Artangel

Artangel
FounderRoger Took
PurposeArts organisation
Headquarters31 Eyre Street Hill
London
EC1R 5EW
Coordinates51°31′22″N 00°06′37″W / 51.52278°N 0.11028°W / 51.52278; -0.11028
Directors
James Lingwood
Michael Morris
Websitewww.artangel.org.uk

Artangel is a London-based arts organisation founded in 1985 by Roger Took.[1] Directed since 1991 by James Lingwood and Michael Morris, it has commissioned and produced a string of notable site-specific works, plus several projects for TV, film, radio and the web.[2] Notable past works include the Turner Prize-winning House by Rachel Whiteread (1993),[3] Break Down by Michael Landy (2001) and Seizure by Roger Hiorns (2008–2010), also nominated for the Turner Prize in 2009.[4]

A 2002 article in The Daily Telegraph described the organisation as creating "art that operates by ambush, rather than asking you to pay up before you see it",[5] while a 2007 profile in The Observer noted that "Artangel has worked with exceptional artists to produce some of the most resonant works of our time, in some very unusual places".[6] These have included a condemned council flat (Seizure, 2008–2010), a former postal sorting office (Küba, 2005), a vacated general plumbing store (An Area of Outstanding Unnatural Beauty, 2002) and the former Oxford Street branch of the C&A department store (Break Down, 2001).

Ongoing projects

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While many of Artangel's projects are intrinsically temporary, certain works have a longer-term remit.

1 January 2000 saw the launch of Jem Finer's Longplayer, a musical composition that will continue playing until the end of the year 2999. Longplayer can be heard via an online stream,[7] at listening posts internationally and at occasional live performances.

In 2007, a former municipal library building in the Icelandic town of Stykkishólmur was transformed into VATNASAFN/Library of Water, a project by Roni Horn that includes an archive of glacial water and a selection of weather 'reports' by residents of Iceland. It operates as a community space and is host to a writers' residency programme.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's 1998 work The Palace of Projects resides permanently at a former salt store in the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen, Germany.

Notable patrons as special angels include Carolyn Dailey. Artangel were named one of London's most influential curators[8] in 2017 by Something Curated.

The Artangel Collection

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Works, such as Richard Billingham's Fishtank (1998), Paul Pfeiffer's The Saints (2007) and Francis Alÿs' Seven Walks (2004), continue to be exhibited internationally as part of The Artangel Collection.[9] The collection was launched in partnership with Tate in 2011 to enable notable film and video installations to be presented across the UK. Over 25 moving image works – commissioned by Artangel since 1993 – are available for loan, free of charge, to publicly funded UK museums and galleries.

References

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  1. ^ "So who is behind Artangel?". The Telegraph, 7 April 1999. Retrieved on 8 August 2011.
  2. ^ O'Mahony, John (21 March 2011). "Artangel: Frontline warriors". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  3. ^ "The Turner Prize 1993".
  4. ^ "The Turner Prize 2009".
  5. ^ Christianson, Rupert (12 February 2002). "Ambition: to surprise and amaze". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  6. ^ Cooke, Rachel (7 October 2007). "Unsung eleven: meet the art world's new pioneers". The Observer. London. Retrieved 8 October 2007.
  7. ^ "Longplayer".
  8. ^ Curated, Something (23 March 2017). "London's Most Influential Curators". Something Curated. Something Curated. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  9. ^ "Artangel". Artangel. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
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