The Connect10 competition has announced the shortlist of ten leading, contemporary artists who will be matched to a host venue to put on an event for Museums at Night 2014, the UK’s annual late night festival of art, culture and heritage taking place during May 2014.
The event will see a whole host of galleries, museums, castles, halls and even an allotment vying to emerge as the winner, with the public deciding which artist goes where via two weeks of online voting.
The ten artists taking part in this year’s event are:
Fred Deakin, one half of the band Lemon Jelly and co-founder of Airside design agency. The venues competing to host his proposed day-glo game show party are: National Coal Mining Museum for England, Wakefield; Castle Drogo, Exeter; The Wilson (Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum), Cheltenham; and The Observatory Science Centre, Sussex.
Alex Hartley, whose work explores the intersection between photography, installation and architecture. He is proposing to explore the different threads that bind a community together at either Surgeons’ Hall Museum at The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; Berwick Gymnasium Gallery; Towneley Hall, Burnley; or Market Hall Museum, Warwick.
Janette Paris, who works across a variety of media, from performance and live music to cartoons and drawing. Paris is proposing to create largely fictional stories about the history of the objects on display at one of the following venues: The New Art Gallery, Walsall; People’s History Museum, Manchester; The Cardiff Story Museum, Cardiff; and Weston Park Museum, Sheffield.
Grayson Perry, winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, will lend himself to the winning organisation “for them to do with him as they see fit.” The venues competing for Perry are: Freud Museum, London; York Museums Trust, York; Courtauld Gallery, London; and Museum of Soho, London.
Matt Pyke, founder of the digital art/design studio Universal Everything. He intends to work with sound and vision to install an artwork triggered by visitors’ voices, at one of these venues: National Football Museum, Manchester; National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museum of London; and Brunel’s ss Great Britain, Bristol.
Rankin, the high profile photographer whose subjects have included Tony Blair, Kate Moss, David Bowie and the Queen, plans to further explore his interactive approach to photography, at one of the following venues: The Holburne Museum and No. 1 Royal Crescent, Bath; Phoenix Gallery, Brighton; St Ann’s Allotments, Nottingham; and Bethlem Archives and Museum, Kent.
Amy Sharrocks, a live artist, sculptor and filmmaker who invites people to come on journeys, will explore her signature subjects of falling and water at one of these venues: Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston; Museum of Carpet, Kidderminster; Gallery Oldham, Oldham; and Swansea Museum, Swansea.
Mr Smith’s Letterpress Workshop, the brainchild of Kelvyn Laurence Smith, will go on the road inviting a museum and the public to create a typographic archive of their own. The venues hoping to host Smith are: Denbighshire Archives and Ruthin Gaol Museum, North Wales; The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery (University of Leeds); William Morris Gallery, London; and Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising, London.
Spencer Tunick, best known for his performative photography of nudes en masse, will seek up to 250 volunteers for an individual nude shoot with the images ending up in a miniature key-chain view finder at one of these venues: Georges House Gallery, Folkestone; Jerwood Gallery, Hastings; and Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.
Jessica Voorsanger, whose work explores popular culture through the concept and ideology of ‘celebrity’, will continue her close examination of these themes at one of these venues: Haworth Art Gallery, Yorkshire; Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery Trust, Carlisle; 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe; and The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.
The public is invited to vote online for which venue each artist will eventually go to. Voting goes live next week, Tuesday 14 January, and closes on Tuesday 28 January.
Museums at Night 2014 will take place 15-17 May. museumsatnight.org.uk
