This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Outset Contemporary Art Fund is an arts charity established in 2003, [1] and based in London, England.
The charity was the first organisation to utilise cross-institution collective patronage to fund artistic projects in the UK. [2] It has raised over £13 million for arts institutions, exhibitions, education, residency programmes, initiatives, publications and capital campaigns.
Outset describes itself as “powered by inspiration, driven by expertise, renowned for its engagement, and focused on effective energy and ideas, with a commitment to being there at the outset of impactful change”. [3]
Outset is headquartered in the UK with franchised chapters in Germany, Switzerland, India, Israel, the Netherlands, Greece, and Estonia.
Established in 2018, Outset Partners is the largest arts grants programme in the world, funded by a group of individuals. Grants are determined through a consensus-driven process by the collective of individual Outset patrons. Outset Partners has awarded grants totalling over £1 million to date. [4]
Performa, the long-running US-based performance art organisation, were awarded £150,000. [5] [6]
Grants totalling £125,000 were awarded to UK charity Artists in Residence, London’s nonprofit Bold Tendencies, Paris’s Centre Pompidou, the Filipino organisation Green Papaya Art Projects and the International Curators Forum. [7]
The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and Serpentine Galleries in London were jointly awarded £150,000 for their collaborative work on ecology. [8]
Grants totalling £125,000 were awarded to Kampala-based 32° East (Ugandan Arts Trust); Beit Ha’Gefen gallery in Haifa; the International Curator’s Forum; Liverpool Biennial; Nottingham Contemporary; The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery.
The Constituent Museum, a joint initiative between The Whitworth, Manchester, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, enabled the galleries to work with the public to plan the reimagining of their institutions. [9]
Grants totalling £125,000 were awarded to Hayward Gallery, International Curator's Forum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Kunsthalle Basel, and a final grant awarded jointly to Chisenhale Gallery in London, Spike Island in Bristol, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead and The Whitworth, Manchester.
Studiomakers is a major initiative of Outset Contemporary Art Fund. It pioneers new solutions to securing truly-affordable workspaces for the creative industries.
Launched in 2016 at an event hosted by Antony Gormley’s studio, [10] Studiomakers was established in response to the rapid reduction of affordable workspaces available to the creative industries in London.
Studiomakers Phase Two pivoted the initiative to provide advocacy, guidance and brokerage. Studiomakers acts as a strategic partner, advising throughout the planning process to help deliver affordable workspace planning obligations, ultimately securing new long-term spaces for the creative industries.
In 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Studiomakers was reoriented to provide emergency assistance working closely with the Mayor of London’s ‘Culture At Risk’ office. Studiomakers delivered one-on-one advice sessions, live webinars, legal letter templates, fact sheets and regular newsletters with the assistance of a team of industry professionals including TrustLaw, CBRE, Dechert LLP and CounterCulture LLP. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic the guidance, rental reductions and pro-bono legal assistance helped over 70 creative and cultural institutions avoid collapse.
Studiomakers Phase One established an evidence base for action, partnering with Harvard Business School to conduct research, and explored different ways to deliver affordable workspace for artists. Across three years Phase One helped to secure over 60,000sqft of temporary workspace that supported hundreds of artists, events and exhibitions.
In 2019 Studiomakers and Outset were instrumental in raising £7.5 million to launch the Creative Land Trust through a private/public partnership with the Mayor of London, Arts Council England and Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Creative Land Trust aims to purchase properties for use as affordable workspaces for the creative industries in perpetuity, [11] and in 2019 became an independent charitable organisation.
From 2017 through to 2019 Outset partnered with Tiffany & Co. to annually award rent-free workspaces to seven outstanding MA Fine Art graduates. The Studiomakers Prize delivered a total of 21 years of free studio space, along with career development workshops, ensuring some of the most talented graduates could continue their creative practice in London. [12]
In 2003 Outset pioneered the first acquisitions fund connected to an art fair. The partnership between Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Frieze Art Fair and Tate enabled the Tate to purchase artwork at the fair for their national collection. [13] The fund raised over £1.5 million.
