Stuart Macbeth looks back at 50 years of radical creativity at Modern Art Oxford as the exhibition space commences a year of challenging shows to mark the occasion

 

In October 1966, the Soviet Union launched Kosmos 129 into outer space, the first Mark II Ford Cortina rolled off a Dagenham assembly line, and a new gallery of Modern Art quietly opened its doors at 30 Pembroke Street in Oxford.

Half a century on, Modern Art Oxford has developed into a powerhouse of contemporary visual culture.

To date the gallery has presented more than 700 exhibitions, showing work by artists including Alexander Rodchenko, Joseph Beuys, Agnes Martin, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Sol Le Witt, Stuart Brisley and Marina Abramovic, among other stellar names.

To celebrate its landmark first 50 years, the gallery is preparing to do a little more than give itself a congratulatory slap on the back.

Over the next 12 months, Modern Art Oxford will continue to commission new works, and present snapshots from its own past through an innovative and shifting series of works in an ongoing exhibition it calls Kaleidoscope. Director Paul Hobson explains: “We chose the name Kaleidoscope because we thought it was a poignant title. We are trying to suggest a way of looking at the works that will be constant through the duration of the exhibition.

“Works will come and go, and sometimes reappear. We want to show how artworks have the power to change their meaning when you move them through different spaces. There may be artists at work while the public walk through, or we might be in the stage of installing a work.” Throughout the year’s series of interlocking shows and events, the gallery will allow the public rare behind-the-scenes access. Paul says it’s an unmissable opportunity to reflect on some of the great moments in the gallery’s history. He admits the act of installing and removing work over a 12-month period could itself be seen as a conceptual activity.

“I’m sure it must have been tried before,” he says, “but not in Oxford. It’s quite a challenging thing to do. It’s more challenging for the gallery staff. But MAO is always trying to push the boundaries in terms of mounting exhibitions.”

Kaleidoscope has inspired graphics designed for the gallery by Fraser Muggeridge Studio.

“The pattern of the Fraser Muggeridge design takes the logo of the gallery over 50 years and then fragments it, through an artwork by Sol LeWitt. We’re going to be showing some of LeWitt’s drawings over the summer. In fact almost everything in and around the programme this year has taken inspiration through a past exhibition here.

“Visitors will enjoy iconic works from the past, returning from across the globe,” Paul continues, describing the painstaking process which has included negotiating loans of works from galleries and private collections worldwide.

Alongside LeWitt, other artists represented include Turner Prize winners Douglas Gordon and Elizabeth Price, Guan Xiao, Hans Haacke, Maria Loboda, Dan Graham, Pierre Huyghe, Richard Long and Yoko Ono.

Paul says his personal highlight will be a chance to display an important series of drawings by Agnes Martin, which were first displayed in Oxford. Paul says they are significant as the first works Martin made on her return from a lengthy anchoress existence in the New Mexico desert.

Pinning down big art ideas from the past 50 years, Kaleidoscope will group works under five broad thematic subheadings, beginning with The Indivisible Present next month.

Paul says: “These range from looking at our perception of time, and the way that is changing, to ideas about the human body.

“These are radically different now from how they were, just 20 years ago. The way artists have worked with materials has changed, as has the relationship artists have with their audience.”

Oxford Mail:

  • Installation by Richard Long back in 1971

Paul began his career two decades ago as a curator of the Hayward Gallery’s controversial Art and Power show. He went on to work as head of strategy for the Serpentine and head of trusts at the Royal Academy, before assuming his post as director of Modern Art Oxford in September 2013.

He says he was honoured to join the gallery, which has a formidable reputation for staging exhibitions from artists who go on to become major art world figures. This was a particular feature of the gallery’s first decade, under the directorship of Sir Nicholas Serota.

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By the time Paul arrived, 10 years had already passed since the gallery’s name change from The Museum of Modern Art.

He admits the title confused many visitors to the city, who arrived expecting to find a permanent collection behind the former brewery walls. “Museum of Modern Art was a rather grand title,” he concedes with the trace of a smile.

“When the gallery was established, there was a plan for us to collect, and this was long before the Tate had a strong collection of contemporary art. But of course, we obviously never had the money, means or network to build a collection of that stature.

“The story behind the name change is that our former director, Andrew Nairn, was having a chat with Tracey Emin when she stood in front of one of our posters, and covered over the words ‘Museum of’. The part that was left, ‘Modern Art Oxford’, started to be seen as a distillation of the gallery’s brand.

Oxford Mail:

  • New forms: Tim Scott's show in 1969

“Personally, I think Contemporary Art Oxford would be a better name, and better reflect our role in commissioning new works. Commissioning is an important part of what we are doing at any one time.”

Throughout the year, the gallery will also welcome anyone with memories of previous visits to share their experiences through a variety of mediums including film, print and online, which form part of side project – 50 Voices: 50 Years of Experience at MAO.

“What is so satisfying for me about the coming year,” Paul concludes, “is how exciting it is to go through the programme and see the stature of the gallery reflected. It really is thrilling to see everything we have planned out.

“We want to avoid any claim that we’re presenting a definitive history of the gallery, but there are so many influential and important works to enjoy.

“There just won’t be another year like this where so many people can see as many major works in the city.”

50 years of controversy

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  • SMILE: The Chapman Brothers caused a stir with these fascist-influenced banners

1971: The show Pioneers of Participation Art has to be closed by the police after over-zealous visitors “over participate” at the first of many MAO private views.

1973: Oxford gets a show by Sol LeWitt. To outsiders, this is like One Direction turning up at your local playschool. back in the days when they were still cool.

1974: Joseph Beuys charges up the M40 to Pembroke Street, snapping photos of the Stokenchurch Gap during his journey. The photos are subsequently featured in catalogues across the world.

To continue the comparison, Beuys turning up in Oxford is like Lou Reed turning up in your bedroom, with an electric guitar.

1979: David Elliott curates the first major Alexander Rodchenko retrospective in the west, after years of delicate negotiations with the USSR, launching a programme of Soviet art shows that would make Oxford a leading UK centre for the display of 20th-century Russian art for the next 15 years.

1981: The gallery adds three exhibition rooms, an education studio, and takes over the tower for staff and storage.

1993: MAO presents new art from China across two displays, decades before the rest of the UK catch on.

2003: Jake and Dinos Chapman’s exhibition The Rape of Creativity becomes notorious as the first showing of Insult to Injury, the collection of celebrated Goya prints appropriated and altered by the artists.

WHAT'S ON
Modern Art Oxford’s Kaleidoscope runs from February 6 to the end of the year, at the gallery in Pembroke Street, Oxford.
modernartoxford.org.uk