8 May – 4 July 2010 Entrance free

Above photograph by Richard Bryant

We are closed on Mondays except Bank Holidays, excluding 3rd May 2010. Tel: 0115 948 9750 www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

Front cover:Eduardo Abaroa, Proposal: We Just Need a Larger World, 2009, (detail). Courtesy of the Artist and kurimanzutto gallery, Mexico City

GalleryTue – Fri 10am – 7pm

Sat & Bank Hols 10am – 6pm

Sun 11am – 5pm

Cafe.Bar.ContemporaryTue – Wed 10am – 9pm

Thu – Sat 10am – 11pm

Sun 10am – 7pm

Shop.ContemporaryTue – Fri 10am – 7pm

Sat 10am – 6pm

Sun 11am – 5pm

Opening times

It’s my pleasure to welcome you again to Nottingham Contemporary and to our third exhibition – Uneven Geographies: Art and Globalisation. As I write this we’ve welcomed over 135,000 visitors to the building since we opened on 14 November last year. The figures have exceeded our best expectations – as has the response, whether that’s an enthusiastic write up in the national press, or a conversation I overheard recently. A father was telling his young son he was about to see the most amazing thing he’d seen in his life – meaning the giant sculpture of the Soviet cosmonaut made for us by Christian Tomaszewski and Joanna Malinowska.

It was always our aim to give Nottingham a fantastic cultural home. It’s been very rewarding to see so many people feel at home here – whether that’s been in front of an art installation, taking part in our talks and discussions, creating their own art work in the family workshops – or meeting friends in our café.

Uneven Geographies again signals our intention to be an international art centre with a strong local sense of purpose. Our last exhibition Star City was inspired by the future as it was imagined in the Eastern Bloc under communism. Uneven Geographies is concerned with globalised capitalism, specifically the “neo-liberalism” that has led to a new economic world order. Its power structures are opaque and its impact on the world’s poor and the environment is often unforgiving. Uneven Geographies is particularly timely after the recent financial meltdown. The triumph of capitalism, in its most rampant, unregulated form, no longer looks inevitable – or unending.

It is a truly global exhibition, featuring 13 artists from 12 countries and five continents. The art works include the powerful film Gravesend, by the Turner Prize winning artist Steve McQueen, the late Öyvind Fahlström’s beautiful politicised global garden, the seminar room set up for Goldin+Senneby’s mysterious Headless corporation – and a colony of carefully cared for frogs, courtesy of the Mexican artist Éduardo Abaroa.

While Nottingham is not a megalopolis like Mexico City, Lagos, New York or Shanghai, we too live globalised lives. The evidence is in our shopping baskets – and indeed, the many international communities here (from Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Poland and Vietnam, for example) that enrich our culture. For this reason we’ve titled one of our series of talks Global Nottingham.

We look forward to taking part in these and other debates with you, whether that’s amongst the art works, at one of our events, or just over a drink in Café.Bar.Contemporary.

Alex FarquharsonDirector, Nottingham Contemporary

Welcome

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Alex Farquharson, photograph by David Baird

Page 5 Exhibitions

Page 12 Talks, Discussions and Events

Page 20 Learn

Page 23 The Study and Small Collections

Page 26 Cafe.Bar.Contemporary

Page 28 Shop.Contemporary

Page 30 Coming Soon

Page 31 How to Get to Us

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Contents

www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

Exhibitions

Exhibitions

Uneven GeographiesArt and Globalisation

8 May – 4 July 2010

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Globalisation is the name given to the new integrated world economy, where money, products and people all move between countries faster than ever before. It is an economic system so complicated that it is almost unaccountable. Who makes the things we buy? Where do they do it? And who takes the financial decisions that affect our jobs, housing and public services?

The media often struggles to explain relationships that are so removed from the consumer. How can we ensure that no child labour is used in the goods we buy, for instance, when our branded products pass through a whole series of outsourced companies? And why is it that war and natural disaster now offer yet more opportunities for hyper capitalism?

The artists in Uneven Geographies all depart from the conventional methods of current affairs journalism. They do not pretend to be completely objective, and they aim to represent the fabric of lives affected by global flows, rather than capturing the instant, sensational image. Whether using film, installation or sculpture – or experimenting with maps, flow-charts and diagrams – all aim to make the networks of power, profit and exploitation very visible. In the process they are helping to devise a

new language to confront globalisation.