100 works of art were acquired over ten years from artists including: Pawel Althamer, Hurvin Anderson, Fikret Atay, Martin Boyce, Jeremy Deller, Alexandre de Cunha, Jimmie Durham, Olafur Eliasson, Andrea Fraser, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jesper Just, Alan Kane, Bela Kolárová, Mark Leckey, Daria Martin, Jan Mot, Scott Myles, Frank Nitsche, Henrik Olesen, Walid Raad, Anri Sala, David Shrigley, Lorna Simpson, Simon Starling, Tris Vonna-Michell, Pae White, Akram Zaatari.
Artworks were annually selected by a panel of judges who included: Jan Debbaut (Director, Tate Collection), Paul Schimmel (Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles) and Suzanne Pagé (Director, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris).
The TenTen Commission, overseen by the Government Art Collection and Outset Contemporary Art Fund, commissions new artwork from a British artist each year for ten years. [16] The artist is tasked with creating a unique print to be shown in diplomatic buildings worldwide. The commission is sponsored by philanthropists Sybil Robson Orr and Matthew Orr.
Artist Lubaina Himid who produced 'Old Boat, New Weather'. The artwork depicts aspects of slavery and refuge inspired by climate change and the black lives matter movement. [17] For the first time, the work was launched digitally in The Robson Orr TenTen VR Gallery. [18]
Artist Yinka Shonibare CBE produced the print ‘Hibiscus and the Rose’. He was inspired by the cultural exchange between Britain and the rest of the world. [19]
Artist Tacita Dean produced the print ‘Foreign Policy (screenprint edition)’. [20]
Artist Hurvin Anderson produced the print “Still Life with Artificial Flowers’. The work depicts a glass vase inspired by his mother, who was part of the Windrush Generation. [21]
The Outset Commission is an annual portrait produced by the National Portrait Gallery with support from Outset Contemporary Art Fund and patron Scott Collins.
German photographer Andreas Gursky was commissioned to produce a portrait of Jony Ive as he departed his role as Chief Design Officer at Apple Inc., [22]
Iranian-born artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat was commissioned to produce a portrait of Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai. [23]
Outset offers The Climavore Residency to international artists and curators, providing both studio and living accommodation to those who are engaging with a project or cultural institution in the UK. The space was designed by Turner Prize nominated artists Cooking Sections.
An initiative from Outset and art-science collective Visualogical, theVOV was launched in 2020.
theVOV describes itself as “a new virtual ecosystem committed to exploration and innovation in Art x Metaverse to support cultural institutions during this critical time and beyond.” [24]
Season One brought together 15 leading UK public galleries [25] including virtual exhibitions [26] of:
Outset Contemporary Art Fund has faced significant controversy due to its alleged connections with Israeli security forces and its support of Israel's occupation of Palestine. Critics, including the "Strike Outset" campaign, argue that Outset and its founders have ideological and financial ties to militarized settler-colonialist operations in Palestine, such as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF). These connections have led to calls for a global boycott of the fund and its projects. [28] [29]
One prominent point of contention is the involvement of Outset's co-founder, Candida Gertler, who is alleged to support activities that normalize Israel's policies in the occupied territories. Critics claim that Gertler has provided social and media assistance to figures like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom they accuse of perpetuating policies akin to apartheid and genocide against Palestinians. [28]
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Roger Eliot Fry was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism. He was the first figure to raise public awareness of modern art in Britain, and emphasised the formal properties of paintings over the "associated ideas" conjured in the viewer by their representational content. He was described by the art historian Kenneth Clark as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin ... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry". The taste Fry influenced was primarily that of the Anglophone world, and his success lay largely in alerting an educated public to a compelling version of recent artistic developments of the Parisian avant-garde.
The New Art Gallery Walsall is a modern and contemporary art gallery in the town of Walsall, in the West Midlands, England. It was built with £21 million of public funding, including £15.75 million from the UK National Lottery and additional money from the European Regional Development Fund and City Challenge.
Sir Alan Bowness CBE was a British art historian, art critic, and museum director. He was the director of the Tate Gallery between 1980 and 1988.
Sir Norman Robert Reid was an arts administrator and painter. He served as the Director of the Tate Gallery from 1964 to 1979.
