Art News

Arnolfini celebrates 50th anniversary of presenting the very best in contemporary art in all its forms

BRISTOL.- One of the UK’s leading cultural centres, Arnolfini in Bristol, will mark its 50th anniversary over this weekend, 23 – 24 September 2011, celebrating 50 years of presenting the very best in contemporary art in all its forms: visual, performance, music, cinema, and literature. Established by three artists, Jeremy and Annabel Rees, and John Orsborn, Arnolfini began life in 1961 as a gallery above a bookshop on Triangle West in Clifton, moving to its current home on Bristol Harbourside in 1975. The name was chosen by Jeremy Rees, after Jan van Eyck’s painting The Arnolfini Portrait, in the National Gallery. To mark the landmark occasion of its anniversary, Arnolfini will launch the major exhibition, Museum Show, an exploration of museums created by artists showing a series of highly idiosyncratic, semi-fictional institutions. Presented in two parts, it is the first ever exhibition to chart this par