ACC general brochure 2011

Arts Council Collection

The Arts Council Collection supports artists in the UK through the purchase and display of their work.

Operating as a ‘museum without walls’, the Arts Council Collection is the largest national loan collection of modern and contemporary British art in the world, and includes important examples by all of the UK’s prominent artists. It is the most widely circulated of all of Britain’s national collections and can be seen in exhibitions in museums and galleries across the UK and abroad. Unique among national collections, the Arts Council Collection lends to public collections across the UK, including schools, universities, hospitals and charitable associations.

“The Arts Council Collection has made a unique and valuable contribution to the lives and careers of artists working in this country. By consistently identifying key early works by the best emerging talents it spends presciently and wisely and gives the encouragement and kudos so crucial to those struggling to make a start in a precarious profession. And that is merely the beginning. The Collection acquired my work, Angel, in 1997, since when it has been exhibited in no less than eighteen different galleries the length and breadth of this country. I can’t tell you the amount of people I bump into who cite seeing this work.” Mark Wallinger, artist

Arts council Collection Introduction

Matthew Darbyshire, Untitled: Furniture Island No.4, 2009Milena Dragićević, Supplicant 101, 2008

The Arts Council Collection began when the Arts Council of Great Britain was found ed in 1946. It took over a small group of paintings from the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) and its aim was to promote and encourage the appreciation of contemporary art through touring exhibitions. The Collection has continued to grow, acquiring innovative works each year and circulating these as widely as possible. There are now approaching 8,000 works in the Collection, including paintings, sculptures, original works on prints, photographs, film and video and installation works.

History of the Collection

David Hockney, We Two Boys Together Clinging, 1961

Richard Deacon, Kiss and Tell, 1989purchased with assistance from The Henry Moore Foundation and the Art Fund

The Collection includes important, often early, work by all of the most influential British artists from the midtwentieth century to the present day, including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Victor Pasmore, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Patrick Caulfield, Gilbert & George, Richard Hamilton, Richard Deacon, Antony Gormley, Mark Wallinger, Peter Doig, Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, Chris Ofili, Steve McQueen, Mona Hatoum, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Glenn Brown, Jeremy Deller, Keith Coventry and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Since 1986 the Arts Council Collection has been managed by the Southbank Centre, on behalf of Arts Council England. It is now based at the Southbank Centre, London and at Longside, Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Francis Bacon, Head VI, 1949

Patrick Caulfield, Dining Recess,1972

The Collection’s acquisitions policy has always been characterised by a spirit of risk taking combined with an informed appraisal of current practice. The Collection purchases innovative work by artists living in Britain, with a focus on the work of younger and emerging artists. The Collection has received support in the past from the Henry Moore Foundation, The Art Fund and Outset Contemporary Art Fund for particularly ambitious acquisitions. Acquisitions are made through a committee of six individuals: three internal and three external. The external advisers to the Acquisitions Committee, usually an artist, a writer and a curator, are appointed for a fixed twoyear tenure.

Acquisitions

Damien Hirst, He Tried to Internalise Everything, 1992–94, Purchased 1996, with assistance from the Henry Moore Foundation

Clare Woods, Daddy Witch, 2008 Roger Hiorns, Nunhead, 2004

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled Six Spaces, 1994In Good Form at Longside Gallery 2003

Longside

Toby Ziegler, Catch This In Good Form, 2007

Antony Gormley, Field for the British Isles, 1993 installation at Longside Gallery 2005Purchased with the assistance of The Henry Moore Foundation and the Art Fund

Longside has been home to sculpture in the Arts Council Collection since 2003. Located within the grounds of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Longside sculpture centre enables the Arts Council Collection team to extend its sculpture conservation and research programmes, and to increase public access to a sculpture collection of more than 800 works through increased lending and exhibition initiatives. A diverse range of exhibitions from the Collection, including displays of some of the most recent acquisitions, can be seen in the adjacent Tony Frettondesigned Longside Gallery, which is shared with Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The centre facilitates loans across the UK and abroad to ensure that sculpture in the Arts Council Collection is accessed as widely as possible.

ExHiBiTiON LOANSThe Arts Council Collection is the principal source of modern and contemporary loans to museums and galleries across the UK. During 2009–10 the Arts Council Collection lent 1064 works to 128 venues in the UK and abroad. Loans to UK museums and galleries are usually free of charge. Formal applications for loans should be made in writing to the Head of the Arts Council Collection at least six months in advance. To enquire about the availability of works, please contact [email protected] Exhibition conditions of loans are downloadable from our website.