The images in the film Gravesend, made by the Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen, reveal the disparity between mining the valuable mineral coltan in the impoverished and war torn Congo, where it is hand hewn out of bare rock, to its eventual processing by pristine machines in Derby, before it is used in all mobile phones and computers.

Some of these interventions into global networks are playful, such as Cildo Meireles’ 1970s Coke bottles and bank notes, doctored with anti-US slogans and put back into circulation - at a time of military dictatorship in Brazil, and of contentious US influence in Latin America in general. Öyvind Fahlström, another early pioneer of geopolitical art, was also born in Brazil. His Garden – A World Model is installed in a glowing green room where visitors can relax on cushions amongst the plants, deciphering the stories of injustice on their leaves.

Previous page: Bruno Serralongue, Condemn World Bank, WSF Mumbai 2004. 40cm x 50cm (detail). Courtesy of the Artist and Air de Paris.

Facing page: George Osodi, Oil Rich Niger Delta Series. Gas Flare 3. 2006. (detail). Courtesy of the Artist and Z Photographic Ltd.

Éduardo Abaroa, Azzellini & Ressler, Yto Barrada, Ursula Biemann, Bureau d’Études, Öyvind Fahlström, Goldin + Senneby, Mark Lombardi, Steve McQueen, Cildo Meireles, George Osodi, Bruno Serralongue, Mladen Stilinovic, Yang Zhenzhong´

Exhibitions

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Exhibitions

The Mexican artist Éduardo Abaroa contributes beautifully ragged globes, perforated by thousands of pins, or draped with globally produced clothes. His other surprising art work is a tank of African clawed frogs that relates to illustrate the colonisation of language by invaders.

In the globalised world it is difficult to pinpoint power. Sprawling corporations evade effective control by democratically elected governments. Yet they may have close ties to political parties, particularly those that advocate “neo-liberalism” - deregulating financial markets, privatisation and the massive scaling down of public spending. Goldin+Senneby’s Headless is a quest for an anonymous corporation, headquartered in the

Cayman Islands tax haven. Mark Lombardi’s intricate diagrams are the outcome of his painstaking research into hidden lines of power – unearthing historical ties, for instance, between Osama bin-Laden and George Bush Senior. Made after five or six research stages, his works are not so much trees of knowledge as dense root systems. If maps were originally made to take power, to control territory and subdue its occupants, Uneven Geographies features a counter-cartography – one that draws to the surface tangled and concealed power relationships. The Fool’s Cap map of the world, a disturbing image dating from around 1580, lent by the Ashmolean Museum, is an early forerunner of this creative cartography.

Facing page: Éduardo Abaroa, Another World, and Another, and Another…2008. Courtesy of the artist and kurimanzutto gallery, Mexico City.

Above: Öyvind Fahlström, Garden — A World Model, 1973. Image courtesy The Öyvind Fahlström Foundation and Archive at MACBA ©2010 DACS

Exhibitions

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Exhibitions

This page: Yang Zhenzhong, Spring Story (Siemens), 2003. Courtesy of the Artist.

Exhibition supported by

Facing page: Ursula Biemann, Sahara Chronicle, 2006-2009, Mixed media. Courtesy of the Artist.

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Exhibitions

Ironically, global corporations often enjoy optimum conditions in authoritarian countries where markets may be free but human rights violations are rife. In Yang Zhenzhong’s video Spring Story workers at a hi-tech electronic factory recite a famous speech of Deng Xiaoping’s. Given in 1992, it announced the Chinese communist party would adopt the principles of the market economy.

Wherever it is situated globalisation has created gross inequality – staggering wealth alongside abject poverty – whether that is between countries, or inside them. The writer Saskia Sassen has shown how “global cities” have marshalled an army of low paid immigrant workers to service the luxury lifestyles of the international financial sector. Mladen Stilinovic art work 3 starkly demonstrates how the combined wealth of the three richest people on the planet equals the combined income of 600 million of its poorest people.

