Manchester Art Gallery exhibitions programme 2009 - 2010

Fantasies, Follies and Disasters: The Prints of Francisco de Goya
Until February 2010
Free entry

Fantasies, Follies and Disasters features 30 prints selected from the artist’s three best-known and most significant groups of etchings: Los Caprichos (The Fantasies), Los Desastres della Guerra (The Disasters of War), and Los Disparates (The Follies). The works are all drawn from Manchester Art Gallery’s superb collections, and have not been exhibited together as a group for over 20 years.

This exhibiton will be followed by a second series of prints by Franscisco de Goya from
February 2010 – July 2010
Visual Dialogues: Disasters of War
6 October 2009 – July 2010
Free entry

Disasters of War (1993), Jake and Dinos Chapman’s gruesome sculpture, is being exhibited alongside the gallery’s current exhibition of Goya prints. Inspired by Goya’s etchings of the same name Disasters of War depicts atrocious acts of violence carefully and painstakingly reconstructed with expertly crafted miniature figures. The loan forms part of the gallery’s 2009 – 2010 annual Visual Dialogues partnership with Tate and young people from Manchester.

Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism
26 September 2009 – 10 January 2010
£6 (£4 concessions, free entry for under 18s and Manchester Art Gallery Friends)

This is the first major exhibition of women artists and Surrealism to be held in Europe.
Featuring over 150 artworks by 32 women artists, the exhibition is a celebration of the crucial, but at the time not fully recognised, role that women artists have played within Surrealism.

Andrew Bracey: Animalation
31 October 2009 – 28 February 2010
Free entry

Animalation is a playful and intriguing exhibition of new and recent works by Manchester-based artist Andrew Bracey. Specially curated for Manchester Art Gallery, this solo exhibition features a selection of quirky animated artworks inspired by animals and influenced by flip-book techniques.

ARTIST ROOMS Ron Mueck
4 February – 11 April 2010
Free entry

Ron Mueck’s hyper-real sculptures of the human figure are tender portrayals of people in their most intimate, isolated and vulnerable moments. This exhibition features three of his remarkable, out-of-scale sculptures.
ARTIST ROOMS on Tour with The Art Fund supported by the Scottish Government is an inspired partnership with the UK’s independent art charity and national government enabling Tate and National Galleries of Scotland to display ARTIST ROOMS throughout the UK.

Facing East
Recent works from China, India and Japan from the Frank Cohen Collection
4 February – 11 April 2010
Free entry

This is an exceptional opportunity to see a dozen of the most exciting works from the Frank Cohen Collection, many of which have never been exhibited publicly before. These groundbreaking contemporary paintings and sculptures by major artists from India, China and Japan include Bharti Kher’s The Skin Speaks A Language Not Its Own (2006) - a lifesize elephant with skin made entirely of bindis and He An’s Matrix (2007) - fibreglass figures inspired by kung fu fight scenes from The Matrix films.

Women Like You
6 March – 9 May 2010
Free entry

For over a year, artist Charlotte Newson has been gathering photographs of women who have inspired the people of Manchester. For this unique project in celebration of International Women’s Day (8 March) she will be combining hundreds of these images to create a large photo-montage dedicated to the Manchester-born leader of the British Suffragette movement Emmeline Pankhurst.

A World Observed 1940 - 2010: Photographs by Dorothy Bohm
24 April – 30 August 2010
Free entry

This will be the first comprehensive retrospective of Prussian-born and London-based photographer Dorothy Bohm, widely acknowledged as one of the doyennes of British photography. This exhibition will feature around 250 photographic images that trace her career spanning more than six decades and several continents, including time spent as a student in Manchester. It will also include documentary materials such as cameras, books, exhibition posters, family photographs and correspondence with photographers and artists. A new film is being produced especially to accompany the exhibition. The show will also tour the UK and overseas.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: A New Commission (working title)
11 September 2010 – 9 January 2011
Free entry

Mexican-Canadian Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is an electronic artist who produces large-scale interactive installations. He uses robotics, projections, sound, internet and other devices, usually working with new technologies and custom-made physical interfaces to create his dynamic works. His critically-acclaimed work in kinetic sculpture, responsive environments, video installation and photography has been shown in over thirty countries, including Biennials in Venice (Italy), Istanbul (Turkey), Havana (Cuba), Sydney (Australia), Liverpool (UK) and Shanghai (China). Now he will be producing a new commission especially for Manchester Art Gallery.