Press Releases

Date: 8 February 2006

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation celebrates its 50th anniversary with a season of special events running from March – November 2006 highlighting the work of the Foundation in the UK. The programme includes sole support for the Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art exhibition, an association that marks a long history of collaboration between the Foundation and Tate and draws attention to the UK Branch’s continued support of new and original art-making. There will also be a display at Tate Britain of British works from the Foundation’s Modern Art Centre in Lisbon (which holds one of the largest collections of contemporary British art outside the UK); the publication of a new book on the history of the Foundation’s UK Branch; and the 2006 Atlantic Waves festival featuring world-class Portuguese musicians.

50th Anniversary highlights:

1 March – 4 May 2006
The Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art exhibition at Tate Britain is curated by Beatrix Ruf, Director of the Kunsthalle Zurich. The exhibition takes an international perspective on the current British art scene and includes work from different generations of artists working in a diverse range of media. A key aspect of the exhibition is a special performance programme, which reflects the multidisciplinary practices of many of the artists. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is the sole sponsor of the Tate Triennial 2006.

An important display of British paintings from the Gulbenkian Collection in Lisbon including works by David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Patrick Caulfield and Paula Rego will be shown at Tate Britain to run concurrently with the Tate Triennial exhibition.

5 April 2006
A new book, Experience and Experiment by John Holden and Robert Hewison, which celebrates the work of the Foundation’s UK branch since it was established in 1956 will be launched at an Anniversary party at Tate Britain.

6 April 2006
The Mayor of Westminster and the President of the Foundation, Emí­lio Rui Vilar, will plant the first cork tree in Westminster outside Gulbenkian’s UK Branch in Portland Place.

25 May 2006
The Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries 2006 will be awarded at the RIBA. The £100,000 prize is the largest single arts award in the UK.

2 – 29 November 2006
The 2006 Atlantic Waves festival will once again host the largest celebration of Portuguese music outside Portugal. This acclaimed festival, now in its 6th year, features many of Portugal’s most distinguished artists, together with international collaborators, performing a wide range of musical genres. The festival will take place in some of London’s most prestigious venues, including the South Bank Centre, the Barbican and the Royal Albert Hall.

The UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (whose headquarters are in Lisbon) is responsible for grant aid in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The UK Branch supports funding programmes in Arts, Social Welfare, Education and Anglo-Portuguese Cultural Relations. The programme directors also initiate projects and commission reports and publications in connection with their funding programmes, which reflect and promote concerns and areas of interest.

Press Contacts

Erica Bolton/Jane Quinn
Bolton & Quinn, 10 Pottery Lane, London, W11 4LZ
Office: 020 7221 5000 (5 lines)
Mobile: 077116 98186
Email: erica@boltonquinn.com

Background

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal)
United Kingdom Branch

Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was an Armenian born in Turkey in 1869. He conducted much of his work in Britain and became a British citizen, but finally settled in Portugal. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was established in Portugal in 1956, a year after his death.

The Foundation headquarters are in Lisbon and consist of the administration, which deals with grant-giving throughout the world, together with a Museum housing the founder’s art collections – recognised as one of the world’s best small museums – a Modern Art Centre, which has an extensive collection of contemporary British art, a research library, a centre for scientific research, concert halls, an open-air theatre, exhibition galleries and conference halls, an orchestra and a choir. The Foundation also maintains a Portuguese Cultural Centre in Paris, and a grant-giving Branch in London for the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

The United Kingdom Branch of the Foundation, at Portland Place, London, has a reputation for recognising and initiating innovative ideas. For the past fifty years it has been a pioneering funder of developments in contemporary arts, education and social policy, as well as promoting Portuguese culture. As a general principle the Foundation supports projects which are genuinely original in their field and regularly commissions and publishes books and reports which reflect and promote its current priorities, concerns and areas of interest.

Paula Ridley, Director, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Paula Ridley was appointed Director of the UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in October 1999.

She was Chair of the Liverpool Housing Action Trust (a public body regenerating Liverpool housing) from 1993 to 2005, and has been Chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum since November 1998. She was a member of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly.