Mirroring the movements of products and money, people move too. Ursula Biemann’s Sahara Chronicle maps desert migration to North Africa across several screens. Yto Barrada’s poetic photographs portray Tangiers, where lives are routinely risked crossing the narrow straits of water that separate Europe from Africa, in a waking trance of waiting.

Lastly Uneven Geographies offers signs of hope, as well as resistance. Azzellini and Ressler document the rise of worker’s co-operatives in Venezuela, while Bruno Serralongue’s photographs follow the grass roots campaigns of farmers in southern Mexico. A second series of his photographs document the World Social Forum and its offshoots. Set up to oppose the World Economic Forum, the movement has now become a global affiliation. Its motto could equally apply to the Uneven Geographies exhibition: “Another world is possible.”

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Talks, Discussions, Events

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Join artists, geographers, historians and sociologists as they trace the hidden human consequences of a voracious world economy. The series includes film, mapping, and an international war game, as well as a lecture by Saskia Sassen, a leading authority on the new world economy who has been researching its effects for the past 25 years.Our events are an opportunity to explore more about the exhibition and the ideas that inspired it. They extend out from contemporary art into many schools of thought.

Booking Our Talks, Discussions and Events are free, unless otherwise stated. But please book early to avoid disappointment. Log onto our website, or phone us on 0115 948 9750. If the event is fully booked you are very welcome to come on the night and we will do our best to fit you in you if any spaces become available. Keep checking our website for extra events around Uneven Geographies too.

Saturday 8 May 10am – 6pmThe Geopolitical Turn: Art and the Contest of GlobalisationFREEThe SpaceWhat are the reference points for contemporary art in a global economy that creates enormous wealth as well as widening inequality. Our opening conference explores the many strategies artists use to reveal the processes and human consequences of the

globalised market economy. Introduced by the exhibition’s co-curator T.J. Demos – writer, curator and lecturer at University College, London – the conference includes artists George Osodi, Ursula Biemann, Dario Azzellini, Oliver Ressler and Bureau d’Études. Other speakers include Alfredo Cramerotti, author of Aesthetic Journalism and co-curator of the next Manifesta exhibition; Angus Cameron, the official “emissary” of artists Goldin+Senneby and a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Leicester; The University of Nottingham’s Alex Vasudevan and Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism; Is There No Alterative? Together they will examine the challenges of representing globalisation, and what’s at stake when artists engage with geopolitical issues.

Wednesday 12 May 7pm – 8.30pmGlobalisation before GlobalisationFREEThe SpaceGlobalisation is often regarded as a recent phenomenon, but it can be traced back to Columbus’s discovery of the New World in 1492, according to the influential geographer Miles Ogborn, author of Global Lives. How do today’s global flows of commodities, capital, information and people compare with centuries of ships, slavery and empire? Early globalisation gave rise to maps, mathematics and memoirs – attempts to represent world movements, as can be seen in the disturbing Fools Cap Map dating from 1580, in the exhibition. Mike Heffernan of The University of Nottingham’s School of Geography will respond and lead the discussion.

Talks, Discussions, Events

Opposite: Bruno Serralongue, Land First Mela, Rural Festival on Land Rights, Kandivali, WSF Mumbai 2004. 40cm x 50cm (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris.

Talks, Discussions, Events

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Saturday 15 May 10am – 7pmTracing MobilityA Radiator SymposiumFREEThe SpaceDigital technologies are creating new public spaces. Part of the Radiator festival, this symposium examines themes that include digital culture, urban infrastructure, migration and the convergence of off-line and online worlds.

Tuesdays 18 May, 1 June, 8 June, 22 June 5.30pm – 7pmIntroduction to Magazine Writing£25 for all four sessions £15 concessionsThe StudyLed by Left Lion writer James Walker, these four workshops will teach the key skills required for magazine journalism at an introductory level, including pitching a story, understanding your target audience and writing styles.

Global NottinghamWednesday 19 May 1pm – 3pmGuided tours at Nottingham Contemporary and New Art ExchangeFREEMeet in reception at Nottingham ContemporaryWe will be working with our sister gallery The New Art Exchange on a programme of events showcasing Global Nottingham

during Uneven Geographies. Please see our website for more details. In this first event artist Nadim Chaudry, winner of the Nottingham Castle Open art prize, and a member of the Nottingham Contemporary team, will lead a tour of the Uneven Geographies exhibition, drawing on his own research into art and globalisation. Nadim will then take the group on the short tram ride to The New Art Exchange, where he will continue the walk through of his own solo exhibition there, Even The Animals.

