What City Got Widespread Accliam to Become the Center Og Modern Art

Arnolfini | A Cursory History

Image: Annabel Lawson (later Rees), Jeremy Rees and John Orsborn
in front of a painting by Peter Swan

Arnolfini opened on 3 March 1961, above a bookshop on the Clifton Triangle. More 200 people crowded in to the simple, white-cube gallery on that offset night, to see the inaugural exhibition of paintings by Josef Herman and Peter Swan. The founders, Jeremy Rees (a graphic designer), Annabel Lawson (a fabric artist) and John Orsborn (a painter), none of them older than 25, had each contributed £100 to secure the lease to the space.

Their aim was to run an arts space committed to showcasing new, experimental and underrepresented art work, and though initially there was insufficient funds to install a telephone line, Arnolfini quickly established an innovative programme. Early exhibitions showed strong regional links, regularly featuring artists of the St. Ives School (Peter Lanyon, Paul Feiler, Roger Hilton) and those involved with the pioneering art college at nearby Corsham Court (Howard Hodgkin, Gillian Ayres, Michael Craig-Martin). In addition, and unusually for the time, Arnolfini was from the outset cross-disciplinary, with poetry, play-reading, jazz and talks all included alongside visual art – Allen Ginsburg visited to perform in 1965. In this sense Arnolfini looked both to the example of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, which would become a partner for touring plan; and besides the Bridgwater Arts Centre in Somerset, the showtime Arts Council-funded institution in the country which was co-founded by Rees'south mother in 1949. Other early initiatives included the Picture Loan scheme, which enabled businesses and schools to subscribe to a lending library of art works; the city-centre New British Sculpture exhibition (1968), ane of the kickoff examples of art works being sited in public spaces as temporary interventions; and national open competitions for painting and jewellery design.

Ambition would exist underpinned past fiscal back up after Jeremy and Annabel were introduced to the Somerset-based artists and collectors Peter and Caroline Barker-Manufacturing plant in 1963. Their patronage and enthusiasm was to aid sustain Arnolfini – forth with several other major arts organisations in the city – for many years. Peter was elected Chair of the Council of Management, which was founded in 1966, and established 'Arnolfini Gallery Ltd' equally a registered charity shortly afterwards. Support from Arts Council England and Bristol City Council followed.

Inevitably, the expansion of programme that this enabled resulted in a search for new, larger premises. Every bit early as a 1968, the idea of moving to Bush-league House, the large derelict 19 ^thursday century warehouse on Narrow Quay, was being mooted. Concerns over a body road proposed to cut through the corner of the site delayed plans yet. Instead, two brusk-term leases in buildings nearby were taken. The commencement of these was on Majestic Oak Avenue on the corner of Queens Square, where Arnolfini would be based between 1970 and 1973. Hither a more extensive music plan was established, which launched in 1970 with a concert of music by Michael Tippett with the composer in attendance. Arnolfini was 1 of but iii UK venues to host Steve Reich in 1972, and would both inspire and then become ane of the main touring partners of the Arts Quango's Gimmicky Music Network.

The Arnolfini bookshop was as well opened at Queens Foursquare, and has been one of the leading specialist arts bookshops in the land e'er since. The second temporary venue was the W-Shed on Bordeaux Quay, ameliorate known today every bit home to The Watershed, who moved in in 1982. The actress infinite available at that place allowed for the building of a 106-seater picture palace and the addition of a new moving picture strand to Arnolfini'southward programme.

Arnolfini Flick would launch with Alain Tanner's Salamander, and announced itself as presenting films 'engaged in an ideological critique… a running commentary on ways of seeing, which are produced, reinforced or negated in the irresolute relationships between audiences and films by, present and future'. Notable exhibitions from this catamenia include Beyond Painting and Sculpture (1974), including Victor Burgin, Gilbert & George and John Stezaker, and Artists Over Land (1975) with Marie Yates, Phillipa Ecobichon, Hamish Fulton and Richard Long (the beginning of several exhibitions Bristol-based Long would keep to accept at Arnolfini).

