STRUCTURE & MATERIAL

Becky Beasley   Claire Barclay   Karla Black

An Arts Council Collection exhibition curated by Katrina Brown (Common Guild) and Caroline Douglas

Structure & Material investigates the work of three significant young artists who each investigate the way we create meaning through form. Unlikely sculptural materials such as cosmetics, sugar paper, blackboard paint and brass hinges, or craft in the form of tapestry, are employed to diverse and distinctive effect. From elements that are sometimes meagre or over-familiar, new forms are created that are mysterious and highly evocative.

Structure & Material features a comprehensive body of work by each artist and includes recent acquisitions from the Arts Council Collection and installations made in response to Longside Gallery.

Tour details

Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (31 March - 26 June 2011)

Spike Island, Bristol (9 July - 4 September 2011)

The New Art Gallery, Walsall (30 September - 24 December 2011)

Flashback is a major series of touring exhibitions from the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre. Taking as its starting point the Collection’s founding principle of supporting emerging artists through the purchase of their work, the series showcases internationally renowned British artists whose works have been acquired by the Collection. The monographic exhibitions present early pieces from the Collection alongside more recent work to give a unique insight into the evolution of these key figures in British art. Following on from the success of the first Flashback exhibition of work by Bridget Riley, the second artist in the series of exhibitions is the renowned artist and Turner Prize winner, Anish Kapoor.

Anish Kapoor’s sensual and beguiling sculptures are created using a range of materials including pigment, stone, polished stainless steel and wax. Following on from the critical acclaim of his show at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2009, this Flashback exhibition gives an opportunity to explore Kapoor’s earlier works from the Arts Council Collection alongside major sculptures on loan from the artist and from other UK collections. This is the first survey of Kapoor's work to be held in the UK, outside of London.

The show has been selected by the artist in close dialogue with the Arts Council Collection and includes works, such as White Sand, Red Millet, Many Flowers(1982), which demonstrate Kapoor’s early interest in applying raw pigment to a range of organic forms. The sculpture was acquired by the Arts Council Collection the same year and has been lent to many major institutions as a key example of his early practice. Alongside this, the optically illusionary Untitled (1997-98) is a highly-polished stainless steel void embedded into the wall that draws the viewer into a seemingly bottomless reflection and is emblematic of the seamless mirrored forms that have made Kapoor a household name.

An illustrated catalogue, featuring a new interview with Anish Kapoor conducted by Andrew Renton and an essay by Michael Bracewell, will accompany Anish Kapoor: Flashback.

More info

An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition

Exhibition Tour Venues:

16 July – 16 October 2016, Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park

26 November 2016 – 12 February 2017: The Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

25 February 2017 – 21 May 2017: The Attenborough Centre, Leicester

‘When I look at sculptures of the human figure I am frequently left thinking of all the things that they’ve seen. This is the world of the silent onlooker.’
Ryan Gander

Curated by the leading British artist Ryan Gander, this major new touring exhibition offers a unique view of the Arts Council Collection in its seventieth anniversary year. As an artist, Gander is known for avoiding a recognisable style, preferring to work with many different materials to explore new approaches to art. For Night in the Museum, Gander has positioned a range of figurative sculptures so that they can gaze at artworks featuring the colour blue – a colour which is important in Gander’s work, and which for him represents the abstract ideas often found in modern and contemporary art. The figures contemplate a wide selection of post-war British art encompassing different styles and periods. In presenting works in this unusual way, Gander disrupts the role of the curator as a mediator between art and the public. He invites us to look beyond traditional themes and histories and to consider new narratives and relationships.

Night in the Museum represents the work of over thirty artists including Angela Bulloch, Patrick Caulfield, Don Brown, Jacob Epstein, Liam Gillick, Roger Hiorns, David Hockney, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Kerry Stewart, and Rebecca Warren.  Also on public display for the first time is Ryan Gander’s new commission for the Arts Council Collection, As old as time itself, slept alone 2016 – the latest in an ongoing series in which Gander re-imagines Edgar Degas’ famous work The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (1880-81) in different scenarios and stages in life, always paired with a blue cube.

The late 1970s and 1980s witnessed the emergence of a younger generation of artists working in the United Kingdom who began to receive international attention for practices which, although incredibly diverse, share a revived interest in the sculpted object, in materials, and in ideas around production procedures. Making It is the first exhibition to survey this exciting moment in British sculpture. It shows how approaches to object making were reinvigorated by the breakthroughs in conceptual and performance art made by preceding generations and by sculptural and cultural inspirations from beyond these shores.

Curated by Dr Jon Wood (Research Curator, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds) and Senior Collection Curator, Natalie Rudd the exhibition is drawn primarily from the holdings of the Arts Council Collection and complimented with major loans from important UK public and private collections. This substantial exhibition, embraces a wide range of sculptural practices, highlighting shared concerns, as well as important differences, between and within established groups, and enabling the work of a younger generation to be presented alongside that of both lesser known and older, more established figures.