Museum and Galleries partnerships

COLLECTiONS PARTNERSHiP: MuSEuMS AND PARTNERSHiPS GALLERiES SCHEMEA new initiative will be launched in 2012, which will involve the Collection working in close collaboration with four major regional galleries. This scheme will make readily available for loan, new acquisitions and key works from the Collection. The galleries involved in the scheme are: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery, Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool and Manchester Art Gallery. They will all be using loans from the Collection in innovative and dynamic displays throughout the course of a threeyear loan period.

Richard Hamilton, Treatment Room, 1984 at Serpentine Gallery, London 2010

→ David Batchelor, Festdella, 2006, at Gas Hall, Birmingham 2007Gift of the artist and Hayward Gallery; commissioned by the Hayward Gallery as the inaugural Christmas Lights project 2006

which featured personal choices by older members of the Derby community (2010). More information about Select and an exhibition proposal form are downloadable from our website.

SELECTSelect is a strand of programming that invites galleries and museums to select their own exhibitions and displays from the Collection. Often curated to complement existing collections or programmes, these exhibitions vary in scale and have been programmed by galleries from Aberdeen to Penzance and from large municipal museums to small rural art centres. A modest fee is charged for these exhibitions depending on the number and complexity of loans. Recent Selects have included The White Show at Pitzhanger Manor, London (2009), Wolfgang Tillmans’ intervention at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2010), From Here to There at the

Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry (2010), Another Face, Contemporary Portraiture at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (2010), Objects of Delight at Quad,

Select exhibition, Another Face, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle 2010

Select exhibition, Circa 1967Milton Keynes Gallery 2007

Bridget Riley, Flashback, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery 2010

Select exhibition, From Here to There, Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, Coventry 2010

Unpopular Culture, Grayson Perry at Longside Gallery 2009

TOuRiNG ExHiBiTiONS New touring exhibitions from the Collection are launched each year and travel throughout the country. Varying from large solo shows to thematic and artistcurated exhibitions to film programmes, they enable the Collection to collaborate with most of the UK galleries. In 2009 a new series of solo shows, entitled Flashback, was launched. It showcases major early purchases by the Collection of worldrenowned British artists. The series began with Bridget Riley and toured to Liverpool, Birmingham, Norwich and Southampton. This was followed by Anish Kapoor, which is touring to Manchester, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Longside. The series will continue in forthcoming years with Gary Hume and Rachel Whiteread. Previous touring exhibitions have included: No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967-87, Unpopular Culture,

selected by Grayson Perry, which featured figurative paintings, bronze sculpture and documentary photography and toured to ten venues. Now Showing enabled new film and video works to be seen in many smaller venues from Hove to the Outer Hebrides. Transmitter. Receiver, which takes a contemporary look at collage, begins its tour in late 2011. The touring exhibition programme is accompanied by a lively programme of events and resource material for schools and general visitors.

TRuST NEW ARTA new partnership between the National Trust and Arts Council England was launched in 2009 and resulted in a series of exciting new commissions. This scheme has now been extended to include contemporary loans from the Arts Council Collection. The aim is to engage different audiences with contemporary art, and to display works in unexpected surroundings, stimulating a lively debate about the role of contemporary art within an historic context. A range of National Trust properties across the country will be participating in this scheme in forthcoming years.

Fiona Rae, Untitled (pale green I), 1990 on long loan to St Martin in the Fields, London

Tracey Emin, The Simple Truth, 1995 at Nunnington Hall, North Yorkshire 2009

Ingrid Kerma, The Fugitives, 1983at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, CIMR

Eduardo Paolozzi prints on long loan to the Princess Royal University Hospital, London

Working outside Museums and GalleriesLONG LOANSThe long loan scheme provides loans not just to the museum and gallery sector, but also to other public institutions such as universities, colleges, charities, libraries and hospitals. These loans are generally between three and five years in length and a fee is usually charged. Hayward Gallery technical teams carry out delivery and installation. For further information please contact [email protected]