Wednesday 19 May 7pm – 8.30pmSaskia Sassen FREEThe SpaceNottingham Contemporary is pleased to present Saskia Sassen, Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University in a lecture that is based on a quarter of a century of research into the consequences of global capital. Sassen is one of the world’s leading authorities on the social consequences of globalisation. Her meticulous and far-reaching work has encompassed immigration, new networked technologies, the dynamics of global cities, the changes within the nation-state caused by the “transnational” economy and the feminisation of labour. It is characterised by the “unexpected and the counter-intuitive”, used as a way to cut through established “truths” that may not be what they seem. This event is organised in partnership with The University of Nottingham’s School of Geography.

Please book for our events online at www.nottinghamcontemporary.org or call 0115 948 9750

Talks, Discussions, Events

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Clockwise from top

Goldin+Senneby, Headless. From the Public Record (installation view). 2009. Originally produced for Index - The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation. Courtesy the Artists.

The Take, 2004, Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein

The Yes Men, 2009, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno

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Thursday 20 May 6pm – 8pmLars Bang Larsen Considering Öyvind FahlströmFREEThe SpaceWriter and curator Lars Bang Larsen will introduce the work of Öyvind Fahlström, one of the most influential and idiosyncratic artists of the 1960s and 70s, and a key figure in Uneven Geographies. Fahlström – who died in 1976 – made paintings, sculptures, puzzles, installations, films, collages and staged Happenings that dissected global politics. Born in Brazil in 1928 to Norwegian and Swedish parents, Fahlström initially wrote poetry and plays before developing his international art practice in Stockholm, Rome, Paris and New York. Barcelona-based Lars Bang Larsen is a leading specialist in post-60s art and its relationship to the Counter-culture.

Tuesday 25 May 2pm – 3.30pm and 5.30pm – 7pmContemporary Art and Contemporary LifeFREEMeet at receptionVictoria Tischler, a psychologist from The University of Nottingham’s Medical School, will explore the impact of Uneven Geographies on visitors in these informal discussion groups, as part of a long-term study she is conducting at Nottingham Contemporary on art and behaviour. The discussion will be recorded for her research purposes, but anonymity of participants is ensured. Refreshments provided.

Öyvind Fahlström, Garden – A World Model, 1973 (detail). Courtesy The Öyvind Fahlström Foundation and Archives at MACBA ©2010 DACS

Enjoy Poverty, 2009. Image courtesy of Renzo Martens

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Talks, Discussions, Events

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Wednesday 26 May 7pm – 8.30pmJohn TomlinsonAcellerated Life – Cultural Experience and Fast CapitalismFREEThe SpaceAre we imagining it – or is life really getting faster? Professor John Tomlinson, of Nottingham Trent University, author of The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy, demonstrates the acceleration of life, using examples from art, literature, architecture and film. In the industrial era speed was associated with social progress. Now the ever-increasing pace of life is dictated by the lightning shifts of global capital and culture, facilitated by 21st century communications. Rachel Walls, Doctoral Candidate at The University of Nottingham, will lead questions from the audience afterwards.

Tuesday 1 June 10am – 5pmHatch presents Whispers from a Rickshawby Metro-Boulot-DodoFREEUpper TerraceCatch a cycle-powered rickshaw courtesy of Hatch and take to the streets to contemplate the nature of journeys and destiny. This intimate and philosophical ride combines music, computer gadgetry and story telling, and it starts on our top terrace. See www.hatchnottingham.co.uk for more details.

Tuesday 1 June 7pm – 9.30pmEpisode III – “Enjoy Poverty”A screening and conversation with Renzo Martens and Alfredo CramerottiFREEThe SpaceRenzo Marten’s performance-cum-documentary is a challenging experience. Shot in the Congo, it suggests that local photographers would be better off selling pictures of suffering to Western news agencies, rather than continuing their humble portrait studios. “Martens is keen to expose the relation of power between those who watch and those who are being watched,” stated the curator Alfredo Cramerotti, author of Aesthetic Journalism. Cramerotti will discuss this provocative film with Martens after the screening. Both will take questions from the audience.

