The City Gallery Exhibition Archive 2

Crossing the Waters

19th January – 1st March 2007 

‘Crossing the Waters’ takes its central metaphor from the transatlantic slave trade. Yinka Shonibare’s model of a rigged schooner encased in a vitrine, The Wanderer, becomes the unsettling centrepiece for this touring exhibition curated by Alchemy. Juxtaposing works by internationally acclaimed artists such as Chris Ofili, Uzo Egonu, Tam Joseph, Keith Piper, Ingrid Pollard, Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien, Hew Locke and Carrie Mae Weems, this exhibition brings together four decades of collecting works by African diaspora artists for Bradford Museums, Galleries and Heritage. The works included within the exhibition touch on recurrent themes of departure and return, loss and transcendence, abrasive satire and humour.  

This exhibition is part of the national Freedom and Culture Programme commemorating the Bicentenary of the Parliamentary Abolition of the Slave Trade.

A national touring exhibition from Cartwright Hall, Bradford

Landscape Trauma by Ingrid Pollard

A Process of Living

11 July - 30 August 2008

A Process of Living looks at the work of artists who explore the relationship between art, education and daily life through film, drawing, photography, painting and printmaking.

This is the first exhibition at The City Gallery to explore the role of education in relationship to artists’ gallery based practice. The exhibition includes several new and unseen projects as well as key works by artists such as Copenhagen Free University, Michael Craig-Martin, John Latham, Bruce McLean, United Nations Plaza, Annika Ström, Tenantspin and Measure by Measure.

At the heart of this exhibition is a groundbreaking project called ‘Primary Space’ initiated by artist Bruce McLean to build a primary school with a team of artists, designers and architects. In the installation documenting this project we include imagery of the finished school, architectural plans and models, and original drawing by the artists involved in the project, including Bruce Mclean, John Aiken, Gary Woodley, John Hilliard and Ed Allington.

This project and the others in the exhibition invite the audience to reconsider the relationship between learning, art and daily experience and to question the divides that normally exist between them. In this exhibition the boundaries between the classroom, the gallery and the playground are deliberately blurred.

School on Paper

11 July - 30 August 2008

Accompanying ‘A Process of Living’ is a specially commissioned artwork from artists group Measure by Measure entitled ‘School on Paper’. Measure by Measure will provide the opportunity for visitors to create their own responses to the issues raised by the exhibition and explore what an ideal school might be. They will also be setting up a production space workshop area for the duration of the exhibition and running a series of participatory events for the audience. ‘School on Paper’ is both a major new art work commissioned for The City Gallery and the basis of our summer learning programme, ‘Play & Explore’, bringing educational work and gallery curatorial practice closer together.

FiveplusTwo A project by Measure by Measure Dalry Primary School, North Ayrshire©The Artists. With thanks to North Ayrshire Council and Scottish Arts Council

A show of many parts, each part more spectacular and elaborate than the last.

12 September - 29 October 2008

To mark the forthcoming opening of Curve, Leicester’s new performing arts centre, The City Gallery presents ‘A show of many parts, each part more spectacular and elaborate than the last’. This show, curated by Kirsty Ogg, looks at how contemporary artists are changing the status of the object in their work. This exhibition brings together a group of national and international artists who, through an engagement with performative elements, create objects that are imbued with a theatrical status to become ‘prop objects’. ‘A show of many parts….’ will include works by Matti Braun, Spartacus Chetwynd, Mike Nelson, Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan and Cathy Wilkes. It will consist of a series of objects and other works that hold the capacity to suggest use, tell a story or allow the viewer to construct their own narrative.

‘A show of many parts…’ aims to present a variety of approaches to the prop objects; some stand in for complex systems of rhetoric, others are simply props in a private theatre, the narrative of which may or may not be made apparent to the viewer. Many of these objects suggest that they are the leftovers of past events and actions.

Image: 'The Slapstick Mystics with Sticks', 2001, Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan. Photograph by Alan Dimmick.

The One Leicester Open 20

15^th November – 10^th January 2009

The City Gallery’s open exhibition is 20 years old this year and we’ll be celebrating the superb wealth of talent within the East Midlands region with a bumper exhibition of artworks in a wide selection of different media from photography to painting and ceramics to glass-ware. Once again, Leicester City Council will be offering the Attenborough Prize (£2,000) to the best contemporary visual artist in the exhibition*. Come along and pick your favourite artwork for our ‘People’s Choice’ Prize, with artists ranging from young people to well-established names. All the artworks are for sale, providing a perfect opportunity to start your very own art collection. Use the Own Art scheme, where you can buy arts and crafts with small manageable interest free monthly repayments. For more information about the scheme, visit www.artscouncil.org.uk/ownart

See also:

• Attenborough Prize 2008 winner

• Last year's Attenborough Prize winning entry

Bazaar

15^th November – 10^th January 2009

Over past centuries, the bazaars of the world have sold everything from spices to gold alongside toys and domestic items. It is in this spirit that The City Gallery has piled high a range of wares that would turn the head of the most jaded shopper for our seasonal selling exhibition. Explore rare and unique silks, velvets, witty ceramics, stunning glassware, unusual toys and books in the most exotic shopping experience in Leicester. Bazaar offers a chance to buy unique gifts that will never be forgotten.