The Art Fund and Crafts Council celebrate five years of Art Fund Collect

Associated media

British curators invited to develop museum collections with world class objects of contemporary craft

The Art Fund and the Crafts Council have today launched the fifth Art Fund Collect, the £75,000 scheme that offers UK museums the chance to add an outstanding work of new international contemporary craft to their collections.

Art Fund Collect was set up jointly by the Art Fund and the Crafts Council in 2008 as a way of boosting public collections with contemporary craft, and developing curatorial expertise and networks within the museum sector.

Curators from museums and galleries across the country are invited to apply for exclusive preview access to COLLECT, Europe’s leading art fair for contemporary objects, in order to select a work for their museum, paid for in full from the £75,000 made available by the Art Fund.

Shortlisted curators will be given an hour before all other visitors to visit the 31 galleries from 11 countries exhibiting at the fair, and select one object they would like to see join their museum’s collection. The curators will present their prospective acquisition to the Art Fund Collect judging panel, who will then decide which objects have been best presented by their curatorial advocate, and will most merit joining a public museum collection.

Art Fund Collect will take place on Thursday 10 May 2012, the preview day of COLLECT, organized by the Crafts Council and which is now in its ninth year, with the winners to be announced at 7 p.m. that evening. COLLECT 2012 takes place at London’s Saatchi Gallery and is open to the public 11 – 13 May 2012.
Curators have until 14 March 2012 to submit their applications.   The shortlist, compiled by the judging panel, will be announced in April.
 
The judging panel for this year’s Art Fund Collect comprises:

 
– Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund
– Sir Nicholas Goodison, Former Chairman of the Crafts Council and former Chairman of the Art Fund
– Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director of the Crafts Council
– Anthony Griffiths, Art Fund Trustee and former Head of Department of Prints & Drawings, the British Museum
– Tanya Harrod, writer and Associate Research Professor at Bath School of Art and Design
– Jonathan Marsden, Art Fund Trustee and Director of the Royal Collection

In 2011, eight curators each won an object for their public collections at Art Fund Collect. The winning institutions were:  Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery; Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery; National Museum Cardiff; Leeds Art Gallery; Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery; Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter;  Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art; and Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery.

Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund, said: ‘The Art Fund has always been well known for helping museums to buy historic works of applied art. The great traditions of craft, from metalwork and textiles to ceramics and jewellery, are as alive and vibrant today as they have ever been, and deserve greater prominence within the UK’s museum collections. The Art Fund’s collaboration with the Crafts Council through Art Fund Collect has been instrumental in ensuring that some of the most innovative and accomplished contemporary craft practitioners are now represented in museum collections, and we look forward to building on these fantastic achievements with this year’s edition of the programme.’

Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director of the Crafts Council, said: \Since its inception, £275,000 has been spent through Art Fund Collect. The scheme has enabled the purchase of 22 works of contemporary craft to be placed in 16 museums and galleries across the UK – significantly enhancing these collections.’
For more information and to apply for Art Fund Collect 2012, visit the Art Fund website.