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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.
The primary impact of the research in the exhibition and the catalogue entitled The Bruce Lacey Experience is the Tate's commitment to acquiring additional pieces of Lacey's work (the gallery presently owns two works) and to purchase Lacey's archive. The exhibition that David Mellor curated at the Camden Arts Centre (CAC) jointly with Jeremy Deller also directly affected contemporary art curators and the public by influencing outputs on Lacey in film: both the film of the artist made by Deller, and Lacey's own films, released as a DVD set through the British Film Institute (BFI) in conjunction with the exhibition.
Afterall is a research and publishing organisation founded in 1998 by Research Fellow Charles Esche and Professor Mark Lewis at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (UAL). Afterall focuses on contemporary art, and its relationship to wider theoretical, social and political fields. Researchers associated to Afterall undertake and commission research, which is disseminated to an international audience through publications and events. Afterall impacts on the cultural sector and an extended audience by providing a platform for critical and creative responses to art, curatorial and cultural practice and by shaping discourse in this area. The significance and wide reach of this impact is demonstrated through partnerships and high-profile cultural events, publication reach, and support from the cultural community.
The impact comes from Ekserdjian's authentication and attribution of Renaissance paintings and the curatorship of international exhibitions, both of which have had substantial financial impact on institutions and individuals involved in the art market, in particular the auction house sector, galleries and museums. This also includes cultural impacts on the art-loving public by introducing them to newly-discovered and attributed artworks which might previously have never been exhibited publicly and by offering innovative ways of exhibiting and understanding masterpieces gathered from around the globe.
Through a partnership forged with the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Briony Fer developed international exhibitions building on research into the materials and processes underlying art's making and thinking. This reached both general and specialist publics, including artists and conservators in the UK and beyond. The exhibition Eva Hesse: Studiowork from 2009 travelled across Europe and North America over two years, attracting over 200,000 visitors. It provided cultural enrichment and raised public awareness about how art is made; deepened specialist knowledge of fragile materials crucial to the conservation of modern sculpture; brought previously unknown artworks into the public domain and contributed to the tourist and heritage industry as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.
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.
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.
The two-year ROTOЯ programme of exhibitions and events has been a cornerstone of the University of Huddersfield's efforts to introduce new audiences to contemporary art and design, as encouraged by successive Arts Council policies for enhancing public engagement. As well as raising awareness, inspiring curiosity and providing cultural enrichment, it has initiated changes to local authority policies on providing cost-effective, high-quality cultural services and has functioned as a vehicle for research into how the impact of such programmes can be captured. As such, it has served as a model partnership for local authority and university sectors in offering cultural leadership, generating and measuring engagement and delivering public services.
Research by Daniels for Picturing Britain, an exhibition about the life and works of the pre-eminent Nottingham-born landscape artist Paul Sandby (1731-1809), shaped the policy and practice of Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery (NCMAG). While NCMAG previously imported exhibitions of international standing produced elsewhere, Picturing Britain reversed this relationship. This exhibition, conceived in Nottingham and based partly on works held at NCMAG, was exported to two internationally important venues, strengthening the city's national and international cultural reputation. Inspired by the success of Picturing Britain, NCMAG re-assessed its permanent collection with a view to securing Arts Council recognition and is currently investigating other `home-grown' touring exhibitions.
York's British Art Research School, judged `world-leading' in RAE 2008, aims to change the way key cultural institutions represent British art. To advance this aim we have fostered partnerships with museums and galleries at local, national, and international levels. The partnerships have influenced curatorial practices through:
These initiatives have helped partners to display and promote a significantly wider range of British art and to generate new kinds of interpretation for larger and more diverse publics.