Gill Hedley is an independent curator, writer and consultant on contemporary visual arts. The menu to the left leads to different aspects of her work. On some pages blue links in bullet points open for more detail. Below are current and recent projects, with more on the archive pages.
After a long lazy summer I am pleased to let you know about three exhibitions with which I have NOT been directly involved! Though I am working closely with all three artists.
Lorrice Douglas is giving a lecture on 22 November in connection with her recent residency at the British School at Athens and I will send details nearer the time.
Meanwhile from 14th September Lorrice is showing as part of the fifth edition of the London Creative Network (LCN) Showcase (www). This illustrates how artists are continuously exploring new technologies and ideas to push contemporary art practice as a dynamic and engaged contribution to wider culture. The event is an expansive presentation of new developments and works in progress, ranging from collaborative pieces to interdisciplinary approaches and publications. It is an intersection between visual art, craft, digital technology, design and research.
Ann Sutton is in a group show The Most Real Thing (www) at the New Arts Centre, Roche Court, from 15th September.
The exhibition brings together diverse artists and makers to examine the ongoing relationship between sculpture and textiles, including work made using a range of techniques and media, from three-dimensional objects, contemporary painting, costume and performance to fabric, craft and design.
The title of the exhibition is taken from Anni Albers' 1938 essay Work with Material in which she claimed: "...we must come down to earth from the clouds where we live in vagueness and experience the most real thing there is: material."
→ Ann Sutton's website
(www)
→ summary of Ann's work on this site
Martha Orbach is at Lumen (www) from 28th September with White Out: a new story about a man and his brain. What happens when your brain malfunctions? You want to move but you're frozen. The team are trying to fix it - electricity, surgery, programming. In a series of prints and hand-drawn animation, White Out charts one man's attempt to understand what is happening to him and keep track of the line between himself and his symptoms. It is a collaboration between artist Martha Orbach and patients and staff at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. Private view: 6.30-8.30pm, Thursday 27th 2018 Open 12 - 6pm, 28th - 30th September 2018.
I was commissioned to write a history of the Incorporated Church Building Society which celebrates its 200th anniversary this spring.
In the confused and debt-ridden years just after Waterloo a group of influential men persuaded the government to commit substantial funds to create churches in urban areas to cope with the influx of migrants from the countryside displaced by the Industrial Revolution. Extraordinarily, a grant of one million pounds was voted, followed swiftly by another half million. Yet the same group of men decided to raise their own funds with a greater emphasis on extending existing churches and making as many seats possible free to all worshippers.
ICBS finally became absorbed in to the National Churches Trust under the chairmanship of Michael Hoare, whose family provided many of the Treasurers from 1818 onwards. Hoares Bank has commissioned the book to support the work of NCT and it is published by Umbria Press.
→ see the link to buy the book (www)
St. Mary’s, Market Place, Ilkeston, Derbyshire,
1855. This 13th century parish church was
rebuilt between 1853 and 1855 by Thomas
Larkins Walker with a grant from ICBS. The
chantry chapel was rebuilt to accommodate
nearly 300 children and new seating, flooring,
heating and lighting were installed. It is listed
Grade II* by National Heritage for England.
Photo credit: Erewash Borough Council.
When I worked in Southampton Art Gallery, in the mid 1980s, I came across the
collector/dealer Arthur Jeffress and planned, though never completed, an exhibition to
celebrate the bequest to the gallery in 1961 of his subversive little collection
.
After I left CAS (over eleven years ago now) and knowing a lot more about collectors, I decided to see if there was enough material for a biography. One decade and 100,000 words later, I am delighted to say that a publisher also thinks the story is worth publishing.
I am discussing an exhibition with Southampton City Art Gallery in 2020 to coincide with the book.
Oriel Ross, Portrait of Arthur Jeffress, 1927, collection Gill Hedley
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