Art Fund Collect
Five museums win major new objects at COLLECT 2012.
The £75,000 fund was split between National Museum of Scotland, Whitworth Art Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Museums Sheffield and Touchstones Rochdale in the fifth year of Art Fund Collect.
The Art Fund and the Crafts Council have announced the five museums which have successfully won a share of £75,000 and each acquired an outstanding work of contemporary craft through Art Fund Collect, the scheme which offers UK museums the chance to enhance their contemporary craft collections.
Curators from nine museums in total were selected to attend the special preview of COLLECT. Each curator was given just one hour to explore the fair and select the object they most wanted to add to their museum’s collection, finally making the case for their choice in a presentation to a panel of experts. The panel then selected the five objects that they felt had been most persuasively argued for, and allocated the £75,000.
The winning museums were each represented by a curatorial expert. The following objects will now be added to the winning museums’ permanent collections:
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Rosina Buckland with Crane Dance by Suiko Buseki. Photo: Mark Crick
National Museum of Scotland
This woven bamboo sculpture was selected for the conspicuous visibility of the artist’s considerable technical skill. The National Museum of Scotland has extensive holdings of Japanese art but this is the first work of bamboo to be added to the collection, and the first UK museum acquisition of this acclaimed Japanese maker.
Gallery: Yufuku Gallery
Cost: £11,250 -
Jennifer Harris with P: Kasuri 206 by Jun Tomita. Photo: Mark Crick
Whitworth Art Gallery
This work, a painted textile piece, is a new addition to the Whitworth’s collection of Japanese textiles, some of which date back to the eighteenth century. Treated threads are bound together and sections are dyed before being woven. The addition of paint adds extra depth, creating a highly meditative tone.
Gallery: Katie Jones
Cost: £9,000 -
Francesca Vanke with Flight Take Off by Geoffrey Mann. Photo: Mark Crick
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The first work by 32-year-old Scottish artist Geoffrey Mann to be acquired by a UK museum, this glass sculpture represents in abstract form the flight path of a bird. Digital cameras recorded from various angles the motion of a bird in flight, which were then processed by a computer and rendered into a form that was then cast in glass. The artist was selected for the complex relationship of his work to both fine art sculpture and craft traditions.
Gallery: Joanna Bird
Cost: £30,000 -
Lucy Cooper with Hope by Kyoko Kumai. Photo: Mark Crick
Museums Sheffield
Three objects of woven stainless steel, each entitled Hope, were acquired for their connection to Sheffield’s industrial heritage, and the centenary of the invention of stainless steel in the city in 2013. The intricate mesh-like objects are made by a textiles artist, illustrating in an oblique and unusual way the potency of the material. The work also relates in its imagery to the museum’s Ruskin collection of art relating to the natural world, offering multiple contexts for interpretation within the collection.
Gallery: Katie Jones
Cost: £5,500 -
Yvonne Hardman with Super Jumbo Nigella, Wave by Junko Mori. Photo: Mark Crick
Touchstones Rochdale
A large-scale forged mild steel sculpture coated in wax, this intricate object evokes both floral imagery and wave-like motion. With no definitive orientation or setting, the object has a wide array of display possibilities. The works strikingly bleak palette connects to the museum’s collecting interest in uses and absences of colour in contemporary craft, while the imagery has a context within the museum’s fine art collection of landscapes and seascapes.
Gallery: Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon
Cost: £17,300
For information about Art Fund Collect and collecting craft generally, please contact Annabelle Campbell, Exhibitions & Collections Manager, Crafts Council.
collection@craftscouncil.org.uk