A POWERHOUSE of contemporary visual culture is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a new year-long exhibition.

Since it opened its doors in 1966, Modern Art Oxford (MAO) has presented more than 700 events.

Over the next 12 months, the gallery in Pembroke Street will commission new works and present snapshots from its past through a shifting series of pieces in an ongoing exhibition called Kaleidoscope.

Director Paul Hobson said: “Works will come and go, and sometimes reappear.

“We want to show how artworks have the power to change their meaning when you move them through different spaces.

“There may be artists at work while the public walk through, or we might be in the stage of installing a work.”

Throughout the year’s series of interlocking shows, performances and events, the gallery will allow the public rare behind-the-scenes views.

Mr Hobson said the graphics for the exhibition were designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio.

He said: “The pattern of the Fraser Muggeridge design takes the logo of the gallery over 50 years and then fragments it, through an artwork by Sol Le Witt.

“We’re going to be showing some of Le Witt’s drawings over the summer. In fact almost everything in and around the programme this year has taken inspiration through a past exhibition here.”

Other artists represented include Turner prize winners Douglas Gordon and Elizabeth Price, Guan Xiao, Hans Haacke, Maria Loboda, Dan Graham, Pierre Huyghe, Richard Long and Yoko Ono.

Pinning down big art ideas from the last 50 years, Kaleidoscope will group works under five subheadings, beginning with The Indivisible Present this month.

Mr Hobson said: “These range from looking at our perception of time, and the way that is changing, to ideas about the human body.

“These are radically different now from how they were, just 20 years ago.

“The way artists have worked with materials has changed, as has the relationship artists have with their audience.”

Throughout the year, the gallery will also welcome residents to share their memories of previous visits through a side project called 50 voices: 50 years of experience at Modern Art Oxford.

Mr Hobson added: “We want to avoid any claim that we’re presenting a definitive history of the gallery, but there are so many influential and important works to enjoy.

“There just won’t be another year like this where so many people can see as many major works in the city.”

Kaleidoscope opens tomorrow. See modernartoxford.org.uk

EXHIBITIONS TO REMEMBER

With 50 years of exciting exhibits here are some of Modern Art Oxford’s highlights:

1971: The show Pioneers of Participation Art has to be closed by police after visitors “over-participate” at the first of many private views. Witnesses say 21st century Shoreditch after-parties still have much to learn from the folk in Oxford. 

1973: Oxford gets a show by Sol LeWitt. To outsiders, this is like One Direction turning up at your local playschool back in the days when they were still cool. 

1974: Joseph Beuys charges up the M40 motorway to Pembroke Street, snapping photos of the Stokenchurch Gap during his journey. The photos are subsequently featured in catalogues across the world. To continue the comparison, Beuys appearing in Oxford is like Lou Reed turning up in your bedroom, with an electric guitar.

1979: David Elliott curates the first major Alexander Rodchenko retrospective in the west, after years of delicate negotiations with the USSR, launching a programme of Soviet art exhibitions that would make Oxford the leading UK centre for the display of 20th-century Russian art over the next 15 years.

1981: The biggest expansion in the gallery’s history adds three exhibition rooms (Piper, Middle one, Middle two), an education studio, and takes over the tower for staff and storage.

1993: MAO presents new art from China across two displays, decades before the rest of the UK catches on. 

2002: The Museum of Modern Art changes its name to Modern Art Oxford, after then-director Andrew Nairn has a conversation with Tracey Emin.

2003: Jake and Dinos Chapman’s exhibition The Rape of Creativity becomes notorious as the first showing of Insult to Injury – the collection of celebrated Goya prints appropriated and altered by the artists.

Oxford Mail:

  • Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho, which focuses on the Alfred Hitchcock classic

WHAT’S COMING UP

The museum will be holding a variety of events to celebrate its 50 years.

February 6-April 16: The Invisible Present: what we see and the things we miss are explored by artists who examine time from an unconventional perspective. They include Douglas Gordon, Pierre Huyghe, John Latham, Yoko Ono, Elizabeth Price, Dog Kennel Hill Project and Viola Yeiltaç

February 6: Book launch: The reissue of Buildings and Signs with artist Dan Graham (who exhibited at Modern Art Oxford in 1978) and Gagosian Gallery Director, Mark Francis.

February 11: A Gallery for Everyone: Hilary Floe, curatorial researcher, presents a talk on Modern Art Oxford’s early history as a new kind of institution, in which audiences could interact more directly and powerfully with the radical new forms of art emerging at the time.

February 13: Idiot King Presents… If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is: A one-day musical takeover in collaboration with Oxford promoters Idiot King. It will include acoustic and electronic music and stalls featuring local artists throughout the day.

February 18: Russian Ark (2002): A historical drama in which a 19th century French aristocrat travels through the Russian State Hermitage Museum and encounters historical figures from the last 200 years.