Her career has covered the fields of urban regeneration, the arts and the environment. She was a Board Member of the Merseyside Development Corporation (1991–1998), presented Granada Television’s social action programmes (1989–1991), and was a consultant in urban regeneration and economic development.

A graduate of the University of Liverpool, she began her career as a lecturer in government and politics and is now a member of the Council of the University of Liverpool. She has been a Trustee of the Tate Gallery and of the National Gallery.

She has an honorary LLD from the University of Liverpool, and is an Honorary Fellow of the John Moores University and of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Siân Ede, Arts Director, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Siân Ede is Arts Director for the UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation where she runs grant programmes to support artists’ research and development projects.

She initiated the first Arts and Science programme to be run by an arts funder to encourage artists from across the art forms to engage with new thinking and practice in science and technology. She frequently writes, speaks and chairs debates on Art and Science in Britain and internationally and is adviser to the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society and the Arts & Humanities Research Board. She has also commissioned diary and poetry anthologies addressing art and science.

Formerly Drama Officer at the Arts Council of England, she also led the post-graduate Arts and Education programme at the Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University and has written and addressed conferences on theatre and drama education.

Siân Ede is editor and co-author of the book Strange and Charmed: Science and the contemporary visual arts (Gulbenkian 2000). Her new book Art and Science is published by I B Tauris (2005).

Simon Richey, Education Director, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Simon Richey is Education Director of the UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The Education programme currently offers grants to secondary schools to help them adopt human-scale practices such as the establishment of mini-schools; assists secondary schools to develop projects that encourage empathy and understanding between pupils from different cultures; and supports disaffected pupils through arts activities.

The Education programme not only responds to requests for grant aid but initiates projects that seek to address new or emerging needs. It funded a national anti-bullying initiative at a time when bullying in schools was relatively ignored; it supported, with The Who Cares ? Trust, a major project designed to improve the educational attainment of children in public care; and it sought successfully to address the inequalities in public funding for would-be dance and drama students. More recently the programme has developed a national framework for the teaching of Personal, Social and Health Education in schools; established a parent information service in schools with the National Family and Parenting Institute; and delivered a national programme of arts activities for young people in Pupil Referral Units and in-school Learning Support Units.

Simon Richey was until recently Chair of Artswork and of the Advisory Panel of the Prince of Wales Arts and Kids Foundation. Before joining the Foundation he was a teacher in comprehensive schools, a researcher at BBC Television and Arts Adviser to a national voluntary youth organisation.

Miguel Santos, Programme Director, Anglo-Portuguese Cultural Relations, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Miguel Santos is responsible for the promotion of contemporary Portuguese culture (arts, education and social welfare) in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

He is Director of the annual Atlantic Waves festival, which takes place in London. Compiles the CD series Exploratory Music from Portugal, which is distributed every year with a major UK music magazine. Presents a weekly show, Musa Lusa, on Resonance FM, London’s first radio art station. Sits on the Advisory Board of Resonance FM and was a Board member of the Portuguese Arts Trust and of the Korean Cultural Promotion Agency. Miguel is a member of the voting panel for the Album of the Year Award, part of the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music, and a founding member of musica.pt, a Portuguese music export agency.

Before moving to London, Miguel was a music journalist for Portugal’s main music newspapers, a founder director of a music record label and distribution company, a sound designer, musician and radio producer.

Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art

The support given to the Tate Triennial by the UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in its fiftieth anniversary year reflects the Foundation’s long association with Tate, and its ongoing commitment to encouraging artists to experiment. The relationship with Tate began in the 1960s with the seminal exhibition 54/64: Painting and Sculpture of a Decade, the first major international survey of post-war contemporary art to be held in Britain. Funding towards the main exhibition galleries in which Tate Triennial will be displayed was given by the Foundation in 1969 to mark the centenary of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian’s birth.

The third Tate Triennial at Tate Britain is curated by German curator Beatrix Ruf and takes an international perspective on the current British art scene. Ruf is the Director and Curator of Kunsthalle Zürich and for this exhibition she has selected work from different generations of British artists working in a diverse range of media.

