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Call for host partners for a British Museum Touring Exhibition

The National Programmes team at the British Museum are excited to be looking for partners to host a new touring exhibition:

A British Museum Touring Exhibition
Drawing attention: emerging artists in the UK (title tbc)

Discover some of the most compelling emerging talents in the field of contemporary drawing, displayed alongside highlights from the Museum’s collection.

Exhibition overview

Emerging artists are taking the medium of drawing in new directions – using innovative approaches, methods and media. This exhibition spans a wide range of techniques and practices, including drawings using make-up on face wipes by Sin Wai Kin fka Victoria Sin, and a drawing made with chalk collected from the White Cliffs of Dover by Josephine Baker. All the featured artists have lived, studied or worked in the UK and Ireland.

Several artists show how drawing, often considered a quiet or private medium, can be used to protest injustice. Catherine Anyango Grünewald has described the time and labour invested in her monumental drawings as a ‘direct homage’ to their subjects, often the victims of institutional crimes, while the painstaking detail of Irish artist Miriam de Búrca’s drawings of clods of earth from cilliní – the unmarked graves of those deemed unfit for Christian burial – force us to confront an uncomfortable history.

The tour will follow the exhibition now on in Room 90 of the British Museum, featuring 20 new acquisitions shown for the first time alongside some of the most celebrated works from the Museum’s collection by the likes of Andy Warhol, Käthe Kollwitz, Odilon Redon, Mary Delany and Michelangelo, demonstrating their continuities with the existing collection, and their relationships to historical traditions of drawing. These artists include some of the youngest ever collected by the Museum during their lifetime, and represent some of the most exciting up-and-coming names in the field of contemporary drawing. For more information about the emerging artists featured, see the appendix below.

To support audience’s understanding and appreciation of the drawings on display, the tour will be accompanied by a short film featuring a selection of the exhibiting artists explaining the meaning and inspiration behind their work. The provided package of exhibition interpretation will also include perspectives written by young people from the British Museum Youth Collective. It is hoped that the interpretation written by young people will evolve from venue to venue, with an opportunity for young people from each partner organisation to meet with the exhibition curator, explore the works before they go on display at their local venue and write their own layer of interpretation.

Please note the exhibition contains several works addressing themes of racial and sexual violence.

Key objectives

  • Give audiences around the country the opportunity to see work by key emerging talents in the field of contemporary drawing, alongside highlights from the Museum’s collection.
  • Engage young people and art students with the possibilities of drawing as a medium.
  • Provide an opportunity for partner museums to highlight their collections and make meaningful connections with the British Museum’s collection of both historic and contemporary drawing.

Tour Schedule

The British Museum is looking for three partners to host this Touring Exhibition for around three months each, from summer 2023.

Display specifications

The same object list of around 35 works will tour to every venue, with the final selection pending approval by the Museum’s Loans Committee. The exhibition will require approximately 75 metres of running wall space.

Partner venues must conform to ACE Government Indemnity standards. Venues will be asked to provide standard facility, security and display case information by completing UKRG documentation. Venue’s must be able to meet the Museum’s environmental and lighting requirements.

Costs

The British Museum will cover the cost of all staff costs, administration, object transportation; object conservation, mounts and framing, packing and courier related travel and subsistence for the entirety of the tour. Elements of the design will also be covered by the British Museum, such as 2D design templates.

Partners are expected to meet the cost of any exhibition build and printed graphics, as well as marketing and general programming costs. Venues will be expected to cover the objects under the Minimum Liability arrangements outlined within the Government Indemnity Scheme (GIS) guidelines.

If you are interested in hosting Drawing attention, please contact

Alice Christen
Dorset Foundation Project Coordinator: National Programmes
AChristen@britishmuseum.org

for more information by Friday 9 September 2022. 

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