Freelands Foundation has announced Notting Contemporary as the recipient of its second annual Freelands Award, to allow it to stage a major presentation of the work of artist and filmmaker Lis Rhodes. The award, of £100,000, will allow the gallery to stage an exhibition occupying the whole of its building. £25,000 of the award goes to the artist.
Rhodes, born in 1942, became an important presence in the independent film-making culture of the 1970s, with works that combined expanded cinema with a feminist theoretical approach to sound and language. She was cinema curator at the London Film-Makers’ Co-op from 1975-76, before going on to co-found the feminist film distribution network Circles. Her films Dresden Dynamo (1972) and LIght Music (1975) are now considered key works of the period. Rhodes has however had few gallery exhibitions of her work. She was included in the 2007 exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at LA MoCA, while her most recent presentation in the UK was at the ICA in 2012.
The selection panel for this year’s award were: Elisabeth Murdoch, founder of Freelands Foundation; Martin Clark, director of Camden Arts Centre; Teresa Gleadowe, curator; Jenni Lomax, outgoing director of Camden Arts Centre and artist Cornelia Parker.
The Freeland Award established in 2016 by Freelands Foundation, is given to enable a regional arts organisation to present a large-scale exhibition, including a significant new work, by a mid-career female artist who may not have yet received wider public recognition. The first was awarded to Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery for a presentation of Jacqueline Donachie’s work, which will open at the Fruitmarket on 11 November.
3 October 2017