By 1972, the possibility of moving to Bush-league House became clearer. Planning consent was granted to the pioneering design and build studio The JT Grouping, on the understanding that they refurbish the warehouse for mixed apply, with Arnolfini occupying the lower ii floors, and separate office infinite beingness created above. Later a flow of extensive building piece of work which necessitated the complete gutting out of the interior while keeping the grade II listed external structure intact, the building would eventually open as Arnolfini'due south permanent dwelling house in Oct 1975. The development received widespread critical acclaim – William Feaver, the Observer art critic, called it 'the grandest arts centre in the land, and probably the best appointed.'

Past this point, Arnolfini was recognised as being amongst the leading contemporary arts centres in the UK. Its increasingly total and ambitious programme was existence featured regularly in national media, and drawing acclaim and attention from further afield. Its dockside surroundings, nonetheless, was in state of dereliction. Industrial activity had relocated downstream to Avonmouth (the final working shipyard in the Floating Harbour, Albion Yard, airtight down in 1977), leaving the area as something of a large no-go zone in the centre of the city. Arnolfini pioneered an culling use, along with the Industrial Museum that opened in 1974, with other organisations slowly following. This model of regeneration, an arts centre moving into a disused industrial district and setting off a process of renewal is now familiar, through the examples of Guggenheim in Bilbao, Tate Liverpool, and Baltic in Gateshead. Arnolfini preceded these by xx years.

One recent report describes the 'opening of Arnolfini in the refurbished Bush House [equally] iconic in the true sense of the term. Its radical ambition and blurring of creative disciplines combined with exciting public spaces hinted at a moment of important change'. Regarding the directly economic impact of this, some other study calls Arnolfini'southward relationship with the harbourside 'one of the starting time examples in the UK of the arts being used for encouraging inward investment and economic regeneration leading… to a likely total investment in the site of £600 one thousand thousand and the cosmos of over 3,500 jobs'. This condition would exist commemorated in 1984 through the inclusion of Bush Business firm in a series of Royal Mail service postage stamps celebrating urban renewal projects.

By 1980, Arnolfini was receiving 150,000 visitors per year, rising to 200,000 in 1983. Cardinal programme around this period included On Site (1977), an exhibition of site-specific works and proposals responding to both the natural surroundings and urban locations in and around Arnolfini; a collaborative film screening and functioning by Peter Greenaway and the Michael Nyman Band (1979); the 1 ^st British Art Evidence, Dance Umbrella Festival, and Women's Images of Men (all 1980); and an early on solo exhibition by Paula Rego (1982). Reflecting an ahead-of-fourth dimension recognition of the importance of the newest of art mediums, a Video Art library opened in 1981, while the long-term commitment to education and customs activities was expanded to include more workshops with schools, and regular Saturday workshops for children.

In common with many other UK arts organisations, the 1980s was a menstruation of financial strain as government funding was scaled back. Largely every bit a upshot of tensions arising from this, Jeremy Rees resigned in 1986 later 25 years in post, to be succeeded in 1987 past Barry Barker, formerly the Exhibition Officer at the ICA. Naturally, plan output was reduced. Just nevertheless, when Richard Long exhibited in 1990 having won the 1989 Turner Prize, all 3 of the artists he had been shortlisted with – Richard Wilson, Giuseppe Penone and Paula Rego – had all also recently shown at Arnolfini. (Rachel Whiteread, whose Ghost was shown in 1990 would win it in 1993). Other notable events of the decade included the first exhibition of graffiti art in a mainstream Uk gallery; the Lesbian and Gay Creativity consequence, including a screening of The Times of Harvey Milk in 1985, in the center of the darkest days of AIDs paranoia; and the opening of the Wood of Dean Sculpture Trail (1986).

Tessa Jackson took over every bit Director in 1991, joining Arnolfini from existence Visual Arts Officer for Glasgow City Council, during its highly successful 1990 City of Culture year. The growing influence of post-colonial thinking on the arts was shown through two important exhibitions– Trophies of Empire (1992), a collaboration between Arnolfini, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool and Hull Time-Based Arts, in which 15 artists working across media explored issues such equally the Atlantic Slave Trade, Third World exploitation and the diaspora of black communities; and Disrupted Borders (1993), a primarily photographic exhibition bringing together artists from across Europe, Asia and North America to question Eurocentric ideas and assumptions.

