The Archive

Inspired by The Legacy of Anni Albers, Brenda Danilowitz

James Turrell has designed Skyspaces around the world; simple chambers which use seating and an aperture in the ceiling to create a space for viewers to observe the sky and reflect. These films have been made by Yorkshire Quaker Arts Projects. They portray an experience in one Skyspace at Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield, and explore links with art, light and Quakerism.

Joanna Hashagen, Keeper of Textiles at the Bowes Museum talks about the new gallery and the collection of textiles created by the founders, John and Josephine Bowes - these are mostly furnishings and tapestries. There is also the later, fashion collection of costumes, and textiles found in the home. The costume collection runs from the 20th century back to the 15th and 16th centuries.

Spike Bucklow, Everyday Alchemy

Part of the lecture series on 'Art & Alchemy: Transformation & Contemporary Art' A two day conference across Cambridge and Norwich exploring ideas of alchemy and transformation, and the role of crystals in contemporary artistic practice and theory from Graeco-Roman Egypt to Surrealism and contemporary art.

Rebecca Chesney was artist in residence at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) in 2010. She used her time there to research the bees and other wildlife on the estate, with a view to producing work for an exhibition at the Park's galleries to be held in April 2011. In conversation with Helen Pheby, one of the curators at YSP, Rebecca discusses in this film what her residency has taught her about bees and the landscape of the Park, thus bringing together two realms (art and estate management) that have in the past remained separate.

Brett Littman, Director of the Drawing Center, and New York artist Lawrence Weiner discuss the ‘Drawing in Progress’ exhibition held at mima in 2010. A notable highlight of this show was a major commission for the 5002 metre glass façade of mima by Lawrence Weiner. After visiting Middlesbrough in May 2010 Weiner developed the 24-hour artwork A LINE IS A LINE FOR ALL THAT, 2010. This is the single largest commission ever produced by Weiner in the UK.

A discussion between MK Gallery exhibitor, artist Gerard Byrne, with Dublin-based writer, lecturer and researcher, Dr Maeve Connolly about the exhibition Case Study: Loch Ness.

The Bowes Museum also houses 'The Last Communion of Peter Nolasco' (1611), part of a series of six paintings executed by Francisco Pacheco (1564-1654) for the Mercedarian convent of Seville. Although this painting has strayed far from its original home, the curator Jon Old shows how its material fabric, currently under conservation, retains physical traces of Seville.

The Bowes Museum collection of Spanish art is second in the UK only to that of the National Gallery and was acquired along with other works by the Bowes' agent, at a sale in Paris in 1862. Among its treasures are key works by El Greco (1541-1614) and Goya (1746-1828). The museum's 2010 exhibition on Goya highlights his key work 'Interior of a Prison' (1793-4). This work offers a very different kind of subject from El Greco's eloquently Catholic 'The Tears of Saint Peter' (c.1580), while generating an equally intense expressivity.

The Bowes Museum in County Durham opened in 1892. It was founded on the basis of the large personal collection of art accumulated by John and Josephine Bowes.