Tuesday 8 June 7pm – 9pmScreening of The Take with introduction and Q&As with Sara Motta.FREEThe Take is a political thriller that follows Argentina’s workers who are claiming the country’s bankrupt workplaces themselves. Writer Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine and filmmaker Avi Lewis champion a radical economic manifesto. The drama of the workers’ struggle shines through. Sara Motta is lecturer in Politics at University of Nottingham.

Talks, Discussions, Events

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Wednesday 9 June 7pm – 8.30pmNew Geographies of Globalisation - three case studiesFREEThe SpaceThree speakers from The University of Nottingham’s School of Geography present global case studies. Louise Crewe examines the complex landscape of the contemporary fashion industry. Stephen Legg examines historical conditions between the two World Wars that set the scene for modern mobility, both monetary and through migration. Alex Vasudevan describes new forms of resistance to “neo-liberal” global economics that cross national boundaries as efficiently as capital.

Thursday 10 June 7pm – 9pmThe Future Sucks – Unless We Change ItA discussion led by Alan SimpsonFREEThe SpaceFormer Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson will lead a discussion based on his global research into environmental solutions – ranging from Nottingham’s 19th century fight against cholera to new dams in the Himalayas. Representatives from the Mozes Community Energy Initiative, Stormsaver Rainwater Harvesting and The Nottingham University Hospitals Trust will illustrate how communities, the health sector and small businesses are demonstrating sustainable approaches to energy, water conservation and locally produced food.

Saturday 12 June Guy Debord’s Class WarFREEThis is your chance to compete in the first global Class War Game. Pit your wits against teams in Vienna, London, Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. Guy Debord, of the Situationist International, spent over ten years of his life designing this game, which he believed would be his legacy. Fans of Debord – or games playing – can contact Rob Blackson at Nottingham Contemporary – rob@nottinghamcontemporary.org or phone 0115 948 9750 – to take part. The event has been organised by Richard Barbrook of the University of Westminster’s Politics Department. Visit www.classwargames.net for further information

Saturday 19 June 8pmAnnexinemaFREECheck our website for locationNottingham’s thriving art film organisation Annexinema will be taking a sideways look at the themes of Uneven Geographies by showing a number of short films including, Jorge Furtado’s Island of Flowers, Neil Beloufa’s Kempinski and John Smith’s Hotel Diaries.

Tuesday 22 June 7pm – 8.30pmXenospaceFREEThe SpaceAngus Cameron, lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Leicester and co-author of The Imagined Geographies of Globalisation, is in the

Talks, Discussions, Events

unusual position of being the official “emissary” of the artists Goldin+Senneby whose Headless is featured in the Uneven Geographies exhibition. He will lead a discussion on the “deeply contradictory” convention of linear boundaries. Dr Nicky Marsh of the University of Southampton will lead audience questions.

Thursday 24 June 7pm – 9pmScreening of The Yes Men Fix The World – with introduction and Q&As with Alan HaylingFREEThe SpaceThe true story of two politically committed mischief makers who pose as the representatives of companies they despise - and impose justice by any means at their disposal. Introduced by the film’s producer Alan Hayling of Renegade Films.

Artists’ residencesUrsula Biemann’s work as an artist, curator and researcher is concerned with migration, technology, labour and gender. Her Sahara Chronicle can be seen as part of the Uneven Geographies exhibition. During her micro residency from the 10 -12 June she will be developing new work related to her current research on natural resources. She will be based both at the galleries and The University of Nottingham.

Indian artist Priya Sen will be joining us for a month long residency based at 1 Thoresby Street. Priya is a video and sound artist whose work investigates places which have undergone change or are in flux, as with her home city Delhi as it shifts to become a global city. This project is part of the Cultural Olympiad International Artists in Residency programme organised in partnership with the East Midlands Visual Arts Network (EMVAN).

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Nottingham Contemporary’s public programme is jointly funded by Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.

Lunchtime TalksEvery Wednesday from 1- 1.45pm artists, our curators and special guests will lead a walk through Uneven Geographies. Everyone is most welcome to join them.

