A look ahead to 2015's art events

Readers of The Oxford Times Weekend section will recall that a fortnight ago the new director of the Ashmolean, Alexander Sturgis, told us “2015 will arguably draw on the museum’s greatest strengths: the extraordinary art in its print and drawing collection”.

Other Oxfordshire other arts and cultural institutions possess similar strengths, too. For example the Museum of Science will, in 2015, use the 19,000-plus artefacts in its collection to assist with the running of a substantial programme of exhibitions, lectures and family-friendly activities: activities focusing on delights such as creating a personal Cabinet of Curiosities or Chinese Dragon Clock.

Modern Art Oxford too, is systematically drawing on its archival material to create a series of exhibitions as part of its 50th birthday celebrations. They include Inventory of Objects belonging to a Young Man of Oxford, running until February’s end. This is a piece of work by Christian Boltanski who asked the Museum’s then director to undertake a photographic project for him. Last shown in 1973, it is comprised of a series of black-and-white prints — a real snapshot of time and place — of what the contemporary young man possessed then, from bed to sideboard, handkerchief to buttons, which are all still firmly mounted on their cards, important photographs along with a rather nondescript painting.

And in between March and September in celebration of its refurbishment of its Weston Library, the Bodleian is hosting an exhibition entitled Marks of Genius. This unites original documents and suggests ways in which common attitudes towards genius are manifested via remarkable books and manuscripts drawn from its own collection, including its copy of Magna Carta 1217. And when one looks across the county, the museums, galleries and centres in our market towns and villages also draw on local archival material and introduce the contemporary and new.

A shining example is Henley’s River and Rowing Museum, which plays host to both temporary exhibitions and to its own substantial collection that includes a permanent Wind in the Willows display (as Messrs Ratty, Toad and Mole were all denizens of this stretch of the Thames); the Thames Gallery which provides a unique interpretation of the Thames from source to sea; and the Schwarzebach International Rowing gallery that celebrates Henley’s regatta along with the story of international rowing and includes beautifully crafted and preserved boats and artefacts. The museum itself is a work of art, a stunning oak-based building designed by international architect David Chipperfield, residing elegantly on the banks of the river.

A substantial newcomer on the contemporary scene is Art at Blenheim, launched in 2014 with the intention of bringing in a “new programme of contemporary art”. Which indeed it has, launching the programme with the wonderfully explosive fusion of Ai Weiwei at Blenheim Palace. It was initially due to end in December but has now happily been extended until the end of April. It includes 50-plus pieces that draw on Ai Weiwei’s Chinese artistic tradition integrating and juxtaposing these controversially and often amusingly into the formal quasi-Baroque settings of the palace. As in the case of the 2,300 small porcelain crabs pouring down and out of a fireplace in the Red Drawing Room all overlooked by the formal Western presence of a Van Dyck portrait.

West Ox Arts Gallery, housed in the old Town Hall in Bampton, continues to celebrate the best in contemporary art, bringing together work by artists in very different media as in SECRETS DISCLOSED. In February and March, photographer Barrie Dale and ceramicist Crabby Taylor explore the relationship between each of their bodies of work and the natural world. Illustrated above right is one of Taylor’s Head Forms, which are hand built in crank. She gives each piece several coats of porcelain that has been burnished and water etched before being raku-fired, giving a dark, smoky finish.

Explosive fusion: Porcelain crabs by Ai Weiwei at Blenheim

Also directly involved with nature is Chris Thomas. whose uncompromising commitment to painting directly from nature has gained him an established reputation — notably for his studies of Bodmin Moor and the north Cornish landscape. His work can be seen during February at the Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford, which has a long-established specialism in 20th century traditional and semi-abstract work, by mainly British artists.

In Banbury, the museum nestles between the rather overwhelming Castle (shopping) Centre and the old-fashioned formality of Banbury’s canal. It is well worth visiting with its well established reputation of both maintaining and sharing local heritage and also showing new work, exemplified by two exhibitions for 2015. From January to March it is mounting Unearthed — Oxfordshire treasures from the first millennium AD, including the irresistible question what connects Bicester with the Coliseum in Rome! Bring Me Laughter, between April and July, is an exhibition of cartoons and caricatures from the collection of George and Pat Walker, which includes originals by Heath Robinson, Ronald Searle, Trog, Giles and other well-known names.

The County Museum in Woodstock also provides an excellent mix of exhibitions drawn from both archived and contemporary sources, the latter thanks to its delightful flexible temporary exhibition space. It is now also home to the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum which celebrates and remembers the men of the Ox and Bucks and the Oxfordshire Yeomanry. A visit in 2015 provides the opportunity to learn, reflect and remember as we enter the 100th anniversary of the second year of the First World War, which was of course expected to be ‘all over by Christmas’ (1914).

In Witney, SOTA (State of the Art) gallery remains committed to promoting only Oxfordshire artists and also provides the opportunity to see them at work and ask about their approach, techniques and subject matter. Artists such as Jane Hathaway, whose portrait of the Cowley Road, pictured, in resplendent crimsons and reds gives a positively exuberant celebration of the diversity and the dining opportunities East Oxford offers.

Inger Sannes' studio

John and Sue Hemingway have turned their home, Penwood House in Cassington, into a gallery in which they both promote and celebrate the work of young artists. At the end of March they will be hosting the White on White Challenge. Curated by Roberto Barberi, invited artists, based in and around Pietrasanta, in Italy, have been asked to create innovative work that maximises the colour white. Pietrasanta is very close to Carrara, famous for its white marble. Those invited include Norwegian sculptor Inger Sannes who has a considerable international reputation and who possesses the ability to produce the most stunning and tactile shapes that both command and celebrate the material she is working in.

No preview of 2015 would be complete without the 03 Gallery which continues to provide a varied, sometimes challenging but always affordable, sequence of exhibitions in a wonderful and unique space. Or the Oxford Ceramic Gallery, which carries a substantial list of international ceramicists and collaborates both with the Ashmolean and Oxford Ceramic Fair. The fair, to be held in October, includes an exciting range of workthat can be both seen and purchased.

A reminder too of venues too like the Old Fire Station and the North Wall, each of which have a substantial commitment to the visual arts. And there are unexpected venues too; our hospitals, which show both permanent and temporary collections, our libraries including Summertown Library and its delightful Turrill Sculpture Garden and cafe bars such as The Jam Factory.

Over the last many years the county has played host to Art in Action which provides a multifaceted four-day programme of the arts and music at Waterperry House in July. Then there’s Artweeks in May, during which well over 1,000 local artists and crafts-people demonstrate their work, in the main in their own homes and studios.

Oxfordshire is also home to societies that foster high standards of artistic practice and which each year mount exhibitions: notably the Oxfordshire Craft Guild, the Oxford Art Society and the Oxford Printmakers.

So all in all, 2015 promises to be a huge and busy year for the arts in Oxfordshire and for those of us who love and follow them.