The Golden Thread Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It hosts contemporary art exhibitions by a mix of Northern Irish and international artists, alongside workshops, artist talks, events and community outreach. The gallery moved to a new city-centre location in August 2024, the former Gas Corporation Showroom and Craftworld building at 23-29 Queen Street. Set across two floors, the gallery's new venue includes 2 large galleries, a projection room, a Community Participation & Engagement Hub, and Northern Ireland’s first visual art library & archive. Entry to the gallery is free.
Dryden Goodwin based in London, is a British artist known for his intricate drawings, often in combination with photography and live action video; he creates films, gallery installations, projects in public space, etchings, works on-line and soundtracks.
Maud Sulter was a Scottish contemporary fine artist, photographer, writer, educator, feminist, cultural historian, and curator of Ghanaian heritage. She began her career as a writer and poet, becoming a visual artist not long afterwards. By the end of 1985 she had shown her artwork in three exhibitions and her first collection of poetry had been published. Sulter was known for her collaborations with other Black feminist scholars and activists, capturing the lives of Black people in Europe. She was a champion of the African-American sculptor Edmonia Lewis, and was fascinated by the Haitian-born French performer Jeanne Duval.
Studio Voltaire is a non-profit gallery and artist studios based in Clapham, South London. The organisation focuses on contemporary arts, staging a celebrated public programme of exhibitions, performances, and live events. Studio Voltaire invests in the production of new work and often gives artists their first opportunity for a solo exhibition in London. The gallery space is housed in a Victorian former Methodist Chapel and artist commissions frequently take the form of site-specific installation, focusing on the unique architecture of the space. Studio Voltaire also provides affordable workspace to over 40 artists and hosts artist residencies with a variety of national and international partners. Since 2011 the Not Our Class programme has provided a series of participation and research projects for local audiences. In 2011 Studio Voltaire was awarded with regular funding from Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation. Joe Scotland is the Director of Studio Voltaire.
Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. The gallery occupies the ground level of a former veneer factory on Chisenhale Road, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, near Victoria Park and flanking the Hertford Union Canal. Housed in the same building are two other distinct initiatives: Chisenhale Studios and Chisenhale Dance Space, named also for the road on which they reside.
The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museums across the UK. From the 1930s the Society also donated works to Commonwealth museums, but since 1989 the focus has remained exclusively on UK institutions.
Veronica Maudlyn Ryan is a Montserrat-born British sculptor. She moved to London with her parents when she was an infant and now lives between New York and Bristol. In December 2022, Ryan won the Turner Prize for her 'really poetic' work.
Claudette Elaine Johnson is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and her involvement with the BLK Art Group, of which she was a founder member. She was described by Modern Art Oxford as "one of the most accomplished figurative artists working in Britain today". A finalist for the Turner Prize in 2024, Johnson was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts the same year.
Spike Island is an international centre for contemporary art located in Bristol, UK.
Simon Fujiwara is a British artist.
Danielle Dean is a British-American visual artist. She works in drawing, installation, performance and video. She has exhibited in London and in the United States; her work was included in an exhibition at the Hammer Museum focusing on new or under-recognized artists working in Los Angeles.
Ai-Da is described by its creator as "the world's first ultra-realistic humanoid robot" artist. Completed in 2019, Ai-Da is an artificial intelligence robot that makes drawings, painting, and sculptures. It is named after Ada Lovelace The robot gained international attention when it was able to draw people from sight with a pencil using her bionic hand and cameras in her eyes.
Gil Marco Shani is an Israeli painter, installation artist and educator, who lives and works in Tel Aviv.
Legacy Russell is an American curator, writer, and author of Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, published by Verso Books in 2020. In 2021, the performance and experimental art institution The Kitchen announced Russell as the organization's next executive director and chief curator. From 2018 to 2021, she was the associate curator of exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Guadalupe Maravilla, formerly known as Irvin Morazan, is a transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer. At the age of eight, Maravilla was part of the first wave of unaccompanied, undocumented children to arrive at the United States border in the 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. In 2016, Maravilla became a U.S. citizen and adopted the name Guadalupe Maravilla in solidarity with his undocumented father, who uses Maravilla as his last name. As an acknowledgment to his past, Maravilla grounds his practice in the historical and contemporary contexts belonging to undocumented communities and the cancer community. Maravilla's studio is located in Brooklyn, New York.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)