British Art Show 6 will showcase recent work by around 50 artists living and working in Britain today. The exhibition celebrates the inventiveness, vitality and diversity of British art and is presented every five years in different UK cities across the UK.

The 2005 selection has been made by curators Andrea Schlieker and Alex Farquharson and will feature a wide range of art forms including painting, sculpture, film, video, installation, photography and Live Art, illustrating the breadth and excellence of current British art-making.

The selection concentrates on artists who have made a significant contribution to British art over the past five years. The exhibition has historically been an important marker of new developments in contemporary art. Many of the artists selected for previous exhibitions at early stages in their careers, including Martin Creed, Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst and Antony Gormley, have gone on to establish reputations internationally.

The British Art Show 6 is organised by the Hayward Gallery as part of its Hayward Gallery Touring programme. The tour will begin at Baltic, Gateshead and will continue to Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol.

www.hayward.org.uk/britishartshow6

 

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Film

    A transparent, flexible plastic material, usually of cellulose acetate or polyester, on which light-sensitive emulsion is coated, or on which an image can be formed by various transfer processes.

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.

  • Video

    Images recorded on videotape or on optical disc to be viewed on television screens, or projected onto screens. The medium through which these images are recorded and displayed.