From Marvin Gaye Chetwynd to the Turner Prize: 2014 in contemporary art

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Mark Sheerin takes a look back at the key moments in contemporary art during 2014

The shock news in 2014 was that, for the first time in recent memory, no major new UK galleries were opened. But more developments are due in 2015, so it could be that the past 12 months have been about consolidation rather than growth.

Our review of the year begins in Dundee, where Thomson and Craighead brought their timely, social-media inspired art to the UK’s most northerly outpost of contemporary art. Some of the works were previously shown at Carrroll/Fletcher in London, but they will have warranted another airing.

Likewise for Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, who brought a body of costume, sculpture and performance to Nottingham Contemporary. But those who encountered this artist, as Spartacus, at the 2012 Turner Prize, had to get their heads around a verbose new name along with an off-the-wall live event filmed for BBC2.

Moving to London, we encountered a former Dada-ist at Whitechapel and a contemporary artist with just as much ability to shock. Hannah Hoch was for me the best historic show of the year. But, despite throwing in a bunch of major works, Martin Creed at the Hayward Gallery came across as a little bit throwaway.

January was also the month when two children clambered over a multi-million pound sculpture by the American Minimalist Donald Judd. Outrage ensued after the picture was posted on Twitter. But what was really mystifying about this episode at Tate Modern was the parents defending them.

Perhaps they’ll grow up to be art pranksters like the masked man from Bristol whose work sold for $575,000 in February. The Banksy piece, which showed a pair of kissing policemen, was soaked off the wall of a Brighton pub in 2011. And now it’s fetched the price of a city centre pub.

Banksy was also in the news in April when he painted a group of eavesdropping spooks on the wall of a house in Cheltenham. It was not so far from the HQ of GCHQ. That naughty, naughty man.

Meanwhile, the best picture of 2014 was not a painting at all, but a movie. Artist Steve McQueen, whose 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the 2014 Oscars, now joins the ranks of talented folk who’ve cracked both worlds of movies and contemporary art. See also: Julian Schnabel (who at least cracked a few plates.)

We can but hope that at Venice next year, Sarah Lucas travels as well as McQueen. The former YBA has agreed to represent Britain in the 2015 Biennale. If her 2013 Whitechapel show is anything to go by it will be nothing less than grimly interesting.

Our homegrown biennale, meanwhile, took place in May. Whitstable retain the continental spelling of their biannual art fest and if the sun is out, why not? Thankfully the weather was good on the day of our visit and the highlights many (a special mention for the G&Ts in John Walter’s beach hut).

May also brought Culture24's own Museums at Night weekend festival. Grayson Perry, Rankin, and Spencer Tunick were among ten artists staging interventions as part of the festival's lively Connect programme linking artists with museums. 

Spring is never truly here in Culture24’s native town until the Brighton Festival kicks off. This year, in the HOUSE Festival subcategory, we enjoyed a library-themed installation by Yinka Shonibare. This was an opportunity to stage timely debates about immigration, a topic which has sadly grown more and more pertinent as the year’s worn on.

Happier newsworthiness was provided by poet Dylan Thomas, whose centenary it was in 2014. The bard was celebrated at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, with an appreciative show by artist Peter Blake, a long-time fan of Thomas’s ‘play for voices’ Under Milk Wood.

But whatever happened in Wales this year, certain events in Scotland overshadowed it. In July, the Scots hosted the XX Commonwealth Games and used the occasion to celebrate their extraordinary contributions to contemporary art.

A major show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was able to draw on the likes of Douglas Gordon, Ciara Phillips, Richard Wright and Simon Starling. Satellite shows included a colourful site- specific show at Fruitmarket for Glaswegian Jim Lambie.

The installations of the year, meanwhile, could be found at the Hepworth in Wakefield. This was the first major UK show of work by Franz West since the artist died two years ago.

The Austrian sculptor is a slippery character and his assemblages of rough made furniture and pictures have been left open to reinterpretation and even rearrangement. The result was a category busting show such as doesn’t come around too often.

If one artist has dominated the cultural landscape in Manchester this year, it will have been Ryan Gander. In July he opened a major solo show at Manchester Art Gallery. It was conceptual yet playful and as many have noted, Gander is a born storyteller. And so his work for the Manchester public, revealed in Beswick in November (Dad’s Halo Effect), was driven by narrative as much as looks.

There was also a major story to come out of the auction rooms in July. Tracey Emin’s notorious unmade bed sold for £2.54m. The new owner, German businessman Count Christian Duerckheim, promptly lent it to Tate, where it can continue to delight and annoy in equal measure.