The Triennial will explore a major strand of contemporary practice: the appropriation or re-working of cultural material. While the requisition and juxtaposition of images, facts and formal elements is a well recognised strategy most commonly associated with post-modernism, the Triennial will identify a significant re-invigoration and transformation in such processes in current practice.

Various approaches to the use of reference material can be detected within the different generations of artists represented in the show: from John Stezaker’s Masks, an ongoing series of collages where postcards of landscapes obscure portraits of 1950’s film stars to Luke Fowler’s new film which uses archive material to explore the history of the English composer Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra. For many of the artists, visual codes and imagery from competing rather than connecting influences are combined to create highly personal languages and fresh narratives. For example Rebecca Warren draws from a variety of sources, ranging from Degas to Helmut Newton and Robert Crumb, to create roughly modelled clay figures. Artists are forging new ways of apprehending reality, re-working ideas of authenticity and directness, often revisiting artistic practices that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s.

The exhibition will take place in the Upper Galleries, the Lightbox space and the central Duveen sculpture galleries. A key aspect of this year’s Tate Triennial is the staging of a performance programme, which will highlight the collaborative nature and multi-disciplinary practices of many of the artists selected.

List of artists: Pablo Bronstein, Angela Bulloch, Gerard Byrne, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Lali Chetwynd, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Enrico David, Peter Doig, Kaye Donachie, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Luke Fowler, Michael Fullerton, Ryan Gander, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon, Mark Leckey, Lucy McKenzie, Daria Martin, Simon Martin, Alan Michael, Jonathan Monk, Scott Myles, Christopher Orr, The Otolith Group (Kodwo Eshun, Anjalika Sagar and Richard Couzins), Djordje Ozbolt, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph, Olivia Plender, Muzi Quawson, Eva Rothschild, Tino Sehgal, Linder Sterling, John Stezaker, Rebecca Warren, Nicole Wermers and Cerith Wyn Evans.

The 2006 Triennial will be shaped and delivered by an internal team of four Associate Curators, Carolyn Kerr, Katharine Stout, Clarrie Wallis and Catherine Wood.

The exhibition is part of an ongoing strand of major exhibitions of contemporary art presented every three years at Tate Britain. The first Tate Triennial, Intelligence, was held in 2000 and the second Days Like These, in 2003.

Entrance to this exhibition will be free.

1 March - 14 May 2006
Tate Britain, London
www.tate.org.uk

Display of works from the Gulbenkian Collection of Modern British Art, Lisbon

The Foundation’s collection of modern British art, held in the Centro de Arte Moderna in Lisbon, is one of the largest outside the UK, with a particularly strong focus on the 1960s. A selection of works from the collection will be on display at Tate Britain during the Triennial.

Artists whose works will be shown include: Mark Lancaster, Ian Stephenson, Hamish Fulton, Harold Cohen, Tim Head, Roger Hilton, Alan Davie, Peter Phillips, Bridget Riley, Allen Jones, Michael Bolus, David Hockney, Isaac Witkin, Anthony Donaldson, Derek Boshier, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Blake, Bill Woodrow, Steven Campbell, Paula Rego, Rachel Whiteread.

1 March – 14 May 2006
Tate Britain, London
www.tate.org.uk

Experience and Experiment

Experience and Experiment The UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 1956–2006, the history of the United Kingdom Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, tells the story of a significantly successful venture, one that has had profound effects in the arts, social welfare and education in the UK since the Foundation’s establishment in 1956. The list of organisations that the Gulbenkian has nurtured or supported from its earliest days is both extensive and impressive and includes the Samaritans, Shelter, the Runnymede Trust, the Royal Shakespeare Company, London Contemporary Dance, the Tate Gallery and Snape Maltings and Visiting Arts. The Foundation’s seminal reports and publications have injected intellectual rigour and fresh thinking into the national debate and have prodded politicians into action – John Myerscough’s The Economic Importance of the Arts in Britain (with the Policy Studies Institute 1988), Ken Robinson’s The Arts in Schools (1982), Peter Newell’s Taking Children Seriously (1991/2000), to name a few. The Gulbenkian has always acted as a catalyst, initiating original grant programmes, taking stock of their effect and leading the way for others to follow.

