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Wylie and Seawright's research extends longstanding work in the field of art and conflict at Ulster. Their photographic work has enhanced public and national understanding of conflicts in which the United Kingdom has been directly involved. Much of this research extends conventional visual responses to conflict by mainstream media agencies and publications, expanding the field by enhancing the long-term documentation of conflict through the production of artworks. Using contemporary art-based contextual and methodological strategies of production and dissemination, the research has provided new material through which contemporary and historic conflict can be commemorated and interpreted in international museum collections, publications and exhibitions.
Research into the artist Dora Gordine established her importance in twentieth-century art and design, and her significance in the wider cultural and political arena. This research led to the establishment of an ambitious large-scale exhibition on Gordine at Kingston Museum.
This exhibition had a lasting beneficial impact on the practices and capabilities of the museum, enabling it to use the skills and experience gained in the Gordine exhibition to launch a new exhibition on Eadweard Muybridge and to build new partnerships with the British Film Institute and the Tate. This has significantly changed the culture and approach of Kingston Museum, enhancing its local, national and international standing.
The Leon Golub retrospective at Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum introduced Golub's politically engaged work to a city with a radical political history. Curated by Jon Bird, leading authority on Golub, it examined how Golub's depictions of political and military power impact upon individual and collective social bodies. It also related Golub's work to paintings by Goya and Picasso. Extensive public/media response, particularly as it spread through the Spanish-speaking world, confirmed the achievement and topicality of Golub's practice and the significance of the retrospective. Consideration of the role of painting as a mode of political commentary in itself, and as a catalyst for broader discussion of the visual representation of dictatorships and state violence, was found amongst curators, critics, and the general public. Bird's curatorial approach was informed by Middlesex University (MU)'s critical legacy of visual cultural studies, emphasizing works of art as social, material and expressive cultural objects.
The `Northern Spirit` research project entailed the co-production of a new gallery about the visual culture, histories and identities of North-East England at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, the region's foremost public historical art gallery. The project generated a range of impacts across the local and national cultural, social and policy spheres:
Making Histories Visible produces visual art projects with internationally recognised museums and galleries, in which new artworks and installations activate institutional and curatorial policies to re-examine collections and collecting. By investigating the historic through the contemporary, using the mechanisms of display and interventions, youth centred workshops, symposia, web-sites and publications; we help museums find new relevance within contemporary society.
Thin Black Line(s) Tate Britain (2011/12), Cotton Global Threads Whitworth and Manchester Galleries (2011/2012), Jelly Mould Pavilions NML (2010), reflect collaborations and sustainable relationships with a wide, influential range of museum curators, directors and community leaders.
The case study demonstrates how research conducted by staff in the Centre for Museology has informed the development of innovative display and interpretation practices in public museums in the UK and overseas. It shows how applied critical and reflexive museology has been used in a range of curatorial contexts, thereby directly affecting institutional practice and, in turn, providing visitors and volunteers with new opportunities for engagement. The impact is evident in the curatorial process, involving both staff and stakeholders, and in critical responses from practitioners and policy-makers.
Research at the University of Bristol on the international contexts of British art has made a distinctive contribution to a renaissance of British art studies that began in the late 1980s. Over the past five years, scholars at Bristol have worked with museums in London, the regions and overseas to engage the widest possible audience in fresh thinking about British art. Exhibitions and catalogue essays informed by their research have raised awareness of individual artists and changed public and critical perceptions of British art as a whole. They have also brought many benefits to the museum partners, attracting visitors, generating income and enhancing the museums' understanding of their own collections. Some exhibitions have inspired additional collaborations which have fed back into research and further extended audiences for British art.
Ysanne Holt was Academic Advisor and Commissioning Editor for Tate's Camden Town Group in Context project, funded through the Getty Foundation's Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative which aims to transform how museums disseminate information about their collections. Holt undertook and commissioned new research into the Group's artworks and their broader contexts. Impacts derived from the project's online catalogue include increased awareness for national and international public and specialists; and improved access to the art and its contexts via a multi-platform open access facility. In addition, the project has influenced the Tate's Digital Strategy and led to the creation of the new post of Digital Editor within Tate's Research Department.
Professor Andrew Gerstle's research and conceptualisation of the first exhibition of Osaka Kabuki prints since 1975 has proved a catalyst in radically reinvigorating interest in Osaka visual culture of the late 18th and 19th centuries, which had hitherto been eclipsed by that of Tokyo. Kabuki Heroes (2005), both as exhibition and detailed catalogue, has prompted further exhibitions on the subject, significantly enhanced the international market for Osaka prints, constitutes a primary source for museum curators and others and has had a significant influence on the British Museum and its curation and planning of its autumn 2013 exhibition Shunga, to which Gerstle has also substantially contributed.
`Picasso Peace and Freedom' was presented at Tate Liverpool, Albertina and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in 2010-11. This major exhibition, curated by Professor Lynda Morris and Dr Christoph Grunenberg, presented a reassessment of the impact of Picasso's politics on his paintings, drawings and sculptures, challenging what has been seen as the artist's lack of engagement with serious politics. 711,905 people visited the three exhibitions, gaining new views of the artist's political engagements with major international developments of the twentieth century and with leaders of countries that remain centres of tension today. As an example of the economic impact of the research, the exhibition brought direct visitor spend of almost £5 million to the city of Liverpool, in which it was initially presented.