibitions and public displays across the country and beyond. This website offers unprecedented access to the Collection, and information about each work can be found on this site.