Finding the Value – A New Installation at York St Mary’s
Five artists have been invited to create new work that responds to the collection of a York man who bequeathed his estate to York Museums Trust.
Peter Madsen and his sister Karen Madsen left their estates to York Museums Trust in 2011, providing the £2 million financial trigger needed to instigate the £8 million development of York Art Gallery, which is due to reopen in 2015.
Included in Peter Madsen’s estate was his own varied collection, which will be the stimulus for this exhibition entitled Finding the Value. The commissioned artists are Andrew Bracey, Alison Erika Forde, Yvette Hawkins, Susie MacMurray and Simon Venus.
The exhibition will explore the idea of inheritance of cultural values and the meaning of value.
Dr Janet Barnes, CBE, chief executive of York Museums Trust, said:
“We have been extremely grateful for the generosity of Peter Madsen and Karen Madsen, without which it would not have been possible to redevelop York Art Gallery on this scale.
“The financial value of their estates is very obvious, but Peter Madsen was also generous in leaving us his collection of paintings, prints, books and ethnographic and decorative art. We acquired some items for the collection as a permanent record of Peter Madsen’s generosity and the rest was sold at auction to raise funds for York Art Gallery.
“The residue that was left was of much lesser value so we decided to take these works, both images and objects, as the raw material for new works. It is intended that the new works should respond to, investigate and develop the values and cultural meaning of the original works. It may even be the case that the financial value of the new works will greatly exceed the present value of the original material. It is hoped to be a creative questioning of, and experiment in, the inheritance and development of cultural values.”
The majority of the new works will be for sale. All proceeds will go to the York Art gallery redevelopment fund.
The Madsen Bequest
In 2011, York Museums Trust received two bequests amounting to around £2 million from Karen Madsen and Peter Madsen. They were a sister and brother living in retirement in York after long and successful careers. Amongst their interests were art and archaeology.
In addition to the money, Peter Madsen also bequeathed to York Art Gallery his personal collection of paintings, prints, books and ethnographic and decorative art. Some of this collection was taken into the collections of York Art Gallery but other work was sold at auction to raise further funds.
A number of other works and belongings were chosen by the five artists as a basis for their new work that will feature in the exhibition at York St Mary’s.
Finding the Value – The Madsen Commissions
All of the works created will consider questions about the inheritance of cultural values and the meaning of value. Below is a summary of each artist’s work.
Andrew Bracey
Andrew chose a selection of paintings from the Madsen collection with which to create new artworks. His ReconFigure Paintings feature an additional, abstract painted structure superimposed upon the human figures in the paintings.
Andrew has worked with different styles and types of figurative paintings to show the diversity of the Madsen collection.
Andrew will create an intimate space to house his paintings – a ‘white cube’ within a mirrored structure that reflects the unique architecture of the church and also the viewer.
Alison Erika Forde
Alison responds to and, in some cases, works directly onto specific objects that she discovered in the Madsen collection. By adding her own imprint onto these items she wants to re-invigorate them, to add new meaning and show new value.
Typically Alison creates characters and scenarios from imagination and dreams, however for this project she has been inspired directly by a cast of characters she came across in the Madsen collection.
In particular she was intrigued by a drawing of three blind mice about to have their tales cut off by a carving knife, and specific ornamental objects, such as a pin-cushion doll, and a tiny ceramic dog. These characters will be re-imagined in the new painting compositions she creates for the exhibition.
Yvette Hawkins
Yvette creates an installation that explores the relationship between decay and preservation. She was particularly excited to find a small collection of Japanese hand-bound books in the Madsen Collection, and a collection of prints and paintings on Japanese rice paper.
She was intrigued by markings and perforations which are actually the trails left by insects – a beautiful tracery which coincidentally mirrors the landscape drawings found within the books. She worked with silkworms and their fascinating spinning techniques to mend and preserve books from the collection, which had been subject to damage by both insects and the decay of time.
These ‘anti-preservation’ processes would not normally be seen or experienced in a museum setting. In collaboration with artist Dawn Felicia Knox, Yvette will create a time-lapse film which records the process of the books and artefacts in decay / the artwork being made.
(NB all insects will be removed from the artwork in the artist’s studio before it is installed in York St Mary’s).
Susie MacMurray
Susie’s response to the collection is centered round the idea of the gift and how that context transforms the perception of the object that has been given.
Her immediate response to the collection had been an intense sense of poignancy: these things, amassed through a lifetime, must have had personal significance and had many stories and private memories attached to them, none of which are now available to us.
Susie has made the artwork, ‘Legacy’ from small items that she has wrapped in gold-plated wire and packed into an old suitcase belonging to Peter Madsen. Wrapping or covering obscures objects and transforms them into something more ambiguous and intriguing – potentially precious.
The objects are displayed with a pair of paintings, which Susie has gilded with gold leaf. The installation allows us to contemplate gifts and the act of giving: a loaded gesture that touches all sorts of areas, from trust and responsibility to subjective perceptions of value and worth.
Simon Venus
Simon has created Passed On, which can be seen as a eulogy to Peter and Karen Madsen. A kinetic sculpture, it uses an eclectic selection of objects and images drawn from the Madsen Collection, which are arranged in three animated tableaux.
The work explores mortality and transition whilst venerating the gift of such a significant donation. Traversing the spiritual and secular worlds it is reminiscent of Altarpieces, Cabinets of Curiosities and Reliquaries.
The resulting new art works will be displayed in York St Mary’s from July 4 to November 2. The exhibition will be open from 10am to 5pm and entry is free.
York Art Gallery will reopen in Summer 2015, with 60 per cent more exhibition space, new learning areas and a new Artists’ Garden at the rear of the building. It will also see the creation of the Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA), displaying the gallery’s world class collections of British Studio Ceramics.