FREE

12 May - Alex Farquharson, Director, Nottingham Contemporary

19 May - Artist Nadim Chaudry, followed by tram trip to tour Even The Animals exhibition, New Art Exchange

26 May – Mussie Kidane, Advisor at Nottingham Refugee Forum

2 June – Preacher Muguza, Nottingham Zimbabwe Community Network

9 June – Daniella Rose King, Assistant Curator and Inspire Fellow, Nottingham Contemporary

16 June – Amaya Diez-Canseco, Volunteer at Nottingham Refugee Forum, Refugee Action and Bright Ideas

23 June – Fiona Parry, Assistant Curator, Nottingham Contemporary

30 June – Abi Spinks, Assistant Curator, Nottingham Contemporary

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Learn

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International art. For families. For free. Nottingham Contemporary warmly welcomes families. It’s free to enjoy our exhibitions, our building and our family activities. Children under 13 eat free in our café when an adult buys a main meal. So a visit to Nottingham Contemporary is an affordable day out for everyone.All our staff are trained to help families – just ask if there is anything that you need. We have a baby-changing room, and the café will heat bottles for you. You are welcome to take your buggy around the galleries – or you can ask at reception if you’d prefer to leave it. There is a roomy lift to take you all down to the lower floors easily.Ask at reception if you’d like a colourful Play and Learn Kit to take around the exhibition with you. It will give you and your children lots of ideas for enjoying the art together. And it’s free, too.At weekends and holidays you can drop into our free family Play and Learn sessions. There’s no need to book – just ask at reception. Led by our own Learning Team – artists who have lots of experience making art with families – the sessions are a chance to create together, whether making your own art works or taking part in music, movement and games. The relaxed and friendly environment encourages everyone to join in. The themes of our Play and Learn Kit and Play and Learn sessions change with each exhibition. For Uneven Geographies we’ll be exploring the way that people, information and products move around the world – and the effect this has on everyone’s life, whatever age they are.

Family Play and Learn SessionsEvery Saturday and SundayFrom 8 May to 4 July 1pm – 4pm. Free.

(No booking needed – just ask at reception. Parents and guardians are required to stay with their children during the Play and Learn sessions and when using the Play and Learn Kit.)

Young ContemporaryWe’re inviting the city’s young people to Take Over Nottingham Contemporary – so we’re braced for a full-on day of art and performance – whatever you want. It’s all up to you.

Members of our Get Involved groups are hard at work organising it on behalf of Nottingham’s 13 to 17-year-olds. It’s part of a Gallery Training Course that is giving them the skills to design experiences for other young people, preparing them for a potential career in the arts. The Take Over Day will show everyone just what they can do.

Bring yourself, your friends and your own imagination – and keep an eye on our website and facebook pages for updates.

Friday 4 JuneYoung Contemporaries’ Take Over DayVisit www.nottinghamcontemporary.orgFree.

Communities and GroupsWe’re working with all sorts of groups in the city so that everyone can make the most of Nottingham Contemporary and its exhibitions. If you’re part of a community organisation, or a group with additional support needs, then we’d like to hear from you too. We can work alongside you to develop workshops that will develop creativity - and confidence as a gallery visitor - for everyone who takes part.

Learn

Opposite photograph by Brian Pickering

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Access - Art for All. Tuesday to Friday 11am – 1pm or 1pm – 3pm. Free.Please contact boseda@nottinghamcontemporary.org, or phone her on 0115 948 9750 - to talk about our community and group visits, or to book a workshop.

Schools, Colleges and EducatorsUneven Geographies – Art and Globalisation is an unmissable opportunity for schools and colleges to link contemporary art to their student’s understanding of history, geography, sociology, politics, economics or citizenship. The exhibition illuminates today’s fast-changing world, featuring major art works that use film, maps, charts, installation and sculpture to expose increasing inequality – and our own role in it. The famous Fools Cap Map – dating from 1580 – is displayed alongside work by the Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen, and a full scale “garden” installation by art and politics pioneer Öyvind Fahlström.

Our free schools workshops are designed to support learning in the classroom. They are tailored for primary, secondary, special needs and further education students.

