Exhibitions, Talks and Tours May – Sept 2019
Yinka Shonibare CBE curates the Arts Council Collection
Southampton City Art Gallery 28 June – 28 September Criminal Ornamentation brings together work by a number of celebrated artists, selected and curated by Yinka Shonibare CBE. Reflective of Yinka’s own practice, this exhibition explores the cultural and social dimensions of the use of pattern in modern and contemporary art. The title of the show is taken from Adolf Loos’ 1908 influential essay ‘Ornament and Crime’. In this essay Loos examines the notions of good and bad taste and condemns the use of decoration and craft as an indication of the lowest level of cultural development, to the extent of stating ‘the modern man who tattoos himself is a criminal.’ Yinka Shonibare CBE challenges this notion by saying ‘Adolf Loos was clearly a man of his time in his snobbish revolutionary zeal to abandon ornamentation as he saw it as the pre-occupation of the working classes and degenerates’. Included in the exhibition are a range of works that Shonibare has chosen to challenge the notion of the ornament as crime. Shonibare looks to embrace colour, ornament and pattern as a means for social and political expression.
An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition
Yinka Shonibare CBE in Conversation Fri 28 June / 1.30-2.30pm / Art Gallery Lecture Theatre / £4 / Pre-book
Join Turner Prize nominee Yinka Shonibare CBE in conversation with Southampton Art Gallery’s Curator of Art Clare Mitchell, as they discuss Yinka’s work, practice and the process behind curating Criminal Ornamentation.
SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY Southampton City Art Gallery turns 80! 23 March – 29 November Over the course of the Gallery’s 80th year we are holding a series of exhibitions to mark this important milestone and celebrate the City’s internationally renowned collection. The Gallery first opened to the public on 26 April 1939 and 80 years on, guided by a rigorous collecting policy stipulating guidance from the National Gallery and now Tate, the permanent collection holds over 5,000 works and has been awarded Designated status. Gallery 80 is a display of pride and celebration: showcasing the highlights of an already significant collection that was acquired ahead of the Gallery’s opening and, for the first time since 1939, we present paintings which featured in the original opening exhibition. Alongside this will be a display of contemporary work from the collection by artists who have won, or been shortlisted for, the Turner Prize. Bringing focus onto the City’s collection of 13 Turner Prize winners and over 20 nominees, this exhibition includes the first female nominee and first female Turner Prize winner and highlights the Gallery’s successful history of purchasing artists on the cusp of becoming household names. Later in the year, we will present a selection of recent acquisitions that demonstrate how the collection continues to grow through gifts, bequests and purchases.