ARTIST ROOMS
Artist rooms

About

ARTIST ROOMS is a major collection of modern and contemporary art owned jointly by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland.

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Engaging audiences throughout the UK

ARTIST ROOMS was established in 2008 through Anthony d’Offay’s extraordinary donation of work, and assisted by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and the Scottish and British Governments.

This growing collection has the special purpose of engaging young people and is being shared with galleries and museums throughout the UK thanks to the support of the Art Fund, the fundraising charity for works of art.

The ARTIST ROOMS Research Partnership has come together with the collective aim of forging a new kind of initiative to develop high quality and engaging research around the ARTIST ROOMS collection and associated activities.

The development of its Research Projects is a response to the ARTIST ROOMS Research Policy and Strategy adopted by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate in February 2010.

[There is a] need to establish a firm platform for building and disseminating knowledge and scholarly research about and relating to the collection and its use.

ARTIST ROOMS Research Policy and StrategyFebruary 2010
Scaffolding in front of a colourful contemporary art work
Scaffolding in front Sol LeWitt's #1136, 2004 (AR00165)

The museums' paper recognised a role for ARTISTS ROOMS research in promoting engagement and learning, particularly with young audiences. Working together with the two museums, NGS and Tate, the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle and Strathclyde, have formed a new university consortium that together will generate and disseminate scholarly research around the collection and its use. In 2014 the partnership was joined by the UK’s leading gallery learning/education organisation, ENGAGE.

The partnership brings together academic and museum practice and expertise in a distinctive collaboration to develop an innovative and shared academic vision around ARTIST ROOMS, engaging with both specialist and general audiences. Activity encompasses art historical and technical art-historical/conservation research relating to the artists and works in ARTIST ROOMS, alongside investigations into the engagement and learning outcomes of the touring programme.

Exploiting the collaborative opportunities the Research Partnership offers, the university consortium aims to create scholarly research of immediate relevance and significant value in the cultural sector. This research will be directed towards a broad range of users, including researchers, educational practitioners, museum professionals, artists, students and young people.

The consortium responds positively to the museums’ aim to set a fresh and distinctive tone - originating less from current academic agendas than from looking at the collection and its use in independent and imaginative ways and providing a ‘real world’ framework for a research programme of quality and ambition.