Commissioned from two of Britain’s best-informed cultural commentators, the book is written with critical perception and wit, and provides a fascinating reflection on changes in British social, educational and cultural policy, from post war patrician attitudes to ‘charity’, through the radical optimism of the sixties to the cash-driven ideology of Thatcherism and the emphasis on community self-help and capacity building which prevails today. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of social and cultural policy in the UK and highlights the unique contribution that can be made by enlightened independent trusts and charities.

Robert Hewison has written widely on 19th and 20th century British cultural history. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University, taught English Literature at Lancaster University, and is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times. He is an Associate of the independent think-tank Demos. His books include: Culture and Consensus: England art and politics since 1940 (Methuen, 1997), Towards 2010 (Arts Council England, 2000), Ruskin’s Venice (Pilkington Press, 2000), and, with John Holden, The Right to Art (Demos, 2004) and Challenge and Change (Demos 2005).

John Holden is Head of Culture at the think-tank Demos, a member of the Management Committee of the Clore Leadership Programme, and a Fellow of the RSA. He has been involved in numerous major cultural research projects and recent publications include: Creative Reading and Capturing Cultural Value (both Demos, 2004), and Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy (Demos, 2006).

Experience and Experiment will be published on 5 April 2006.

£15.00
232 pp Col and b/w illus,
ISBN 1 903080 05 3 (April 2006)

The Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries 2006

The Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries, the largest single arts prize in the UK, is a £100,000 award given annually to one museum or gallery, large or small, anywhere in the UK. The prize aims to recognise and stimulate originality, imagination and excellence in museums and galleries in the UK, and increase public appreciation and enjoyment of them. It recognises and rewards the most original new development of the previous calendar year in a museum or gallery. More details are available at www.thegulbenkianprize.org.uk

The Judging Panel for 2006 is chaired by* Professor Lord Winston* – scientist and broadcaster – the panel represents a wide range of artistic, scientific and academic interests and museum experience.

The Panel comprises:

Michael Day, Chief Executive, Historic Royal Palaces
Ekow Eshun, writer, journalist and broadcaster and Artistic Director of the ICA
Diane Lees, Director of the V&A Museum of Childhood
Dr Elizabeth Mackenzie, Chairman, British Association of Friends of Museums
Joanna Moorhead, journalist and author
Dan Snow, historian

The long list of 10 museums and galleries will be announced on February 10th 2006, and the four short-listed museums will be announced in mid-March. The judges will announce the winner of The Gulbenkian Prize at an awards ceremony during Museums and Galleries Month at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London on May 25th, 2006.

The Judging Panel

Professor Lord Robert Winston, Chair of Judges
Robert Winston is Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College, London University, and Director of NHS Research and Development for Hammersmith Hospital, one of the UK’s leading medical research centres. He is also Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University. As a peer he takes the Government Whip (Lord Winston of Hammersmith since 1995) and speaks regularly in the House of Lords on education, science, medicine and the arts. He was the recent Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology and is a board member of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

Robert Winston is a regular BBC presenter. Series include The Human Body (three BAFTAs and a Peabody award), Child of our Time, Threads of Life and Human Instinct. He recently presented The Human Mind on BBC 1, and has also written the accompanying book, which is out now in paperback from Transworld. His science book for children, What Makes Me Me was awarded this year’s Junior Aventis prize. His next project for the BBC is Story Of God, a history of God and religion.

Michael Day
Michael Day started his museum career in Norwich in the 1970s before moving in 1983 to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum as Curator of Social History.

In 1987, he was appointed Director of the Jersey Heritage Trust, where he was responsible for four museums, two castles and the island’s national archive. Achievements in Jersey included winning the Museum of the Year Award twice.

In 2003, he became Chief Executive of Historic Royal Palaces, the charitable trust which includes the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace.

