| News | |
| Contemporary Art Society Announces New Partnership With Becks | |
| 18 June 2008 | |
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The Contemporary Art Society is delighted to announce a major new partnership with Beck’s, uniting their long-standing support for contemporary artists. Beck’s today launched Beck’s Fusions, a unique art and music fusion project that will run throughout summer 2008 engaging artists, musicians, critics and the general public in the largest scale project of its kind ever undertaken. Visual art collective United Visual Artists (UVA) and Massive Attack (one of only three UK performances this year) will headline the 2008 Beck’s Fusions event on Sat 6 September in Manchester’s Castlefield Arena. For a chance to attend Beck’s Fusions register online at www.becks.co.uk Keri Elmsly from UVA said: "Lots of our work involves bringing art and music together and as a collective we're firm believers in the intrinsic relationship the two have. This project is great because it really recognises this and offers us the opportunity to present something really new and build on our collaborative relationship with Massive Attack." Beck’s have chosen Manchester as the location for Fusions in 2008 to celebrate its place as one of Britain’s top cultural destinations. The inaugural year of the Manchester International Festival in 2007 signalled Manchester as the obvious choice to host this celebration of art and music. A previous home to Dpercussion and Britain’s first urban heritage park, Castlefield Arena will offer an atmospheric backdrop for this unique event. Beck’s are collaborating with the Contemporary Art Society, Britain’s national membership organisation promoting contemporary art. Together they will facilitate and enable artists and musicians to create unique fusion performances in Manchester’s Castlefield arena. Further line-up details will be announced over the summer. Paul Hobson, Director of the Contemporary Art Society said: “We are delighted to be working with Beck’s on this ground-breaking project. We are celebrating our centenary next year, and it’s the perfect way to start the celebrations early, with a partner who shares our longstanding support and commitment to contemporary artists.” Louise Brown, Sponsorship Manager at Beck’s said: "Working with the Contemporary Art Society has given us the opportunity and scope to engage with a wide selection of contemporary artists from across the UK. The indispensable input made by the Contemporary Art Society has helped shape the event's artistic focus, and will make a valuable contribution to delivering what is gearing up to be an amazing event in September." Fabienne Nicholas, who will act as the curator on the programme said: “Beck's Fusions is going to provide an exciting programme of opportunities for artists - and the team at the Contemporary Art Society are really looking forward to discovering and working with new artists and bringing their work to life at the September event. Art and music...the possibilities are endless!” This year Beck’s are introducing The Studio at becks.co.uk where the public can take part online. Fabienne Nicholas with John Squire, Peter Saville and Francesca Gavin will form the Fusions panel who will judge all the entries. For the lucky few selected artists, their work will form an integral part of the final Fusions event in Manchester. Key Event Information For more information, interviews and images please contact the Beck’s Fusions press office: |
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| For further information please click here (3-page pdf) | |
| Bury Art Gallery purchase Rachel Goodyear's 'Fawn with Hand' from Rotate | |
| 10 June 2008 | |
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| © Rachel Goodyear, Fawn with Hand, pencil, watercolour, gouache on paper, 22 x 22cm, 2008 (image courtesy the artist and International 3) | |
| Bury Art Gallery have purchased Rachel Goodyear's 'Fawn with Hand' from Rotate, the new CAS exhibition programme based at our Emerald Street offices, showcasing the work of artists, artist-run spaces and galleries who are attracting critical interest and acclaim nationally and internationally. | |
If you are intersted in viewing this work, and other works by Rachel Goodyear and fellow International 3 artists, the Contemporary Art Society offices are open for the public to view the work in office hours (Monday - Friday, 10 - 5.30pm). |
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| Please note that there is limited access to the office - for further information please call 020 7831 1243. | |
| The International 3 | Rotate runs until 29 August 2008. For further information on Rotate click here. | |
| Contemporary Art Society Acquisition for the Leeds Art Gallery | |
| Supported by Bloomberg | |
| March 2008 | |
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| © DJ Simpson, Common Field, 2006, formica on plywood, 120 x 120cm, image courtesy the artist and Sies + Hoke, Dusseldorf (photo: Achim Kukulies) | |
