The ICA is preparing to launch this year’s Bloomberg New Contemporaries, with 46 artists chosen to participate. Following a successful edition last year which saw over 42,000 visitors come through the door, the exhibition now in its fourth year at the ICA, is one of the most anticipated shows of the season. This year’s selectors, Ryan Gander, Chantal Joffe and Nathaniel Mellors, have chosen outstanding works by the most promising artists coming out of UK art schools from a range of over 1,500 submissions.
Throughout the exhibition’s history a wealth of established artists have participated in New Contemporaries, including Jake & Dinos Chapman, Anthony Gormley, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Mike Nelson and Jane and Louise Wilson; whilst more recent emerging artists including Ed Atkins, Peles Empire, Nathaniel Mellors, Haroon Mirza and Laure Prouvost have also shown their work.
Two main features distinguish the New Contemporaries selection process from other submission exhibitions: there is absolutely no pre-selection and the majority of the works included in the exhibition have been selected as a result of actual time spent with the artwork rather than solely from a virtual image.
This year the final works span a wide range of mediums from sculpture, photography and video works with installation art taking centre stage. The artists appear to be concerned by materiality and image manipulation as well as the construction of space and narrative. Whilst some artists appear concerned with the formal aspects of art production some works tap into popular and domestic culture through the use of YouTube content and household objects.
Participating artists for 2013 are Aisha Abid Hussain, Rebecca Ackroyd, Thomas Aitchison, Lewis Betts, Jason Brown, Fatma Bucak, Agnes Calf, Lauren Cohen, Patrick Cole, Menna Cominetti, Calum Crawford, Mark Essen, Adham Faramawy, Ophelia Finke, Grant Foster, Archie Franks, Joe Frazer, Kate Hawkins, Adam Hogarth, Catherine Hughes, Antoine L’Heureux, Roman Liška, Lana Locke, Alexandra McNamee, Steven Morgana, Laura O’Neill, Hardeep Pandhal, Julia Parkinson, Joanna Piotrowska, Hannah Regel, Dante Rendle Traynor, Daniela Sarigu, Ferdinand Saumarez Smith, Yves Scherer, Simon Senn, Isabelle Southwood, Josephine Sowden, Marlene Steyn, Matthias Tharang, Shelley Theodore, Esme Toler, Sarah Tynan, Maarten van den Bos, Dominic Watson, Tom Worsfold, and Tim Zercie.
New Contemporaries is the leading UK organisation supporting emergent art practice from British Art Schools. Since 1949, New Contemporaries has consistently provided a critical platform for new and recent fine art graduates primarily by means of an annual, nationally touring exhibition.
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