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The Courtauld | Considering Collecting: The Future of Public Collections
April 26, 2022 @ 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
The sixth and final event in the ‘Considering Collecting’ 2021/22 series will look to the future. Having looked at some of the key issues affecting those who collect art and who work with collections today, we will think about what needs to happen next: can collecting become a more democratic, representative activity, particularly for those institutions and organisations which serve the public?
There has been a significant movement in the recent past to evaluate major collections and consider how representative they really are: whether that be in terms of gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, or other characteristics of the artists or artistic collectives. A concerted effort has been made by some public collections to deliberately exhibit works for more diverse groups of artists; however, this has not always then been reflected in what is acquired into their permanent collection.
Our speakers for ‘The Future of Public Collections’ – Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton (UAL Decolonizing Arts Institute), Eliza Gluckman (Director, Government Art Collection) and Chantal Condron (Curator, Public Engagement, Government Art Collection) – will discuss their own work on projects which have sought to address issues of representation in public collections, through the ‘Black Artists and Modernism’ and ‘Representation of the People’ projects respectively. Exploring the use of audits and analysis of national collections, along with shifts in collecting policies and deliberate collecting focuses, our speakers will consider the importance of these reflexive activities in ensuring public collections more fully represent the public they are intended for, and will discuss whether this is something all public art collections should be doing in the future.
This event is part of the Open Courtauld strand, organised by The Research Forum.