2014 was also one of those years when nearly all the major visual art fests coincide. We were able to enjoy not only the Liverpool Biennial, the Whitstable Biennale and the Brighton Photo Biennial, but also the Folkestone Triennial and Asia Triennial Manchester: a perfect storm of added cultural value.

Installation view from John Moores Painting Prize with a painting by Rose Wylie (detail)© Photo: Mark McNulty

Liverpool moved forward its opening to July to draw the summer crowds and displayed a tantalising interest in art mediation. Among the highlights at this festival was a show of photographs of historic art exhibitions and an archive of historic art documentaries by Belgian director Jef Cornelis. 

Also in July, a few eyebrows were raised when international blue chip gallery Hauser & Wirth, who have spaces in New York, Zurich and London, popped up in the West Country with a new gallery in the village of Bruton in sleepy Somerset. It opened strongly, with a Phyllida Barlow show.

But there were more strange developments in Devon, where Ilfracombe council approved plans by one-time enfant terrible Damien Hirst to build a housing estate. It will bring 750 homes and 100s of new jobs. So will it be art or architecture?

In August, art and architecture came together again, as Stanley Spencer’s epic war paintings returned to Sandham Chapel in Hampshire. The monumental panels spent much of the previous year on tour, but fans would have been delighted to see them get home in time for the commemorations of World War I. The National Trust-run Chapel also benefits from a £100,000 refurbishment.

Folkestone Triennial, meanwhile, was giving it away. One of the event’s many site-specific works saw German artist Michael Sailstorfer bury 30 gold bars on a beach. Since they totalled £10,000 in value, it was no surprise that this ‘sculpture’ was a massive hit, with metal-detector owners, if not art lovers as well.

There wasn’t quite so much excitement in Manchester’s citywide Asia Triennial. But Contemporary Chinese Art had never been seen in the UK on such a wide scale. The results, which could be seen everywhere from the Football Museum to the John Rylands Library, were a revelation and a good reason to visit the North West in September.

After winning acclaim with his Channel 4 series on taste in 2012, Grayson Perry returned to the small screen in November with a three-part show about identity. It cemented his position as national treasure in a year when he also guest-edited an issue of New Statesman and brought out a bestselling book.

Perry was everywhere, in 2014, which was exactly where the Artes Mundi Prize deserved to be. The shortlist was showcased in a citywide exhibition in Cardiff and the standard was excellent.

With an international outlook, a £40,000 award and a shortlist of nine, the Welsh event deserves more than it receives in terms of publicity. Certainly the work was stronger than that in this year’s Turner.

But the most powerful man in art would most likely disagree with that. In Art Review’s annual Power 100 list, it was Tate boss Sir Nicholas Serota who came out on top. And that’s before the striking £215 million extension, by Herzog and de Meuron, is even complete. It‘s said to open in 2016; I do hope the sleeping museum guard at this year’s Frieze Art Fair has set his alarm.

Meanwhile, in October, Birmingham got the social-minded piece of public art it deserves. Artist Gillian Wearing and Ikon gallery have concluded a search for the city’s most representative family. It was won by a family of Joneses comprised of two sisters who are single parents. Of course, debate is to be encouraged.

More public art came to the public’s attention in November, when 888,246 poppies were planted in the moat at the Tower of London. The ceramic flowers were the work of artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper, each one representing a British soldier killed in the Great War. The work was so popular it would be churlish to knock.

Let’s just say it might be a surprise if Cummins and Piper were to crop up in the 2015 Turner Prize. A ceremony at Tate Britain in December saw the award go to Duncan Campbell for a challenging hour-long documentary which blended contemporary dance with Marxist politics. He ticks a lot of boxes, but this wasn’t a vintage year for the annual Prize.

The other bit of news in December was the decision by artist Bob and Roberta Smith to stand as an MP in May 2015. The founder of a political party just for art lovers will be up for election in Surrey Heath, which also happens to be the seat of Michael Gove, former Secretary of State for Education. Could this be the revenge of art schools everywhere? We’ll have to see.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

More from Culture24's 2014 reviews:

Culture24's top ten literary history and heritage stories of 2014

Culture24's top ten military history stories of 2014

Culture24's top ten archaeology stories of 2014


Visit Mark Sheerin's contemporary art blog and follow him on Twitter.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//art/art511367-from-marvin-gaye-chetwynd-to-the-turner-prize-2014-in-contemporary-art