Spike Island secures funding for Veronica Ryan exhibition

Spike Island has become the third recipient of the annual £100,000 Freelands Award, and will use the funding to present a solo exhibition of new work by acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Veronica Ryan in autumn 2020.

The Freelands Award was established in 2016 by the Freelands Foundation, to enable a regional arts organisation to present a large-scale exhibition, including a significant new work, by a mid-career female artist who may not have yet received the acclaim or public recognition that her work deserves. The total value of the award is £100,000, of which £25,000 is to be paid directly to the artist.

Veronica Ryan’s exhibition at Spike will be the Montserrat-born British artist’s largest and most ambitious solo exhibition to date, and will feature new works in dialogue with re-made early works that were destroyed in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire. In doing so, thematic and material connections will link earlier works to her current practice, as well as highlighting complexities around reconstruction and reinterpretation.

Veronica Ryan’s 2019 Spike Island exhibition will be the most ambitious of her 40-year career. Pics: Jeff Moore

Alongside the exhibition, Spike will become a hub for the production and debate of Ryan’s work, with a three-month artist residency and symposium that will offer an opportunity for new audiences to engage directly with Ryan’s process through participation and discussion.

Robert Leckie, Spike Island director, said: “My colleagues and I are thrilled that the Freelands Foundation have selected Spike Island and Veronica Ryan to work in partnership on this important project. This award presents a career-defining opportunity for Ryan, a historically important artist whose work has previously opened up new frontiers in sculpture, and who is once again on an upward trajectory.

“As an organisation dedicated to supporting artists’ development and the production and presentation of ambitious new work, welcoming Ryan into our dynamic community of artists at this point in her career is an outstanding opportunity for Spike Island. We are also keen to share her work with audiences in Bristol and the UK through an ambitious exhibition in Spike Island’s galleries, accompanied by an extensive public programme and a monographic publication. The award also provides crucial funding for a programme of learning and engagement activities, presenting a fantastic opportunity for Spike Island to grow as an organisation.”

Veronica Ryan (second left) with Spike Island curators Elisa Kay and Vanessa Boni, director Robert Leckie and (far right) Melanie Cassoff, managing director, Freelands Foundation

Elisabeth Murdoch, founder and chair of Freelands Foundation said: “We are thrilled to be working with Spike Island on such an important exhibition of Veronica Ryan’s multidisciplinary work. The judging panel were in strong agreement that the organisation and artist were an excellent match. The upcoming exhibition opens Ryan’s work up to new narratives, new voices and new writing by utilising the gallery’s outstanding facilities and team resources. The project will encompass not just the exhibition but a comprehensive monograph and artist residency at Spike Island studios, allowing a wide audience to better understand the way in which Ryan’s historical works relate and connect to new commissions almost three decades later.”

The shortlist of organisations for this year’s award also included the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast; and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield.

Veronica Ryan’s links with the south-west date back to the 1970s, when she studied at Bath Academy of Art. She has also realised residencies in St Ives in 1998 and 2018. The forthcoming exhibition at Spike Island will firmly reestablish Ryan back in the UK, where she is best known for the work she was making during the 1980s and 90s, which was included in acclaimed solo exhibitions at Arnolfini (1987), Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (1988) and Camden Arts Centre (1995).

Read more: Preview: Sightings. Caraboo Projects, Bedminster