Artists represented in Making It: Edward Allington, Eric Bainbridge, Phyllida Barlow, Kate Blacker, Boyle Family, Tony Carter, Helen Chadwick, Shelagh Cluett, John Cobb, Stephen Cox, Tony Cragg, Michael Craig-Martin, John Davies, Paul de Monchaux, Richard Deacon, Kenneth Draper, Gareth Fisher, Barry Flanagan, John Gibbons, Antony Gormley, Nigel Hall, Shirazeh Houshiary, Anish Kapoor, George Meyrick, David Nash, Martin Naylor, Paul Neagu, Julian Opie, Margaret Organ, Eduardo Paolozzi, Cornelia Parker, Carl Plackman, Nicholas Pope, Peter Randall-Page, Veronica Ryan, Michael, Sandle, Jean-Luc Vilmouth, Shelagh Wakely, Richard Wentworth, Alison Wilding, Glynn Williams, Richard Wilson, Gary Woodley and Bill Woodrow.

Tour Dates

Longside Gallery: 27 Mar - 21 Jun 2015
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre: 8 Oct - 29 Nov 2015
City Art Centre, Edinburgh: 7 May - 3 Jul 2016

Art & the Self since the 1990s

An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition

Self portraiture maintains an enduring presence throughout art history; in recent years artists have revolutionised and extended the genre by incorporating action, performance, narrative and explorations of identity.

In My Shoes explores the ways in which artists based in the UK have represented themselves in their work since the 1990s. Encompassing a range of media including film, photography and sculpture, In My Shoes draws primarily from the Arts Council Collection, with key loans from other UK collections, to investigate these dynamic approaches.

This exhibition offers a timely opportunity to consider the legacy of a key aspect of 1990s British art. The show begins with key early works by so-called ‘Young British Artists’ including Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Gavin Turk, who received international attention for putting themselves in the frame with bold and confrontational works. The exhibition continues with the work of a younger generation of artists including Rachel Maclean and Bedwyr Williams who have each established an active role within their work. In My Shoes concludes with some of the most recent works to enter the Arts Council Collection, some on public display for the first time since acquisition.

The rise of the ‘selfie’ in contemporary society and the construction of digital identities through social media offers a timely wider context for the exhibition.

Please note: not all works will be shown at all venues.

Yinka Shonibare (now CBE) curates the Arts Council Collection in a new touring exhibition that opens at Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester, 21 September-16 December 2018, then tours throughout the UK.

Criminal Ornamentation explores the cultural and social dimensions of the use of pattern in art. The exhibition title refers to Adolf Loos' 'Ornament and Crime' (1908) a strongly worded essay in which Loos ridiculed the use of ornament as an indication of poor taste and the lowest level of cultural development. As a counterblast to Loos’ bombastic text, Yinka Shonibare CBE presents an explosion of pattern and colour bringing together works from across the visual arts including an acidic wallpaper by Glasgow-based designers, Timorous Beasties, the sculptural torso of Tattoo, a subversive work by Edward Lipski and the flowing vegetation of Honeysuckle, a design by May Morris.

Unified by pattern, the exhibition is a personal selection by Yinka Shonibare CBE from the Arts Council Collection’s rich and varied holdings supplemented by key loans from the V&A, Crafts Council, William Morris Society and individual artists based across the UK.  Threading through the patterned surfaces are many challenging themes - from politics and colonialism to gender stereotypes and inequality. Criminal Ornamentation is an exploration of pattern as a genuine expression that breaks away from traditional conceptions of art and seeks to celebrate the radical deviancy of pattern.

Artists featured in the show include Timorous Beasties, Boyle Family, Susan Derges, Joe Fletcher Orr, Laura Ford, Edward Lipski, Alexander McQueen, Milena Dragicevic, Lis Rhodes, Bridget Riley, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Caragh Thuring and Bedwyr Williams.

SEE BELOW FOR FULL TOUR DATES

An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition

A major new touring exhibition challenging the male-dominated narratives of post-war British sculpture by presenting a diverse and significant range of ambitious work by women.

Breaking the Mould is the first survey of post-war British sculpture by women. This exhibition provides a radical recalibration, addressing the many accounts of British sculpture that have marginalised women or airbrushed their work from art history altogether.

The exhibition surveys seventy-five years and explores the work of over forty sculptors. All of the works have been selected from the Arts Council Collection, which holds more than 250 sculptures by over 150 women. The exhibition features a number of sculptures on public display for the first time since they were purchased for the nation.

Breaking the Mould represents the strength and diversity of a wide range of practices. Many of the represented artists have challenged widespread notions of sculpture as a ‘male occupation’ by embracing new materials, subjects and approaches. Others have avoided institutional bias by producing work for alternative spaces or public sites.

Featured artists include Barbara Hepworth, Elisabeth Frink, Kim Lim, Cornelia Parker, Veronica Ryan, Rachel Whiteread and Anthea Hamilton. 

Breaking the Mould is an Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition initiated in response to Women Working in Sculpture from 1960 to the Present Day: Towards a New Lexicon, a research project led by Catherine George (University of Coventry) and Hilary Gresty (independent).