Registration now open: ‘Siblings’ Conference Day

Manchester, Saturday, 23 March 2013 from 10:00 to 17:00

The event examines the implications of Juliet Mitchell’s psychoanalytical theories of “Siblings” for artistic and critical discourses, and poses the question ‘how can a theory of siblings open up visual culture and the Manchester Art Gallery collections?’ 

In Translation: Women, Migration and Britishness

Manchester Art Gallery: Saturday 25 February 2012 – Saturday 23 February 2013, free

This exhibition is part of a major project working with women who have migrated to the North-West of England from all over the world. The women, drawn from a range of diverse backgrounds, are working with artists’ collective UHC (Ultimate Holding Company) to co-curate a display featuring and inspired by Manchester City Galleries’ collection of Empire Marketing Board Posters.

These posters were produced by the Empire Marketing Board, a promotional body set up by the British government in 1926. They are large, colourful lithographic prints, which are now regarded as a rare example of peace time government propaganda. Each set of posters promotes a way of thinking about the Empire – for example, as an eager market for British exports, or as a bounteous source of produce for the British tea table. Any darker ideas of ruthless colonial domination were kept at bay by the sheer brilliance of the posters. The poster campaign ran nationwide on Britain’s streets from 1926 to 1933.

Exhibition: Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown: the Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer, Saturday 24 September 2011 -Sunday 29 January 2012, ManchesterArt Gallery

This autumn, Manchester Art Gallery stages the first major exhibition of Ford Madox Brown’s work since 1964. The show brings together 140 works from public and private collections, including his epic paintings of Victorian lifeWork and The Last of England. This comprehensive survey of Brown’s work champions the pioneering role the artist played in the development of Pre-Raphaelitism and explores how the artist’s rebellion against traditionally taught methods led to a completely new, radical and original style.

The exhibition is divided into 10 themes, starting with Brown’s family life and moving through his early career, his radical change of artistic direction, his work as draughtsman, painter of landscapes, portraits and scenes of Victorian life, storyteller and designer. It also covers the years Brown spent in Manchester working on the Town Hall murals.

Anish Kapoor: Flashback

Saturday 5 March 2011 – Sunday 5 June 2011
Manchester Art Gallery, FREE

Be among the first to see this major new exhibition by one of the UK’s leading artists, Anish Kapoor. Internationally renowned, Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor creates sensual and beguiling sculptures from pigment, stone, polished stainless steel and wax. This brand new exhibition features two important early works by the artist from the Arts Council Collection, presented alongside around half a dozen of his more recent works, on loan from major UK collections and from the artist’s studio. This must-see exhibition is the first major show of Kapoor’s work to be held outside London in over a decade and follows the artist’s record-breaking Royal Academy exhibition in 2009.