New Contemporaries is back at the ICA, affording visitors with a sneak preview into the art gallery of the future
‘It’s not even art! … ‘There’s nothing to understand! … It’s a hoax!’, reads a flyer for the Young Contemporaries exhibition of 1968. And, yesterday, more than half a century later, the annual showcase for the best work by emerging UK artists opened at ICA to push and prod the boundaries of art once again.
Established in 1949, New Contemporaries (knows as Young Contemporaries up until 1974), is one of the UK’s major open-submission exhibitions, providing young artists with the opportunity to show their work in a professional gallery space, while giving the art-going-public ‘a window into the future of contemporary art’. And this, coincidentally, it has done quite effectively, with previous exhibitors including such illustrious names as Eduardo Paolozzi (1958), David Hockney (1960), Patrick Caulfield (1961), Helen Chadwick (1977) , Anish Kapoor (1977), Antony Gormley (1978), Grayson Perry (1980), Mark Wallinger (1981), Peter Doig (1982), and Damien Hirst (1989).
So, can New Contemporaries pull it off once again? Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011: In the Presence features the work of 40 emerging artists from across the UK, with the exhibition hoping to demonstrate the full-range of materials and processes employed by artists today – from traditional studio practice, ready-mades, and appropriation, to spatial interventions and digital production.
This year participants were selected by a panel consisting of Pablo Bronstein, Sarah Jones, and Michael Raedecker – all artists who have previously exhibited in the exhibition themselves. The young artists they have selected artists are: Marie Angeletti, Cornelia Baltes, Joshua Bilton, Sarah Brown, Savinder Bual, David Buckley, Leah Capaldi, Alicja Dobrucka, Tomas Downes, Peles Empire, Katie Goodwin, Kate Groobey, Noel Hensey, Anna Ilsley, Kim Kielhofner, Minae Kim, Se-jin Kim, Sui Kim, Ute Klein, Hyewon Kwon, Ian Marshall, Georgina McNamara, Sophie Neury, Rasmus Nilausen, Nick Nowicki, Marco Palmieri, Selma Parlour, George Petrou, Yelena Popova, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Anne Kathrin Schuhmann, Dagmar Schurrer, Alison Stolwood, Jonathan Trayte, David Ben White, Samuel Williams, Lisa Wilkens, Poppy Whatmore, Hyun Woo Lee and Rafal Zawistowski.
FULL REVIEW TO FOLLOW!
Visit New Contemporaries @ ICA until 12 January 2012
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