Yinka Shonibare 2021 RA Coordinator – Tony Cragg At Houghton Hall – National Gallery Announces Shortlist For Bicentenary Revamp

Yinka Shonibare To Co-ordinate 253rd RA Summer Exhibition

Yinka Shonibare To Coordinate 253rd RA Summer Exhibition – National Gallery 

The Summer Exhibition Committee members are Royal Academicians Tony Bevan, Vanessa Jackson, Mali Morris, Humphrey Ocean, Eva Rothschild, Bob and Roberta Smith and Emma Stibbon. David Adjaye will curate the Architecture Gallery. The committee will be chaired by the President of the Royal Academy, Rebecca Salter.

For this year’s exhibition, Shonibare will explore the theme of ‘Reclaiming Magic’ and celebrate the joy of creating art. He also plans to include some work that has not been made in a ‘Western tradition’. Shonibare said: “Reclaiming Magic’ is an exhibition that seeks a return to the visceral aspects of art-making. It will transcend the Western canon, which formed the foundations of the Royal Academy and Western Art History’s reference points. The exhibition will be a celebration of the transformative powers of the magical in art, a return to the ritualistic and the sheer joy of making”.

The Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show which has taken place every year without interruption since 1769. The Summer Exhibition Committee members serve in rotation, ensuring that the exhibition has a distinctive character every year, with each Royal Academician responsible for a particular gallery space. Works from all over the world are judged democratically on merit, and the final selection is made during the eight-day hang within the galleries.

The Royal Academy now invites artists and architects to submit their work for a chance for it to feature in the exhibition: summer.royalacademy.org.uk Entries will open on Tuesday 13 April, and the submission deadline is Monday 24 May 2021. The RA expects to receive approximately 15,000 entries, and around 1200 works in a range of media will go on display. 

The majority of works will be for sale, offering visitors an opportunity to purchase original work. Funds raised support the exhibiting artists, the postgraduate students studying in the RA Schools, and the Royal Academy’s not-for-profit work.

Tony Cragg

Tony Cragg Next British Sculptor To Be Celebrated At Houghton Hall

Large-scaled works by the celebrated British sculptor Tony Cragg will show on the grounds and historic interiors of Houghton Hall in Norfolk. The exhibition, curated by the artist himself, will include large-scale bronze and steel sculptures sited in the gardens and grounds and smaller pieces shown in the house’s Staterooms and gallery spaces. Several new works have been done specifically for the exhibition.

Tony Cragg has been working and exhibiting since 1969. He participated in Documenta 7 and 8 and represented Britain at the Biennale in Venice in 1988. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1988, the prestigious Praemium Imperiale Award, Tokyo in 2007 and the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in 2017. He has lived in Wuppertal, Germany, since 1977.

He held professorships in the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he was director from 2009 to 2013. He has exhibited extensively in museums worldwide: Tate Gallery, London (1988), Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Duesseldorf (1989), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and Musée du Louvre, Paris (2011), Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2013), Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal and Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2016) and Boboli Gardens, Florence (2019)

Lord Cholmondeley, owner of Houghton, said, “Tony Cragg at Houghton will be the 6th contemporary art exhibition held at Houghton since 2015. I am particularly grateful to Tony for the chance to show his sculptures here in Norfolk and for agreeing to curate the exhibition himself. I have always been a great admirer of his work, and it will be inspiring to see how it will come together and interact with Houghton’s historical landscape and interiors. As life is no longer, for the moment, as we once knew it due to the challenges of COVID 19, we have been faced with some great logistical problems; not least transporting exhibits to the UK Tony’s studio in Germany”.

Houghton Hall was built by Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime Minister, in around 1722. Designed by the prominent Georgian architects Colen Campbell and James Gibbs, it is one o f the country’s finest examples of Palladian architecture. Houghton and its estate passed to the Cholmondeley family at the end of the 18th Century and remained a family home. The house and award-winning gardens have been open to the public since 1976.

The Houghton Arts Foundation presents the exhibition which continues to build a collection of contemporary art in Houghton Hall’s grounds, including several site-specific commissions. With links to colleges and public institutions across the regionFoundation’stion’s aim is for Houghton to become a focus for those who wish to see the great art of our time in a historical setting. Tony Cragg at Houghton follows exhibitions of work by James Turrell (2015), Richard Long (2017), Damien Hirst (2018), Henry Moore (2019) and Anish Kapoor (2020).

Tony Cragg At Houghton –  Houghton Hall, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PE31 6UE

National Gallery London

 

National Gallery Announces Shortlist For Bicentenary Revamp

The National Gallery has announced the six shortlisted design teams in their search for a partner to work with it on a suite of capital projects to mark its Bicentenary.

The shortlisted teams are: Asif Khan with AKT II, Atelier Ten, Bureau Veritas, Donald Insall Associates, Donald Hyslop, Gillespies, Joseph Henry, Kenya Hara, and Plan A Consultants, Caruso St John Architects with Arup, Alan Baxter, muf architecture/art and Alliance CDM, David Chipperfield Architects with Publica, Expedition, Atelier Ten, iM2 and Plan A Consultants, David Kohn Architects with Max Fordham, Price & Myers, Purcell and Todd Longstaffe‐Gowan, Selldorf Architects with Purcell, Vogt Landscape Architects, Arup and AEA Consulting, Witherford Watson Mann Architects with Price and Myers, Max Fordham, Grant Associates, Purcell and David Eagle Ltd

The initial phase of work will be completed in 2024. Submissions by the UK and international architect-led teams. In addition to members of the executive team and Trustees of the National Gallery, several independent panellists advise on the selection process, which Malcolm Reading Consultants are running.

Edwin Heathcote, Architecture Critic and Author: leading structural engineer Jane Wernick CBE FREng: and Ben Bolgar, Senior Design Director for the Prince’s Foundation. The extremely high quality of the submissions led the panel to increase the number of design teams shortlisted from the originally envisaged five to six.

Following an open call launched in February 2021, the next steps will require the shortlisted teams to submit an initial tender, attend negotiation workshops, submit a final tender and then be interviewed by the selection panel. No design work will be required, and some expenses will be paid to the shortlisted teams. An appointment is expected to be made in July 2021.

Commenting on the shortlisted teams’ announcement, Director of the National Gallery, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, said: ‘We were impressed and delighted with the high quality of the submissions we received. It was not easy to reach the shortlist, but we are confident that we have chosen six teams that will produce a range of different approaches to excite and inspire us.

This is a significant moment in the National Gallery’s development as we look forward to the recovery of our arts and cultural institutions, our city, and our country. We must choose a team with whom we can work collaboratively and share our vision for the future. I’m looking forward to the next phase of the selection process.’

Top Photo: Yinka Shonibare MBE (RA) in a room he has curated at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. Credit: David Parry

Read More

Visit

 

Tags

, , , , , , ,