Exactly 50 years today, Monday 9 July, the Hayward Gallery was opened by HM The Queen. To mark this special anniversary, the gallery is holding a series of commemorative events. Celebrations include a private artist’s party on Tuesday 10 July; a very special day on Wednesday 11 July, when tickets to the critically acclaimed show Lee Bul: Crashing will be available to all visitors for just 50p; a series of special discounts on the same day, when Southbank Centre Memberships will be exclusively available for £50 (meaning a saving of up to £25) and selected items from Hayward Gallery Publishing’s roster will be discounted at 50%.
Installation view of Lee Bul, Willing To Be Vulnerable – Metalized Balloon, 2015-16 at Hayward Gallery, 2018. © Lee Bul, Photo: Linda Nylind
In the lead up to the Hayward Gallery’s 50th anniversary, the gallery’s curatorial and archive teams have been looking back at the gallery’s rich exhibition history over its half century of existence. This project is culminating in the digitisation of selected items from Hayward Gallery’s rich archive, with the help of the Google Arts & Culture; in a publication featuring essays commissioned by Hayward Gallery’s publishing arm by artists, writers, academics and curators; as well as a series of five short films featuring artists, curators and exhibition organisers who have been involved in five of Hayward Gallery’s seminal exhibitions.
The Hayward Gallery Shop will also participate in the celebrations by offering a special artist print by ?Marysia Lewandowski for £25 and a Hayward 50th tote bag. On Wednesday 11 July, when customers spend £50 or over, they will also receive the birthday tote bag for free.
Ralph Rugoff, Director, Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery, said:
“For 50 years the Hayward Gallery has been a crucial visual arts and architectural landmark in London and worldwide. Celebrating the work of some of the world’s most influential artists, it has also produced many ground-breaking group exhibitions. We are delighted to have marked the gallery’s 50th anniversary year with our recent major refurbishment which included the installation of 66 new glass pyramid rooflights, allowing adjustable natural light into the upper galleries for the very first time realising the original architectural vision for this unique and adventurous space.”
50p Day 50 years to the day when the Gallery first opened its doors to the public (11 July), the Lee Bul exhibition ticket price of £14.50 will be significantly dropped, enabling visitors to enjoy a visit to the Hayward Gallery for the reduced price of 50p on Wednesday 11 July 2018 for the special extended opening hours (11am-9pm).
Archive Digitisation Working in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, Hayward Gallery has digitised archival material from 50 landmark exhibitions that have taken place at the gallery over the past 50 years, including Henri Matisse 1869-1954: A Retrospective Exhibition (1968); The New Art (1972); Dada and Surrealism Reviewed (1978); Hayward Annual 78 (1978); Outsiders: An Art Without Precedent or Tradition (1979); The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-war Britain (1989); Addressing the Century: 100 Years of Art and Fashion (1998); and Sonic Boom: The Art of Sound (2000). The material that has been digitised – which includes exhibition proposals, printed ephemera and installation images – helps tell the stories behind each of these remarkable exhibitions. The digital assets and exhibits will be published on both the Southbank Centre website and Google Arts & Culture from Tuesday 10 July 2018, to coincide with the Hayward Gallery’s birthday.
Suhair Khan, Program Manager for Google Arts & Culture, said:
“Bringing the unique, innovative, and always groundbreaking exhibits and archives of the Hayward Gallery to life on Google Arts & Culture has been a wonderful experience. We look forward to hearing how people like exploring these legendary exhibits and seeing exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to the building and its history. We are so pleased to be an integral part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Hayward Gallery.”
Archive FilmsTo accompany and enrich the research into Hayward Gallery’s archive, the curatorial team, with support from the Art Fund, commissioned filmmakers James R Price and Kate Vogel to make five short films about five key exhibitions from the Hayward Gallery archive. These short films – each approximately 10 minutes in length – feature artists and curators who were involved in these seminal exhibitions. In each film, the archive material – which includes install images, posters, correspondence and gallery plans – acts as a prompt for varied and personal recollections and reflections. The five films will be released from mid-July onto Southbank Centre’s YouTube channel:
1. The New Art (1972): Nicholas Serota and Anne d’Offay in conversation about the first institutional survey of British conceptual art.
2. Hayward Annual 78 (1978): Curator Catherine Lampert and artists Liliane Lijn and Deanna Petherbridge on this landmark exhibition with an all-female selection committee.
3. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed (1978): Art historians and curators Dawn Ades and Elizabeth Cowling on this ambitious organised by an illustrious committee that included the critic and curator David Sylvester and poet and surrealist Roland Penrose.
4. Anish Kapoor (1998): Anish Kapoor and Martin Caiger-Smith (ex-Head of Exhibitions at Hayward Gallery) discuss Kapoor’s first solo show in a UK public institution.
5. Sonic Boom: The Art of Sound (2000): Artist Christian Marclay and the show’s curator David Toop discuss this groundbreaking exhibition of sound art.
Publication The publication Fifty Years of Great Art Writing – produced by Hayward Gallery Publishing – brings together remarkable essays on modern and contemporary art that have been commissioned by Hayward Gallery over the past half century. Introduced by Ralph Rugoff, Hayward Gallery Director, the publication features 47 essays by writers and artists including Geoff Dyer, Dave Eggers, Bridget Riley, Stuart Hall, Lucy Lippard, Ali Smith and Will Self, on topics ranging from painting to the internet, and from architecture to the Harlem Renaissance. This publication acts as an invaluable reference for anyone interested in writing about art, and in modern and contemporary art more broadly. For further information about the publication please refer to the full release.
Hayward Gallery is 50! Tickets for Lee Bul exhibition available for 50p on Wednesday 11 July.
Special anniversary Hayward Gallery anniversary opening hours: Wednesday, 11 July 11am – 9pm
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Hayward Gallery
Hayward Gallery is a part of Southbank Centre and has a long history of presenting work by the world’s most adventurous and innovative artists including major solo shows by both emerging and established artists and dynamic group exhibitions. They include those by Bridget Riley, Martin Creed, Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jeremy Deller, Anish Kapoor, René Magritte, Francis Bacon and David Shrigley, as well as influential group exhibitions such as Africa Remix, Light Show, The Human Factor, Psycho Buildings and most recently The Infinite Mix. Opened by Her Majesty, The Queen in July 1968, the gallery is one of the few remaining buildings of its style. The Brutalist building was designed by a group of young architects, including Dennis Crompton, Warren Chalk and Ron Herron and is named after Sir Isaac Hayward, a former leader of the London County Council.
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 17 acre site that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Southbank Centre is home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery as well as The National Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection. For further information please visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk.
About Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture is a new, immersive way to experience art, history, culture and world wonders from over a thousand organizations worldwide. Google Arts & Culture has been created by the Google Cultural Institute and it is available for free for everyone on the web, on iOS and Android. google.com/culturalinstitute