He was project monitor for the Heritage Lottery Fund on the new National Maritime Museum Cornwall, and has been an occasional consultant over the last decade on other museum projects and to cultural organisations on strategic management issues.

Ekow Eshun
Ekow Eshun is a writer, journalist and broadcaster and has recently been appointed artistic director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. He grew up in England and Ghana and studied politics and history at the London School of Economics. At 28 he became the youngest ever editor of Arena Magazine and was named by The Evening Standard as one of Britain’s most talented people under the age of 30. In 2000 Eshun was awarded, alongside Jon Snow, the Christian Aid Lifestyle Award at The One World Broadcasting Trust’s Media Awards for the documentary Living on the Line made for Channel 4.

He makes regular appearances on BBC’s Newsnight Review, Daily Politics, and BBC Radio’s Front Row as well as writing for a range of publications. His debut book, Black Gold of the Sun, charted a search for his roots in Ghana and was published earlier this year by Penguin.

Diane Lees
Diane Lees is the Director of the V&A Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green and chairs the V&A’s UK Steering Group. Beginning as an historic buildings researcher and moving into exhibitions, education and interpretation, she has worked on some of the most exciting projects in the country, including the rescue and relocation of a hat block manufacturers workshop in central Manchester and the recovery and display of the Mary Rose ship in Portsmouth Harbour.

She is a trustee of the Story Museum in Oxford, a trustee of Discover in East London and Vice Chair of the Association of Independent Museums, and has recently retired as the Institutional Vice President of the Museums Association.

Dr Elizabeth Mackenzie
For many years Elizabeth Mackenzie was a Consultant Cytopathologist in Bristol, and Secretary and finally President of the British Society for Clinical Cytology. Since retiring from full-time work she has been appointed Assessor for Cytopathology to all BUPA hospitals.

Her interest in museums and galleries has been lifelong; she was a founder member and Chairman of the Friends of Bristol City Museums and Art Galleries, and was elected Chairman of the British Association of Friends of Museums (BAFM) in 1998. She is a member of the Museums & Galleries Month Working Group and in 2003 was invited to become a member of the Museums Association Governing Bodies Forum.

Joanna Moorhead
Joanna Moorhead is a journalist and author. She writes mostly for The Guardian, where for the last four years she has written a regular series on museums and art galleries suitable for families. She is also a contributor to the Independent, the Independent on Sunday and the Observer, and she writes for magazines including Junior and Easy Living. She has specialised for several years in writing about parenting, and her books include a history of childbirth since the foundation of the NHS.

Dan Snow
After studying history at Balliol College, Oxford, Dan was asked by the BBC to co present the 60 th anniversary programme of the Battle of El Alamein in November 2002. Straight away the BBC asked for another eight programmes on great battles of British history. This series Battlefield Britain was transmitted in summer 2004 and another series on 20th century world battles is in production for next summer. In between filming battles Dan has worked with BBC special events to commemorate occasions such as Trafalgar and VE/J day, and is also working on a programme about land ownership in Britain.

www.thegulbenkianprize.org.uk

The Atlantic Waves Festival 2006

Following the successful festivals of the past five years, this autumn Atlantic Waves 2006 will once again host at a number of London venues the largest celebration of Portuguese music outside Portugal. This annual festival features many of Portugal’s most distinguished artists performing music that ranges from contemporary fado to experimental electronica, alternative pop to dancefloor grooves.

The festival is a catalyst for the change in the way that Portuguese music is represented abroad, nurturing creativity and promoting diversity, excellence, eclecticism and innovation. It has also become a forum for artistic collaboration between well-known international artists who rarely perform in Britain and their Portuguese counterparts. In 2006 artists from five continents will perform a wide variety of musical genres.

With an extraordinary mix of music on offer this coming November, Atlantic Waves 2006 presents an exciting line-up of artists exploring new music territories and pushing the boundaries of traditional ones. Many will be performing in the UK for the first time.

The festival will take place in some of London’s most prestigious venues, including the South Bank Centre, the Barbican and the Royal Albert Hall.

2 – 29 November 2006
www.atlanticwaves.org.uk

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