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Study Visit: The British Art Show - The Open College of the Arts

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Study Visit: The British Art Show

The British Art show is a fantastic (an huge) exhibition staged every 5 years and showcases artists who the curators believe have made a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art over the preceding 5 year period. I am hugely excited about this year’s offering as it has two of my favourite artists in it (Bedwyr Williams and Ryan Gander) and its curators have said that part of their rationale has been to spotlight the reemergence of the object as we have perhaps weathered the storm of our fascination with digital fragmentation and ephemerality. Organisers say “In today’s seemingly dematerialised reality, many artists are reconsidering the potential of the physical, revisiting skills and practices that have been overshadowed in the transition to the digital. The notion of the object is re­imagined through a variety  of production and collaborative processes, as well as through the use of narrative and fiction.

The British Art Show is widely recognised as the most ambitious and influential exhibition of contemporary British art, with artists chosen for their significant contribution over the past five years.

The curators Anna Colin and Lydia Yee say that they made their selection after extensive research and travel across the UK. Many of the artists have a strong international presence, reflecting the increasingly globalised networks operating in the art world. More than half of the participating artists are making new work for the exhibition, while others will present recent work not previously seen in Britain.

The exhibition concept reflects on the status of the object at a time of increasing convergence  between the real and the virtual.

Exhibition curators Anna Colin and Lydia Yee said: “Working on the British Art Show has been a rich  and stimulating experience. Rather than arriving with a set theme and inviting artists accordingly, the curatorial framework was developed out of conversations with artists and observations made over the course of one year. We were particularly interested in the rereading of objects by artists and other contemporary thinkers as active agents, generative entities, mutating forms and networked realities. This has given us a starting point to explore how production, labour and collaborative processes can enter into dynamic conversation with the objects’ narrative potential and web of  relations.”

Roger Malbert, Head of Hayward Touring is quoted in the press release as saying ” The five year interval between British Art Shows is long enough for each to have a markedly different character and introduce a new generation of artists. This edition signifies a shift of curatorial perspective as well: the exhibition will evolve as it moves from city to city, with more collaborative relationships between artists and local organisations  and communities.”
I hope to see as many OCA students attending as possible and we plan to host a study day at each venue, plans so far are as follows:
Leeds: 14 November 2015
Edinburgh: 9 April 2016
Norwich: TBC
Southampton: 22 October 2016
Students can sign up for the Leeds event by emailing enquiries@oca.ac.uk


Posted by author: Emma Drye

2 thoughts on “Study Visit: The British Art Show

  • I attended the study visit to the British Art Show in Edinburgh yesterday with Emma. It was an excellent study visit. A great mix of looking, reflecting and discussion. I found some of the work difficult and struggled to get to grips with it, for example the work by Andrea Buttner which is a very complex piece of work reflecting on Kant’s ‘Critique of the Power of Judgement’. It’s a complex and difficult subject so I was not surprised that I found the work impentratable. I had just been viewing one of Emma’s other posts on McKeever talking about the mystery of paintings too which connected for me in the effect that looking at artists work has on us. Other work was equally challenging but which I found more meaning in at an initial look such as the work of Simon Fujiwara: both his ‘Fabulous Beast’ series which examines skilled and time consuming making and his excellent film, ‘Hello’ which was very thought provoking. Most of the other students on the visit were studying drawing and or painting and as a textiles student I was interested to hear their views. The main topics of discussion had in fact little to do with medium but had a lot to do with making, concepts and process which applied equally to us all. For me textiles as a range of media is a response rather than an end in itself so attending study visits that are cross disciplinary in nature is not only instructive but also constructive in providing challenge and perspective, thanks to Emma for an excellent study visit. I learned a lot about the curatorial intention of the show, so important in a periodic and ‘state of the art ‘ event like this. I will certainly be retuning to see the work again before it moves on.

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