Whilst we all readily await the grand opening of the gallery next year, please do not forget that York visitors and residents can get their artistic fixes at York St Mary’s which is hosting the exhibition Finding the Value where contemporary artists explore aspects of the Madsen Collection.

In 2011 Peter Madsen left his estate to York Museums Trust and part of his bequest was his art collection. Finding the Value is an exhibition in which commissioned artists respond to items from the collection that was not taken into the city’s art collection. To honour the Madsen’s generosity in a creative and innovative way, York Art Gallery asked five artists to make new artworks in response to what was left from the Madsen collection and to open up questions of the inheritance of cultural values.

Andrew Bracey, Alison Erika Forde, Yvette Hawkins, Susie MacMurray and Simon Venus all took items from the collection and used them as raw material for their new pieces, each creating interesting and different pieces contemplating the relationship between human values and straightforward calculations of financial worth.

The Gallery recently provided a summer school for teenagers in the hopes of inspiring budding new artists, to use the remains of the Madsen collection in creating their own new and original pieces of artwork. The artworks these teenagers have produced are clever, thoughtful and enhance the original exhibition making this a must see contemporary display.

My particular favourite being Rewritten Childhood which uses old Beatrix Potter books to create a thought provoking new piece of art.

Finding the Value exhibition is on until 2nd November 2014