New Contemporaries (1988) Ltd
Chair
Sacha Craddock
Vice Chair
Jill Ritblat
Company Secretary
Polly Salter
Directors
Eileen Daly
John Huntingford
Rebecca King Lassman
Haroon Mirza
Mike Nelson
Andrea Schlieker
Ivan Seery
Rebecca Warren
Director
Rebecca Heald
Programme Co-ordinator
Sandra Mahon
Website
Platform-3
How to Apply
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New Contemporaries gives people still at, or just after, art school the opportunity
to show their work in the context of a professional art gallery. It is important in
that it takes the work out of the educational context and into the real. The relationship
between education and art is known, respected, but strangely not recognised enough. As an
organisation New Contemporaries is, however, totally independent of the art school
as it allows applicants a democratic chance for the work itself to shine through.
Reputations that might otherwise become set within the art school system are able
to break out.
The annual exhibition is selected from slide, film, video, cd, proposal, and then
at a second stage from a shortlist of the work itself. New Contemporaries is one of
only two open exhibitions in the country. The importance of testing, looking, judging
without knowledge of school, age, works both ways. The selection of selector is,
therefore, key. As a principle it is important to convey a very basic sense of
possibility to every art school student or recent graduate considering applying. The
selection is done by artists and writers and often a selector will have also been in
New Contemporaries, a number of years before. The intense and detailed selection process
provides the selector the opportunity to consider art in a broad context, in a visual
and aural sea far removed from their individual career.
Although there is no limit put on the number of artists to be shown each year, the
number chosen from out of over 1,200 applicants has averaged almost uncannily, at
around thirty-five. Independent of place, New Contemporaries is an annual exhibition
without a building, and has had beneficial relationships with many important galleries.
The exhibition travels and this movement, which is an integral part of the structure,
means a different relationship to audience and place. The exhibition provides galleries,
such as Cornerhouse or Camden Arts Centre, a ready-made exhibition of the very newest
and best contemporary art.
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