In 2008, the Contemporary Art Society launched the £60,000 Annual Award commission to collect – an opportunity for a museum to be awarded a substantial sum to commission an artist to make a new work for their collection. The Award, funded by the Sfumato Foundation, is an increasingly important marker in our year and the Reception to announce the winner for 2011 will be held at the German Gymnasium in King’s Cross on Monday 14th November. We would be delighted if you could join us on the evening to honour the shortlisted museums and artists:
Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery with Christina Mackie; Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead with Matthew Darbyshire; National Museum Wales (Cardiff) in partnership with Artes Mundi, with Andrea Buttner; University of Warwick Art Collection with Katie Paterson; Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool with Wael Shawky.
The Reception also provides the opportunity to launch the centenary publication, What’s Next? 100 Years of Contemporary Art Society – Inside Public Collections. This looks back at the achievements over a century of gifting, expressing the Contemporary Art Society’s continuing commitment to acquiring challenging works by artists of our time for audiences of the future. From late 2009 to early 2011 the Contemporary Art Society’s Centenary Programme took place in partnership with over thirty public collections and involved many artists. The majority of these artists have works in public collections, thanks to the Contemporary Art Society;s various bequests and acquisition schemes. This publication augmented through trascribed discussion and a collection of artists’ pages, documents and responds to the Programme.