Art Fund COLLECT 2010
Eleven curators in the running for national contemporary craft prize as Edmund de Waal is confirmed as judge.
Independent art charity The Art Fund, and the Crafts Council, today announced the eleven curators short-listed to take part in Art Fund Collect, a nationwide initiative championing contemporary craft and increasing its presence in UK collections. Now in its third year, Art Fund Collect offers a fund of £75,000 for curators from UK institutions to select and acquire outright a unique work from COLLECT, the Craft Council’s international art fair for contemporary objects.
Ceramic artist Edmund de Waal has also been confirmed as the fifth judge on the panel that will decide who will win a share of the Art Fund Collect fund. His fellow panellists include Art Fund Director Stephen Deuchar, Ex Chairman of the Crafts Council and The Art Fund Sir Nicholas Goodison, Executive Director of the Crafts Council Rosy Greenlees and Art Fund Trustee Jonathan Marsden.
The short-listed museums and galleries for Art Fund Collect 2010 are:
1. Aberdeen Art Gallery
2. Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
3. The Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
4. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
5. Manchester Art Gallery
6. Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
7. mima, Middlesbrough
8. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
9. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
10. Harris Museum, Preston
11. York Art Gallery
Art Fund Collect will take place on 13 May, at COLLECT. On the day, short-listed curators will be given special advance access to the fair, ahead of private buyers and VIP guests, enabling them to cherry-pick the very best works on offer.
Working against the clock, the curators will have just one hour to race around the fair, at London’s Saatchi Gallery, and pick one item they wish to acquire for their institution’s public collection. The expert panel of judges will examine their choices and decide who will win a share of the £75,000 prize from The Art Fund. Winning curators will be able to buy their chosen piece outright on behalf of their museum or gallery.
Stephen Deuchar, Director of The Art Fund, said: “Ambition, originality and curatorial flair; these are qualities we were looking for in applications, and we are pleased to have found them in this year’s applications to Art Fund Collect. It’s wonderful to see several institutions on the list that have been previously short-listed or won, as well as five new names. Each has already drawn up an impressive ‘wish-list’ of artists whose work they hope to acquire, and we look forward keenly to seeing which ones will end up taking home a great new acquisition for their public collections.”
Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director of the Crafts Council, said: “I am delighted to be part of the committee for Art Fund Collect, and to have selected eleven museums and galleries for such a strong shortlist. It is great to see such a range of organisations represented from across the country, and this year we were particularly impressed with the curatorial ambition and vision that came through so boldly in the applications. I am sure that there will be some extremely exciting works purchased for public museums and galleries at Collect this year.”
Edmund de Waal said: “The crafts are vigorous, challenging- and beautiful. The ways in which they are collected and curated has undergone a sea change and this initiative by The Art Fund has stimulated ambitious thinking about what contemporary work should be in our museums. I was overwhelmed by the care and quality of the applications.”
A total of 21 institutions applied to Art Fund Collect 2010.
Winners will be announced on the evening of 13 May at the private view of COLLECT. Decisions will be made based upon the ambition and expertise demonstrated by curators on the day through the work they select.
Last year, 23 curators applied, ten were short-listed and five walked away from Art Fund Collect with a beautiful piece to add to their permanent public collections, ranging from an elegant, one-off glass sculpture by Japanese maker Niyoko Ikuta for the V&A, to a highly intricate gold bracelet by Italian goldsmith Giovanni Corvaja for mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
Now in its seventh year, Collect takes place from 14 – 17 May 2010 at the Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London, SW3 4SQ.
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Notes to editors
Biographical information on Edmund de Waal
•Edmund de Waal (b.1964) is one of Britain’s most accomplished ceramic artists. From his popular and stylish domestic porcelain of the 1990s to more recent conceptual installations, his work has won critical acclaim.
•Edmund de Waal is Chair of Trustees of the Crafts Study Centre at Farnham and Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster. He is also a prolific writer and critic; published works include Twentieth Century Ceramics (Thames and Hudson, 2003). Edmund de Waal’s autobiography, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, is being published by Chatto and Windus in June 2010.
•In 2009, The Art Fund gave £80,000 towards Edmund de Waal’s Signs & Wonders, a site-specific installation created for the V&A in celebration of its new Ceramics Galleries. Installed within the central dome of the new galleries, the piece sits 40 metres above the V&A’s Brompton Road entrance. It was unveiled on 18 September 2009.
•The Art Fund is the UK’s leading independent art charity. It offers grants to help UK museums and galleries enrich their collections; campaigns on behalf of museums and their visitors; and promotes the enjoyment of art. It is funded from public donations and has 80,000 members. Since 1903 the charity has helped museums and galleries all over the UK secure 860,000 works of art for their collections. The Art Fund is leading the official £3.3 million campaign to save the Staffordshire Hoard – the unprecedented find of Anglo Saxon treasure – for the West Midlands. Visit www.artfund.org/hoard for more information. Other recent achievements include: helping secure Titian’s Diana and Actaeon for the nation in 2009 with a grant of £1million; helping secure Anthony d’Offay’s collection, ARTIST ROOMS, for Tate and National Galleries of Scotland in February 2008 with a grant of £1million and funding its nationwide tour with an additional £500,000 over two years; leading the successful £550,000 appeal to keep Turner’s Blue Rigi watercolour in the UK; and spearheading the campaign to ensure Dumfries House in Ayrshire and its contents were secured intact for the nation in July 2007. For more information contact the Press Office on 020 7225 4888 or visit www.artfund.org
