Attenborough Arts Centre announces a year of upcoming exhibitions

Attenborough Arts Centre today announces its new visual arts programme for 2024/25 with three major exhibitions, showcasing the work of Jenny Holzer, Tim Fowler and the Disability Arts Movement.

A leading centre for contemporary art, Attenborough Arts Centre’s latest programme will see the Leicester venue working in partnership with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland as well as Shape, the national disability-arts charity.

The exhibitions will run from June 2024 to May 2025 and feature a wide range of art forms, disciplines, and subject matter, to captivate and inspire Leicester audiences.

Andrew Fletcher, Director of Attenborough Arts Centre, said, ‘We are thrilled to be working with such high-profile artists and partners in our new programme. We are particularly interested in how contemporary artists make sense of the world in which we live, and these exhibitions collectively respond to issues of our time in a variety of imaginative and unexpected ways.’

Situated on the University of Leicester campus, Attenborough Arts Centre engages 100,000 public visitors per year with year-round artistic programmes and a longstanding mission to make culture and creativity accessible for all.

ARTIST ROOMS Jenny Holzer

In partnership with Tate & National Galleries of Scotland

14 June – 29 September 2024

American artist Jenny Holzer uses text as her primary material. Born in 1950, she remains one of the most influential figures in contemporary art. Known for powerful, provocative installations and her creative use of electronic technology, she produces art that is impossible to ignore. Holzer’s work has taken many forms, often appearing in public spaces, on posters, t-shirts, carved stone, signs and large-scale outdoor projections, as well as in museums and galleries across the world. 

This exhibition, drawn from the ARTIST ROOMS collection, brings together examples of Holzer’s work from different points in her career. The centrepiece of the exhibition will be the towering ‘BLUE PURPLE TILT’ 2007, consisting of seven double-sided vertical LED displays which is programmed with hundreds of messages from her earlier text series.

Holzer uses poetic, personal and political texts, challenging us to consider the words and messages that surround us in contemporary society. She invites us to read and interpret for ourselves, so that people might question the ‘usual baloney they are fed’ in daily life. Confronting current events and topics such as war and sexual violence in her work, Holzer is uncompromising in her search for truth and exposure of systems of power and control.

ARTIST ROOMS presents the work of international artists in solo exhibitions drawn from a national touring collection jointly owned by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Tim Fowler: The Ground

18 October 2024 – 26 January 2025

Leicester-based artist Tim Fowler will show a selection of paintings from his ‘Provenance’ series, which depict migratory plants that have followed a similar journey to his own DNA, from West Africa, via the Caribbean to the UK. Entitled 'The Ground', after the name that many Bajans give to their gardens, the exhibition will also feature brand new work inspired by Fowler’s recent trip to Andromeda Botanic Gardens in Barbados. 

The exhibition will be a continued evolution of Fowler’s large-scale paintings, combined with a personal exploration of his Bajan heritage leading back to its African origins through his botanical interest in migratory crops, traditional plants used by African slaves and those still used today by modern day Bajans. Fowler says it is important that the exhibition comes from a place of learning and represents his journey of discovery, referencing a darker colonial history as well as its cultural beauty.

Crip Arte Spazio: The Disability Arts Movement in Venice

presented by Shape, curated & creatively directed by David Hevey, designed by Nina Shen and produced by Shape Arts

14 February – 11 May 2025

Shape brings its landmark Crip Arte Spazio: The Disability Arts Movement in Venice exhibition to Leicester, fresh from its presentation at the world-renowned Venice Biennale 2024. The Disability Arts Movement aligned art with the fight for rights, broke barriers, and ultimately affected changes in UK law, while making great art about doing so.

Currently showing during the 60th Venice Biennale, the exhibition is a joyous and exuberant celebration of the Disability Arts Movement, showcasing its dynamism, wit, and grandeur. The exhibition reclaims historical slurs ‘Crip Arte Spazio’ in an unflinching explosion of huge protest banners, cartoon panels, large-scale projected artist films, photography, graphic novels, and campaign merchandise featuring artists Keith Armstrong (supported by the National Disability Movement Archive and Collection), Terence Birch, Tony Heaton OBE, Jameisha Prescod, Abi Palmer, Ker Wallwork, Tanya Raabe-Webber and Jason Wilsher-Mills.

The title Crip Arte Spazio, translated as Crip Art Space, plays on Italian words while reclaiming slurs disabled people have historically and continue to face. We fully support the curators, artists and disabled people in the reclamation of these words.

The project is supported by Arts Council England, British Council, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Creative Scotland and CREA, Venice.