| Building on the support that Bloomberg has given the Contemporary Art Society by hosting ARTfutures for the last three years, this major DJ Simpson work, 'Common Field', has been acquired by the Contemporary Art Society with support from Bloomberg for the collection at Leeds Art Gallery. Bloomberg generously invited the Contemporary Art Society to nominate a shortlist of organisations from our nationwide membership of regional museums, to benefit from a new acquisition focused on `drawing in its broadest sense'. Leeds Art Gallery was selected for its curatorial ambition, an active and developing interest in collecting drawings by sculptors (particularly through the Henry Moore Institute), which this new acquisition aims to extend in scope, and to mark continuing refurbishment of its gallery spaces. . The Contemporary Art Society brought together curators from Bloomberg SPACE (the contemporary art gallery in Bloomberg’s European headquarters, open since 2002), and Leeds Art Gallery in association with The Henry Moore Institute, to select a suitable work, and we are delighted that a work by DJ Simpson has been purchased with funding from Bloomberg. DJ Simpson takes a sculptural approach to drawing. He has said of his work that it is like ‘drawing with electricity’. He uses an electric router to gouge marks into the birch plywood or formica laminate supports, to create a relief surface articulated by abstract lines and forms. Mundane material is revealed for what it is and transformed by a process of ‘drawing’ into something fascinating and quite beautiful. He was featured in the MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art exhibition 'Draw. Conversations around the Legacy of Drawing', January-April 2007, an acknowledgement of his importance as an artist working with drawing. We would like to express our considerable gratitude to Bloomberg for extending our ARTfutures partnership through such a generous act of philanthropy to the benefit of one of our member organisations, and to Leeds Museums and Galleries and The Henry Moore Institute for the imaginative and expert way they have guided this exciting acquisition. |
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| Contemporary Art Society and The Henry Moore Foundation present large-scale sculptures by Alison Wilding to UK museum collections. | |
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| l-r: © Alison Wilding, Assembly, 1991, powder-coated steel, PVC, 123 x 174 x 547 cm. Presented to Tate by the Contemporary Art Society and The Henry Moore Foundation, courtesy of an anonymous donor; © Alison Wilding, Inversion, 2000, native oak, patinated copper, 155 x 490 x 60 cm. Presented to Arts Council Collection by the Contemporary Art Society and The Henry Moore Foundation, courtesy of an anonymous donor. | |
| The Contemporary Art Society and The Henry Moore Foundation are pleased to announce that eight sculptures by British sculptor Alison Wilding have been presented, through the generosity of an anonymous private donor, to UK public collections including The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester; Arts Council Collection; Tate; Manchester Art Gallery and Leeds City Art Gallery. In 1998 the donor commissioned Alison Wilding to produce a body of sculpture on a ‘grand scale’ that explored the events of the Passion of Christ, once the most familiar story in the Western world. The challenge described by Wilding was to make sixteen sculptures that represented each event ‘on at least a human scale’ and which embodied the emotive nature of the narrative. Exhibited in 2000 at The Henry Moore Foundation Studio, Dean Clough, Halifax under the title ‘Contract’, the first series of eight ambitious sculptures resolved the problem of reflecting the double imperatives of story-telling and sculpture-making. |
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| It was always the intention of the anonymous patron that these works should enter public collections in the UK. The Contemporary Art Society and The Henry Moore Foundation are delighted that they have all now found a home. | |
| Since her debut in the 1980s Wilding has consistently produced ambitious and innovative sculptures, working on a variety of scales, and with a wide range of modern and traditional materials. This commission provided her with unusual freedom to essay new combinations of forms in the search to find abstract equivalents for a deeply human story. | |
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| © Alison Wilding, Red Skies, 1992, acrylic, brass, patinated steel, 217 x 99 x 86 cm. | |
| Presented to Manchester Art Gallery, by the Contemporary Art Society and The Henry Moore Foundation, courtesy of an anonymous donor. | |
| These works by Alison Wilding have been presented to the following public collections: | |
Deep Water, 1989 Seal, 1990 Assembly, 1991 Red Skies, 1992 Harbour, 1994-96 Cold Face, 1997 Disposition, 1999 Inversion, 2000 |
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| Click here to download full press release as a .pdf | |
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| For further information and images, please contact Sarah Cockburn, Henry Moore Institute, 0113 233 7653 or 0113 246 7467 or email sarah@henry-moore.ac.uk | |
| www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk | |