Our British Council Collection includes nearly 9,000 pieces by the most major figures in British modern and contemporary art. It is an archive of both unique and distinctive art, with work that represents the rich history and changing landscape of British art.
In a new book designed and published by Art Books Publishing, Dr Annebella Pollen tells the story of our collection and work in visual arts through artworks, archival documentation that stretches back nearly nine decades, and new interviews and interpretations. Art Without Frontiers explores how the British Council has loaned art to more than one hundred countries, presenting the work of British visual artists to millions of people worldwide, promoting cultural dialogue and developing international exchange across a century of changing tastes and geopolitical agendas.
‘The British Council Collection has sometimes been described as a Museum without Walls... It serves as a fitting description, not just because the Collection does not have a permanent exhibition space or because it appears in new ways online. The term captures its adaptability to a range of interpretations as well as its ambition to push boundaries and cross frontiers.’ - Chapter 9. Rehang, Art Without Frontiers, by Dr Annebella Pollen. Read the full story below.
> Find more details about the book on the Art Books Publishing website.
> See the Collection online.
'The process included a call to young overseas curators that generated 161 applicants across 47 countries. “From all over the world”, Andrea Rose, former Director of Visual Arts observed, “we learned how others see us”. This experiment marked the start of a process of international co-curation, collaboration and co-working that has characterised Visual Arts’ most recent decade. These partnership practices most fully deliver on the British Council’s longstanding mutuality principle. As a cultural relations organisation that uses its art collection as a tool for dialogue and as a means to explore individual, national and international identities, the sharing of authority has enabled new patterns of inclusion and new innovations in exhibitions. These shifts have shaped new Collection acquisitions that, in turn, correspond with the oldest of purchases in fascinating ways.
The British Council Collection has sometimes been described as a Museum without Walls. This concept, drawn from Andre Malraux’s 1965 book of the same name, imagined the possibilities of a globally democratised access to art collections. It serves as a fitting description, not just because the Collection does not have a permanent exhibition space or because it appears in new ways online. The term captures its adaptability to a range of interpretations as well as its ambition to push boundaries and cross frontiers.
To mark the British Council’s 75th birthday, a series of five exhibitions were displayed at Whitechapel Gallery in London, 2009-2010, each drawing on the British Council Collection as seen through the eyes of guest curators. As the Collection was bought to undertake cultural relations work overseas, this was a rare dedicated UK showcase. Those who made the selections brought individual visions to bear on a Collection that, at 8500-plus items, has enormous potential to be reconfigured and rehung in a wide range of new ways.' - Chapter 9. Rehang, Art Without Frontiers, by Dr Annebella Pollen.
Dr Annebella Pollen is Professor of Visual and Material Culture at the University of Brighton, where she researches undervalued archives and untold stories in art and design history. Her previous books include Mass Photography: Collective Histories of Everyday Life (2015), The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians (2015), Nudism in a Cold Climate: The Visual Culture of Naturists in Mid-20th-Century Britain (2021), and More Than a Snapshot: A Visual History of Photo Wallets (2023).
