Uncommon Ground - Land Art in Britain 1966-1979

 

Andy Goldsworthy Forked Twigs in Water – Bentham (1979) Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

An Arts Council Collection Exhibition from Southbank Centre

Roger Ackling, Keith Arnatt, Boyle Family, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Tony Cragg, Jan Dibbets, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Barry Flanagan, Hamish Fulton, Andy Goldsworthy, Antony Gormley, Susan Hiller, John Hilliard, Derek Jarman, David Lamelas, John Latham, Richard Long, Roelof Louw, Anthony McCall, Bruce McLean, Garry Fabian Miller, David Nash, Roger Palmer, David Tremlett

Uncommon Ground is the most comprehensive exhibition of British Land Art to date. Featuring the work of 24 of some of the most important artists and artist groups working in the UK between the mid-1960s and late-1970s, the exhibition demonstrates how the term ‘Landscape’ was questioned and transformed by artists during this period to become the ground for radical artistic experiment.

Uncommon Ground has been curated by Nicholas Alfrey, (University of Nottingham) Joy Sleeman, (Slade School of Art, University of London) and Ben Tufnell, (Writer and Curator). A new publication accompanies the exhibition with texts by the curators, on sale in the Mead Gallery.

Jeremy Deller curates All That is Solid Melts into Air

A Hayward Touring Exhibition
Fri 2 May – Sat 21 Jun 2014

In All That is Solid Melts into Air, one of the UK’s leading artists, Jeremy Deller, takes a personal look at the impact of the Industrial Revolution on British popular culture, and its persisting influence on our lives today.

Deller combines contemporary music, film and photography with 19th century objects, approaching this material like a social cartographer to reveal the ley lines of cultural history. The radical transformation of the landscape in the early industrial era is powerfully evoked in Victorian images of factories ablaze at night, shown alongside John Martin’s apocalyptic painting_ The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah_ (1852). Industrial folk music, the incessant rhythms and racket of the factory floor, heavy metal and glam rock, also permeate the exhibition in sound installations and film.

Unreliable Evidence

 

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) The Execution of Maximilian about 1867–8. Oil on canvas 193 x 284 cm. The National Gallery, London.
Sat 4 Oct – Sat 6 Dec 2014

THE NATIONAL GALLERY MASTERPIECE TOUR

The Execution of Maximilian by Edouard Manet and Other Histories
Edgardo Aragón, Zarina Bhimji, Omer Fast, Rabih Mroué, Santiago Sierra, Hito Steyerl, Luc Tuymans

The Execution of Maximilian __depicts the fatal moment when the young Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, abandoned by the French colonial forces that had installed him there some three years earlier, was shot alongside two of his generals, Mejía and Miramón, on 19 June 1867. The left hand section of the canvas was lost during Manet’s lifetime. After his death it was cut into smaller fragments, some of which were sold off separately, eventually to be reassembled by Edgar Degas. The painting has been part of the National Gallery Collection since 1918.

This important painting – presented at the Mead Gallery as part of the National Gallery Masterpiece Tour __– forms the centrepiece to a specially curated exhibition of works by some of today’s greatest artists from across the world. Together they speak of the way the past is represented to us, and of the personal stories at the heart of violent events which are either lost or – like the image of Maximilian’s hand clasping Miramón’s – can only be glimpsed.

The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour is sponsored by Christies.