National Portrait Gallery to host McQueen’s Stamp tribute to Iraq fallen

On the day that the nation observes a two minute silence to remember those who have given their life in service to their country, The Art Fund, the UK’s leading art charity, announces that Queen and Country, the work of Official War Artist for Iraq, Steve McQueen, will go on display at the National Portrait Gallery in the Spring. This will mark the culmination of a UK wide tour of the artwork which is part of a campaign for images of those who died as a result of the Iraq conflict to be issued as official postage stamps by Royal Mail.



McQueen’s artwork is a collaboration with 155 families who lost a loved one in Iraq. It takes the form of facsimile postage stamps which are housed in a large oak cabinet. The work will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery between 20 March and 20 July during which time it is hoped that visitors to the gallery will show their support for the campaign for stamps which Royal Mail has so far refused to issue.

For details of the tour, and to sign The Art Fund petition, please visit www.artfund.org/queenandcountry

The Art Fund bought Queen and Country outright for the Imperial War Museum in 2007 and is spearheading the campaign and managing the tour of the artwork. To date over 21,000 have signed The Art Fund’s online petition in favour of the stamps which can be found at www.artfund.org/queenandcountry.

Andrew Macdonald, Acting Director of The Art Fund said: “Queen and Country is a powerfully moving work presented by an artist of international renown which challenges us to think again about the relationship we have with those who die serving in our name. The public support for these stamps demonstrates the enthusiasm for the whole country to join in reflection and tribute. Bringing the work to the National Portrait Gallery is an important next platform for the campaign to see Steve McQueen’s vision realised”.



Steve McQueen was born in London in 1969. He won the Turner Prize in 1999 and was awarded an OBE in 2002. His first feature film Hunger won the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 and the Carl Foreman Award at the 2009 BAFTAs. In 2009 he represented Britain at the 53rd Venice Biennale with his new film Giardini.

Image credits:

Steve McQueen by David Parry
Major Matthew James Bacon, Intelligence Corps, Died 11 September 2005, aged 34.

Winners of The Young Masters Art Prize

Contemporary art is really my passion, but I have considerable admiration for the Old Masters, the contemplative nature of this work is incredibly inspiring, so I was pleased to see that the Cynthia Corbett Gallery have launched a new Prize, The Young Masters Art Prize. Great concept - the fusion of the old and the new. This is something that I love to do.



On 3 November 2009 the winner of the inaugural Young Masters Art Prize, Hector de Gregorio and artist duo Ghost of A Dream were announced as the joint winners. The artists were presented with a combined prize of £4,000 at an awards ceremony at The Old Truman Brewery. The winning artists were selected from 16 emerging and newly established international artists who were chosen to exhibit their work, which is inspired by the Old Masters, at the Young Masters exhibition that opened to great acclaim last month at joint venues Sphinx Fine Art and The Old Truman Brewery.



The prize was judged by a panel of high profile artists and historians including Medeia Cohan- Petrolino, Head Curator for the University of the Arts London; Lock Anderson Kresler, Christie’s Contemporary Art Department; Averill Ogden, Outset Art Fund, and Tom Hunter, Artist. London-based artist Hector de Gregorio, a recent graduate from the Royal College of Art, transforms his modern subjects in to fantasy characters, referencing the religious narratives of the Old Masters. In work such as Absinthes (2009) de Gregorio repeatedly paints and varnishes over digital photographs, creating a work, which evolves around theatre and fantasy, raising questions about power and submission and contemporary sexual confusion.



The American artist collaborative, Ghost of a Dream, (Adam Eckstrom and Lauren Was) are inspired by the idealised notion of the get-rich-quick dream. Using discarded UK lottery tickets and scratch cards collected over the summer as their primary material, the artists have created an installation of desirable goods. Iconic works of art are represented, including Of the Pinks, In the Red (2009) – a direct reference to Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks in the National Gallery, which was bought with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund.



Cynthia Corbett commended: “The judges choices were all very interesting and we are delighted that the prize will be shared by these three outstanding artists. Both Hector de Gregorio and Ghost of a Dream emphasise the sheer craft and technical skill in homage to the Old Masters, which has often been ignored when bestowing recognition and awards to young artists.”

Upon winning, Hector de Gregorio said: “As an emerging artist it is an honour and an encouragement to receive this award. Supporting the arts helps society to expand ideas and alternatives both in times of stagnation and in times of richness, it consolidates and it breaks through." While Ghost of a Dream said the following after hearing the good news: “We are extremely honoured to win the Young Masters Art Prize. It has been an amazing to be included in this show and have the opportunity to exhibit our work internationally. Working alongside the Cynthia Corbett Gallery and the other artists showing in Young Masters has been exceptional experience. We want to thank AXA for sponsoring the Prize; we are honoured.”

Images © the artists
Absinthes by Hector de Gregorio
Of the pinks in the Red by Ghost of A Dream
Sepulchre by Hector de Gregorio
Beat The dealer 2009 by Ghost of a Dream

Immersive installation - Anthea Hamilton at IBID

Anthea Hamilton’s new show at IBID includes sculptures and wall-based work following on from her recent exhibitions at Chisenhale Gallery and La Salle de Bains, Lyon. Hamilton produces carefully arranged environments in which each sculptural element is autonomous and yet come together in a way that has been described as “three-dimensional collage.”



Often her environments have taken cues from specific, non-gallery spaces, such as the gymnasium, TV studio or swimming pool, while her sculptures act like players within these stage sets – commonly carrying out appropriate routine tasks and rituals. In this way her immersive installations explore such themes as leisure, attraction and mechanisms of desire, creating delicately balanced situations where the viewer is always placed at centre stage. What is so poignant about her work, is the way that it creates interplay between the concept of the gallery and the power of art - where ever that may be.



Central to an understanding of Hamilton’s work is her use of materials. Some of the found-objects present in the current exhibition are taken from popular TV or fiction, for example are a translation of a 2D character into 3D merchandise. Often, they are strikingly removed from their original context (for example, a pin-up poster that was intended as a symbol of desire seems more appropriate to a teenage bedroom than a gallery setting). While her more idiosyncratic assemblages may seem bewildering at times – including a rubber cartoon mask of a character from The Simpsons, an over-sized wrapped cheese fashioned from leather and foam, or a clear perspex chair made from cut-outs of the artists own legs – each are precisely chosen for the specific senses they provoke and the associations they inspire.



More often than not these associations are to do with the body. Indeed, in previous examples of Hamilton’s work her sculptures often appeared like disconnected bodies – figuration was hinted at but never actually revealed. In her new works the figuration remains but in a form that is abstracted even further. Indeed, her sculptures appear more solidly grounded in the idea that they are inanimate objects that work within a wider environment, even with a use value (a chair, a blind, a table), or that they might be chosen in a similar way to furnishings – integral choices that inform a larger set of surroundings within which the visitor is invited to explore and reveal connections.



Whilst Hamilton’s use of ‘poor’ everyday materials – as well as her overall reductionist style and a retro-store colour palette – clearly connect her to a contemporary aesthetic, the effect is anthropomorphic and less to do with the legacy of Minimal Art than a choreography of different feelings and emotions. Issues of titillation and an overtly sensual mood verging on the sexual come into play, in the same way that curator Francesco Manacorda has written of Hamilton that she “is interested in tracing a personal history of love and attraction … in a mapping of the distance between individuals and the objects of their desire.”

For further information visit www.ibidprojects.com

All images (c) Anthea Hamilton courtesy the gallery.