Workshops for Key Stages 1- 5 will explore games and mapping in art, as a basis for developing problem solving and communications skills. Older students will use the exhibition to explore contemporary citizenship and the connections between communities, as well as global movements of information, products and people.

Come to our Free Learning Preview - exclusively for educators - to see the exhibition and to discuss free workshops for your students. Our Learning Team are looking forward to meeting you, and to joining you in a welcome glass of wine at the end of the working day.

Uneven Geographies Learning PreviewTuesday 11 May 6pm – 8pm. Free.To book free Uneven Geographies workshops, for Key Stages 1-5 email learn@nottinghamcontemporary.org, or phone 0115 948 9750.

Nottingham Contemporary would like to work intensively with Nottingham City schools developing contemporary art and its connections to other subjects within the National Curriculum. Please email learn@nottinghamcontemporary.org. or phone 0115 948 9750 for further details.

Learn

Photographs by Brian Pickering

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Photo by Alan Fletcher

The Study and Small Collections

Go through the glass doors off Gallery 4 and you’ll find our study. Browse the bookshelves for more information on the artists and themes of the Uneven Geographies exhibition. You can read about them at your leisure on our comfortable chairs – we won’t disturb you. If, on the other hand, you would welcome a conversation there is always someone from Nottingham Contemporary working in The Study. Ask us anything – and we’ll do our best to answer.

Opening off The Study you can explore The Small Collections Room – an intriguing wood panelled room housing four antique cabinets. It was designed by the artist Pablo Bronstein, working alongside our architects Caruso StJohn. These 21st century “cabinets of curiosity” were inspired by the eccentric collections amassed by learned – and wealthy – individuals from the 16th to the 18th century.

Feel free to examine the contents of the tiny drawers in these intricate cabinets – they contain some surprises.

Two new exhibitions will appear this season.Look out for a collection of 18th and 19th century ‘micromosaics’ from Italy - small, portable pictures of landscapes or reproductions of paintings made in miniature pieces of coloured glass. Some contain up to 5000 ‘tesserae’ (or small pieces) per square inch, making them not unlike the images we see on our computer screens today. The finest were often confused for paintings. They were particularly popular souvenirs on the Grand Tours undertaken by young aristocrats furthering their expensive educations.

The other is a collection of military patches from covert operations undertaken by the US Air Force. Called “Symbology” this is an ongoing project by artist and geographer Trevor Paglen. Paglen’s accompanying interpretations of these patches helps to describe the responsibilities undertaken by these secret factions within the US military including the testing of military hardware and the secret flights that ferry terrorist suspects as part of the so-called War on Terror.

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Photograph by Alan Fletcher

Opposite: The Small Collections Room, photo by Andy Keate.

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Eat, drink and relax inside our unique café – surrounded by Matthew Brannon’s distinctive artwork that evokes classic American advertising.On Saturday evenings, the live music is equally stylish. Maniere Des Les Bohemians conjure the spirit of Stephane Grapelli and Django and the Hot Club de France. Other regulars Mas Y Mas work a Latin influence. Check on the café’s website www.cafebarcontemporary.com for details and to sign up to the e-newsletter. We’ll keep you posted about all our free live events, and the café’s special offers too.

During the day, Café.Bar.Contemporary is wonderful for lunch, with fine and affordable food, sourced locally wherever possible, and cooked by some serious chefs. Children are very welcome, of course.

Keep an eye out for special family offers which make a whole day at Nottingham Contemporary a very affordable occasion.

The café is also an excellent place to catch up with colleagues – we’ve got plenty of coffees, teas and tempting soft drinks – plus free wi-fi.

On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays we’re open until 11pm – and at the end of the week something stronger could be called for. The Campaign for Real Ale recently congratulated us on our beer – it comes from Castle Rock Brewery, just down the road. There are many intriguing wines to try too – all the way up to champagne.

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Cafe.Bar.Contemporary.

Cafe opening timesMonday ClosedTuesday – Wednesday 10am – 9pmThursday – Saturday 10am – 11pmSunday 10am – 7pm

Images:Maniere Des Les Bohemians, Photographs by Alan Fletcher

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Shop.Contemporary.

