Elizabeth Price and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology have won the Contemporary Art Society (CAS) Annual Award 2013, in partnership with Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art.
The award, which was announced this week at the Dairy Art Centre in London, gives £60,000 for a regional museum to create a new artwork.
Price was chosen ahead of three other projects between artists and museums: Jess Flood-Paddock with Birmingham Museums; Des Hughes with the Hepworth Wakefield; and Lucy McKenzie with the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
“It will be a fantastic opportunity to plunder the collections of the Ashmolean and the Pitt Rivers, and try and find a way to develop my own work as an artist through those, but also to make to make contemporary art available to the broadest possible audience,” said Turner Prize winner Price at the award ceremony.
Susan McCormack, the head of public engagement at the Ashmolean, said: “With Elizabeth coming in and working with our curators, archivists, photographers, conservators and education people, there have been so many interesting conversations already. It is just such a thrill to think that we can now see this through to the final artwork.”
Caroline Douglas, who joined the CAS as its director in October from the Arts Council Collection, said: “Commissioning a work of art is very, very special and is a different proposition from simply buying an existing work. This award offers the opportunity for an institution to commission a work that is perfectly tailor-made to their context and that is important.”
Douglas also talked about the value of contemporary art in regional museums.
“I am deeply conscious of the value of bringing contemporary art to museums outside London,” she said. “It brings in young people who want to see the art of their own times and to be involved in a discourse with art that illuminates the world that they live in.
“For curators, the continual adding of contemporary art to collections is a galvanising element for them. It is a means of shedding new light on existing collections and keeping a collection alive, as collections are living things and they live and breathe with us and the intelligence we bring to them.”
The CAS award, which is now in its fifth year, was presented by the artist Mark Wallinger.
The award, which was announced this week at the Dairy Art Centre in London, gives £60,000 for a regional museum to create a new artwork.
Price was chosen ahead of three other projects between artists and museums: Jess Flood-Paddock with Birmingham Museums; Des Hughes with the Hepworth Wakefield; and Lucy McKenzie with the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
“It will be a fantastic opportunity to plunder the collections of the Ashmolean and the Pitt Rivers, and try and find a way to develop my own work as an artist through those, but also to make to make contemporary art available to the broadest possible audience,” said Turner Prize winner Price at the award ceremony.
Susan McCormack, the head of public engagement at the Ashmolean, said: “With Elizabeth coming in and working with our curators, archivists, photographers, conservators and education people, there have been so many interesting conversations already. It is just such a thrill to think that we can now see this through to the final artwork.”
Caroline Douglas, who joined the CAS as its director in October from the Arts Council Collection, said: “Commissioning a work of art is very, very special and is a different proposition from simply buying an existing work. This award offers the opportunity for an institution to commission a work that is perfectly tailor-made to their context and that is important.”
Douglas also talked about the value of contemporary art in regional museums.
“I am deeply conscious of the value of bringing contemporary art to museums outside London,” she said. “It brings in young people who want to see the art of their own times and to be involved in a discourse with art that illuminates the world that they live in.
“For curators, the continual adding of contemporary art to collections is a galvanising element for them. It is a means of shedding new light on existing collections and keeping a collection alive, as collections are living things and they live and breathe with us and the intelligence we bring to them.”
The CAS award, which is now in its fifth year, was presented by the artist Mark Wallinger.
