Nottingham Contemporary (formerly known as the Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham (CCAN)) is a contemporary art centre in the Lace Market area of

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

. The gallery opened in 2009. The gallery describes its site as being "the oldest in the city", having been the site of a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

fort. To celebrate the area's history of lace manufacture, the cladding of the building is embossed with a traditional Nottingham lace pattern. Nottingham Contemporary is a

registered charity A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a ch ...

under English law.

Exhibition programme

Nottingham Contemporary organises four to five major exhibitions a year, bringing the work of the world’s contemporary artists to Nottingham. The ideas raised by the exhibitions are explored in educational programmes for all ages. The museum opened on 14 November 2009 with an exhibition of early works by

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...

and recent works by Los Angeles-based artist

Frances Stark Frances Stark (born 1967) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, whose work centers on the use and meaning of language, and the translation of this process into the creative act. She often works with carbon paper to hand-trace letters, words, a ...

, including some from the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

collection. Since then, the gallery has hosted a number of major thematic exhibitions including The Place is Here (2017), a landmark survey of Black British Art; States of America (2017), the largest-ever survey of American photography in the UK'';'' Glenn Ligon’s Encounters and Collisions (2015); and From Ear to Ear to Eye (2017–18), an exploration of the politics of listening across the Arab world.

Building

The building was designed by the London architects Caruso St John. With over 3,000 square metres of floor space, it is one of the largest contemporary art centres in the UK. The exterior is clad in verdigris scalloped panels with a traditional lace pattern, with large windows that offer direct views from the street into the interior. The building is larger than it appears from the outside, because much of it is sunk into the sandstone cliff that runs through the city centre. Nottingham Contemporary is one of the largest contemporary art spaces in the UK, with four galleries, an auditorium, an education space and a study centre. The building also houses a café-bar and a shop. The building has been acclaimed by architectural critics. Ellis Woodman in '' Building Design'' complimented how the building’s facades successfully expressed its relationship with the city.

Owen Hatherley Owen Hatherley (born 24 July 1981 in Southampton, England) is a British writer and journalist based in London who writes primarily on architecture, politics and culture. Early life Hatherley was born in Southampton in 1981, growing up in a 1930s ...

stated that ''“this might, irrespective of the leaky roof, be the first masterpiece of British architecture of the twenty-first century.”''

Site

Nottingham Contemporary is on the oldest site in Nottingham, Garners Hill, it once housed cave dwellings, a Saxon fort and a medieval town hall – before the Victorians swept all aside for a railway line. It is in the historic Lace Market, a showcase for a world-famous fabric when technical innovation gave lace a mass market. A revolutionary concrete casting technique, carried out in Nottingham, has embossed a lace design into the building’s panels, some up to 11 metres high.

Management

Sam Thorne was appointed director in 2015, taking up the position in early 2016, following on from the founding director Alex Farquharson (2007 - 2015).

References

External links