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Sir Paul Smith, Nottingham’s own international fashion guru, recently dropped into Shop.Contemporary to launch the tote bag that he designed for us. It has stripes, naturally – this time inspired by the vertical lace panels that cover our building. You can pick up a version that’s in black on raw canvas, or carefully coloured. Either way it comes with Sir Paul’s own nonchalant sense of style, and his signature logo.

Our friendly shop, just inside our main entrance, off High Pavement, has gifts, toys, cards, games, tee-shirts and jewellery, all with a contemporary take. Keep an eye out for frogs too – we’ve got them in the Uneven Geographies exhibition and we thought you might like to take one home with you.

Our books have been specially chosen to complement the exhibition. If you want to know more about the artists or the themes, they’re on our shelves. For younger readers we have some of the most attractive – and thought provoking - children’s books in the city. All this, plus the latest arts and culture magazines. With prices that start at 70p.

Paul Smith, photograph by Brian Pickering

Opening timesMonday Closed Tuesday – Friday 10am – 7pmSaturday 10am – 6pmSunday 11am – 5pm

Coming Soon

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Coming Soon

Diane Arbus captured the outsiders of 50s and 60s America in her powerful photographic portraits. Her unmistakable images make us question all our assumptions about “normality”. This exhibition of her most iconic black and white prints, shown alongside rarer works, is a thorough selection of the work of an artist whose influence can be seen in the work of many artists today, including Nan Goldin and Roger Ballen.

Artist Rooms on tour with The Art Fund.

Gert and Uwe Tobias’ large woodcuts, gouache paintings, typewriter drawings and ceramic sculptures combine influences from early traditional folk art and abstract art from the early 20th century. Their vividly coloured images, objects and environments evoke a world that is hallucinatory and strange. Twin brothers, Gert and Uwe grew up in Translyvania, then Germany.

Diane ArbusGert and Uwe Tobias24 July – 19 September 2010

This major survey of contemporary British art is held every five years, generating intense speculation around the selection of artists, the ideas it will advance and the form it will take. For the first time ever the British Art Show will open in Nottingham, with the extensive range of work occupying three venues - Nottingham Contemporary, New Art Exchange and Nottingham Castle, before touring to London, Plymouth and Glasgow. The exhibition will feature many new commissions and change with each city it visits.

A Hayward Touring Exhibition.

British Art Show 723 October 2010 – 9 January 2011

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Previous page: Gert and Uwe Tobais, untitled, 2009, coloured woodcut on paper. © the Artists/VG Bildkunst Bonn Photo: Alistair Overbruck, Cologne courtesy: cfa, Berlin

Nottingham ContemporaryWeekday Cross Nottingham NG1 2GB 0115 948 9750 www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

We’re on the tram track, and on the main bus route round the city centre. You can easily reach us from the Park&Ride sites, too.If you come by tram, get off at the Lace Market stop. We’re about a minute away, down the hill.The NCT Go2 Green Line buses go right past our building – see www.nctx.co.uk.If you come by car, you can park free at Phoenix Park, Wilkinson Street or The Forest Park&Ride sites and hop on a tram to the Lace Market. Park free at the Queen’s Drive Park&Ride site and catch a Link 1 bus – that runs right past our building too.If you’re coming to Nottingham by train, catch a tram at the rail station and get off at the Lace Market stop.We’re not far from The Big Track – Nottingham’s walking and cycling route – and we have cycle parking outside our main entrance. Visit www.thebigwheel.org.uk for The Big Track route.

The nearest car park is Fletchergate. See www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk for details on Parksmart, or phone 0115 915 6213 for further information.

AccessNottingham Contemporary is fully accessible for visitors with disabilities.

Parking is available at Fletchergate Car Park.

Staff at our main entrance will be pleased to help you throughout the gallery and café opening hours. Phone us on 0115 948 9750 if you’d like further information.

If you would like this guide in a large print please contact us on 0115 948 9750. An audio version of the guide is available on our website.

Printed on 100% recycled paper. 31

How to get to us

Photograph by Martine Hamilton Knight

Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GBTelephone: 0115 948 9750www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

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International art.For everyone. For free.

Cildo Meireles, Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project, 1970, MACBA Collection. Photograph by Tony Coll.