Private Utopia: Contemporary Art from the British Council Collection

EATING A BANANA 1990 1999 Sarah Lucas (1962 – ) P7238 © The Artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London
TAKA TAK 2008 Haroon Mirza (1977 – ) P8325 © The Artist
RESCUED RHODODENDRONS (7 RHODODENDRON PONTICUM PLANTS RESCUED FROM ELRICK HILL, SCOTLAND AND TRANSPORTED TO PARQUE LOS ALCORNOCALES, SPAIN, FROM WHERE THEY WHERE INTRODUCED INTO CULTIVATION IN 1763 BY CLAES ALSTROEMER) 2000 Simon Starling (1967 – ) P7461 © Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York
ETCHING FROM "MY GIANT COLOURING BOOK" FOR PARAGON PRESS 2004 Jake and Dinos Chapman (1966 & 1962 – ) P7906 © Jake and Dinos Chapman. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023.
SKI JACKET 1996 Peter Doig (1959 – ) P6701 © Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023.
LET IT BLEED 2001 Jim Lambie (1964 – ) P7450 © Jim Lambie. All rights reserved, DACS 2016.
'GREEN + BLUE = CYAN 2001 Anna Barriball (1972 – ) P7452 © The Artist
ETCHING FROM "MY GIANT COLOURING BOOK" FOR PARAGON PRESS 2004 Jake and Dinos Chapman (1966 & 1962 – ) P7920 © Jake and Dinos Chapman. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023.
NEW LEAF 1995 David Shrigley (1968 – ) P7117 © David Shrigley
ETCHING FROM "MY GIANT COLOURING BOOK" FOR PARAGON PRESS 2004 Jake and Dinos Chapman (1966 & 1962 – ) P7912 © Jake and Dinos Chapman. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023.

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Private Utopia: Contemporary Art from the British Council Collection is a major new exhibition which has been created in partnership with the Asahi Shimbun; Tokyo Station Gallery; Itami City Museum of Art; Kochi Museum of Art and Okayama Museum of Art. Together, the curators of each museum have selected works from the holdings of the British Council Collection.

Private Utopia spans the last two decades and showcases the range of work produced by British artists during this time. What is particularly striking about the selection is the array of themes, ideas and materials. Crossovers into music, literature, social history and anthropology are common threads running through the exhibition, reflecting the multifarious nature of contemporary art in the UK today and the broadening definition of what art can be.

The curators from each of the Japanese museums have jointly selected works by artists who came to prominence in the mid 1990s – Jake and Dinos Chapman, Peter Doig, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas and Cornelia Parker – alongside younger artists who have emerged in the last decade, such as Haroon Mirza, Martin Boyce and Roger Hiorns. Of the 28 artists included in the exhibition, 17 have been nominated for the Turner Prize, which is a testament to the quality of artists in the British Council Collection.

New purchases have been made especially for the exhibition and we are delighted to showcase works by Marcus Coates, Sarah Lucas and Ryan Gander for the first time internationally. Additional works have been lent with great generosity for this exhibition: So Many Ways to Hurt You (The Life and Times of Adrian Street) (2010) by Jeremy Deller; I’m Dead (2010) by David Shrigley; The Woolworths Choir of 1979 (2012) by Elizabeth Price; and three recent Untitled paintings (2010) by Laura Lancaster.

For further information, please visit the exhibition website:

English: http://www.britishcouncil.jp/en/private-utopia

Japanese: http://www.britishcouncil.jp/private-utopia