Arnolfini's long-continuing commitment to experimental performance was pursued through Shobhana Jeyasingh'due south New Cities, Ancient Lands (1991) which bought together experimental choreography and bharatanatyam tradition; Bobby Baker's How To Shop (1993); and a retrospective from major Chicago-based functioning company Caprine animal Isle (1994). When a footbridge was being planned by the City Quango to join the Watershed and Arnolfini sides of the quay, Arnolfini proposed that an artist should exist invited to collaborate with the engineers on the design. Irish sculptor Eilís O'Connell was selected for the chore, and the opening of Pero'southward Span in 1999, decked with its large metallic horns, marked a final confirmation of the harbourside as a cultural quarter.

The starkness in dissimilarity between Patrick Heron's Big Paintings and the touring show Minky Manky (including Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst) both presented in 1995 demonstrated the shifts that were taking place at that time, as the and so-called 'Young British Artists' injected a assuming and at times shocking, blasphemy in to the international art scene, establishing London as an art world majuscule in the process.

Some five years later, a countertrend was in evidence in Arnolfini's programming of a series of 'cross disciplinary projects with an intellectual dimension, featuring established artists who are nether recognised in Britain… who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s', consisting of exhibitions by Michael Snow, Vito Acconci, Eleanor Antin (all 2001), Victor Burgin and Gina Pane (both 2002).

These were initiated by Catsou Roberts, who came to Arnolfini as Senior Curator in 1999, the same year as Caroline Collier joined equally Managing director, having just managed a major restoration project at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-On-Sea. She would in turn oversee the lottery-funded renovation of Bush House (2003-2005), which would meet Arnolfini's spaces increased to include a double height gallery on the first floor, the conversion of erstwhile office space on the second to flexible studio spaces and a study expanse, and a new café bar designed with artist Bruce MacLean (who had besides collaborated on the bar blueprint in 1987). These were situated around a large, blusterous primal circulation area that Collier described as facilitating linkage between different aspects of the programme, 'a layered programme which allows you either to use all the spaces for one projection, or as with John Cage's idea for his music circus, to allow for simultaneous but independent activity'.

A pick of highlights from recent years might include Mark Titchner'southward exhibition IT IS You lot (2006), on the basis of which he received a Turner Prize nomination; Port Urban center (2007), a cross-fine art form response to Bristol'south long heritage as a centre for international trade networks, curated by then-Director Tom Trevor; Neil Cummings' Arnolfini Cocky-Portrait (2011), which historic the organisation'south 50 ^th ceremony with a timeline installed around the stairwell, aligning moments from Arnolfini's history against broader socio-political events, and stretching far in to an imagined future; the evolution of In Between Fourth dimension out from Arnolfini's biannual festival of Live Art into a major independent performance production; and Matti Braun's Ghost Log, which as a response to the opening scenes of an unrealised movie by Satyajit Ray turned Gallery 3 in to a lake traversable by wooden stepping stones. Arnolfini's long term delivery to both public sculpture and arts education take united through involvement with the Primary Uppercase Project, which has commissioned over xv artists to produce piece of work for principal schools across Bristol.

Subsequently the astounding success of Grayson Perry's The Nigh Pop Fine art Exhibition Ever! in 2017, there followed a period of instability for Arnolfini.

In 2019, galvanised by a new squad, with Executive Director Gary Topp, Arts Council England funding was reinstated and the partnership with UWE Bristol, custodians of Bush Firm, strengthened as an integral part of Arnolfini's success moving forward. Still I Ascension: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance Human action 3 relaunched Arnolfini's major exhibition and events program in Autumn 2022 to mass and critical acclaim.

Arnolfini's future continues to build on a positive, collaborative approach, with strong relationships across partner organisations, artists, and a broad, diverse audition more important than e'er.

The cultural offering within Bristol is radically dissimilar from what was bachelor in the 1960s. There is now an exciting range of galleries, studios and artist-run spaces promoting the best of new art in the city, making it i of the most desirable places for artists to live and work in the UK.

Arnolfini remains at the heart of the customs, equally an international centre of contemporary art, always mindful of founding director Jeremy Rees' principle to 'Enjoy Yourself'.

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Source: https://arnolfini.org.uk/arnolfini-a-brief-history/

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