PAiNTiNGS iN HOSPiTALSIt is widely recognised that art displayed in hospitals can improve the wellbeing of both patients and staff. Paintings in Hospitals supports the lives of many thousands of people each year by bringing interest, warmth and colour into clinical environments which might otherwise appear cold and sterile. The Arts Council Collection has made over 100 works of art available to Paintings in Hospitals bringing a new selection of work by a range of contemporary artists into the health care system. Hospitals wishing to borrow from the Collection, should in the first instance contact Paintings in Hospitals. Paintings in Hospitals. Floor 1, 51 Southwark Street, London SE1 1RUTelephone: 020 7407 3222. Email: [email protected]

HAyWiREDHaywired is the Hayward Gallery’s net work for secondary schools across London. The network includes one school from each of the thirtytwo London boroughs and it provides a unique opportunity for schools to work in partnership with the Gallery and the Arts Council Collection. Schools in the scheme can apply to receive works of art on loan for display in their school for the academic year. The loans will be a focus for lessons across the curriculum, so creating a valuable opportunity for teachers and students to engage with modern and contemporary art.

Please visit the exhibition’s microsite on our website: www.thegatheringartscouncilcollection.org.uk/home

We also run an internship programme which is advertised on the Southbank Centre website.

Working with young people and outreachSELECT. AC.Select ac is a curatorial competition that invites MA and PhD students in the UK to curate an exhibition from the Arts Council Collection. Designed to nurture the next generation of curators and give handson experience of working with a collection, the first exhibition in this scheme opened at Longside Gallery in March 2010. This exhibition, The Gathering, was curated by a MFA in Curating student at Goldsmiths College and it charted the provenance of over thirty works selected from the past forty years of the Collection, revealing how and why particular works came to be acquired.

Select. ac exhibition, The Gathering, Building the Arts Council Collection 1973-2009, Longside Gallery 2010

WORKiNG WiTH yOuNG CuRATORSThe Arts Council Collection has collaborated with young curator groups in a broad range of galleries over the last few years. These have resulted in exhibitions at Leeds Metropolitan Gallery, Oriel Davies, Newtown, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, Ryedale Folk Museum and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Young curators at the opening of It’s not the end of the world Leeds Metropolitan Gallery 2009

→ Tania Kovats, Catch This, exhibition at Longside Gallery 2008

For more information on all aspects of the Arts Council Collection and a full list of all unique works in the Collection, please visit our website at www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk

LONDON: Arts Council CollectionSouthbank CentreBelvedere RoadLondon SE1 8XX

General enquiries: 0207 921 0878

[email protected] Head of the Arts Council Collection

[email protected] Senior Curator

[email protected] Curator

[email protected] Acquisitions Coordinator

[email protected] Loans Coordinator

LONGSiDE: Longside Gallery is located within the grounds of Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Longside Gallery7 LongsideJebb LaneHaighNear Barnsley S75 4BS [email protected] inquiries: 01924 830 900

Admission to Longside is free. Please see our website for opening times and directions for getting to the gallery.

[email protected] Sculpture Curator

[email protected] Sculpture Coordinator

Contacts us

Curators’ day at The Hepworth, Wakefield 2009

CuRATORS’ DAySEvery year the Arts Council Collection organ ises six events for UKbased curators. Designed as an informal forum for networking, each event has a special focus, either looking at particular areas of professional practice or visiting new buildings and important exhibitions. Recent events have included visits to Glasgow International Festival, the British Art Show at Nottingham, The Hepworth at Wakefield and collaborations with the Contemporary Arts Society, the Government Art Collection and the British Council.

The Arts Council Collection is based at Southbank Centre, London and at Longside, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield.For further information about the Arts Council Collection please visitwww.artscouncilcollection.org.ukLoans from the Collection are generally free of charge. Where exceptional curatorial or technical support is required a small fee may be charged to cover administration, preparation and installation costs.To enquire about borrowing work from the Arts Council Collection, email [email protected] images © the artist

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Cover (top): ↖ Unpopular Culture film programme, Longside Gallery 2009

Gilbert and George, Smash, 1977 in Revelation, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle 2005↗ Cornelia Parker, Neither From Nor Towards, 1992Oriel Myrddin, Carmarthen 2007

← Select exhibition, Sixties Summer, Leamington Spa Art Gallery 2009

Douglas Gordon, Croque Mort, 2000→ Wolfgang Tillmans’ intervention at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 2010

ACC general brochure 2011

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