Arnolfini Exhibit

“Art from Elsewhere” -International Contemporary Art from UK Galleries

This spring, Arnolfini and Bristol Museum & Art Gallery are working together to present a compelling exhibition of video, installation, photography and painting across two sites in central Bristol.

Art from Elsewhere gathers 39 significant artists from 22 countries, whose socially-engaged work addresses life, politics and identity in a globalised society. The exhibition includes some of the most important artists working today, seminal figures in the history of conceptual art, and young artists whose work enters British museums for the first time.

The culmination of a national tour, this specially-conceived and ambitious presentation for Bristol reflects the city’s historic significance as a port, our diverse cultures, and our place within a rapidly-changing world. The artworks pose fresh perspectives, new identities, glimpses of other lives, and important questions: not least, who is the insider and who is the outsider?

Art from Elsewhere was born from a 2007 scheme, Art Fund International, which gave a regional consortium of museums the opportunity to spend up to one million pounds to acquire international art for the benefit of the public. The successful collections were Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery with The New Art Gallery Walsall, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art and Towner, Eastbourne. Jeremy Lewison, who has since become an Arnolfini Trustee, was mentor to the project, helping Bristol Museum & Art Gallery to devise a collecting strategy and, he and Tom Trevor, Arnolfini former director, provided advice to Bristol Museum & Art Gallery regarding their choice of new acquisitions.

This Hayward Touring exhibition, curated by internationally-renowned curator David Elliott, highlights newly-collected works purchased through the scheme, and recognises the vital importance of continuing to enrich and share the collecting of contemporary art.

Art from Elsewhere is accompanied by an extensive programme of tours, talks, performances and family events, offering numerous ways for you to engage with and explore the exhibition themes. Choose your route, share your perspective, from here or elsewhere.

On Tuesday the 26th of April, I visited the exhibit called ‘Art From Elsewhere’ at Arnolfini Art Gallery in Bristol. Having not visited before, I found it very interesting, it is very contemporary and not only shows moving image, sculpture, but also quite a lot of photography work which isn’t always the case at art galleries. I took images of the work I was interested in as I went along.