Five intriguing exhibitions from the history of the Nottingham Contemporary

David Hockney: A Marriage of Styles (November 2009 - January 2010) 

The Nottingham Contemporary opened with a bang, to say the least – its very first exhibition debuted a collection of works from legendary, recently departed, Pop and Contemporary artist David Hockney. A Marriage of Styles contained artworks he produced while living between London and Los Angeles in the 60s. They referenced a variety of things that interested him, including American poetry, Egyptian archaeology, graffiti and more, and were painted in abstract and realist styles. A big milestone for our city.

Asco: No Movies (October 2013 - January 2014) 

Asco were four Chicano teenagers in LA, who got together as an art collective in the 1970s. They became well known for their bold, strange, and sometimes controversial artistic statements. Their No Movies exhibition was intended as a collection of scenes and installations from films never actually made, capturing the underbelly of poverty and political tension in LA. For this showcase at the Contemporary, founding member of Asco Patssi Valdez worked with Nottingham Trent fashion students to create a mural, which was very exciting.

Lara Favaretto: Absolutely Nothing (May - August 2017) 

Various people walking through Weekday Cross, in Spring 2017, panickedly wondered if the Contemporary had caught fire, but that was, in fact, a defining feature of the exhibition Absolutely Nothing by Italian artist Lara Favaretto – steam rising from the roof of the exhibition gallery. Inside, the art was about as ‘modern’ as you can get: mostly ‘remnants of events’ – like wall scratches from a moped, driven around the gallery before its opening, paper mache masks from a carnival that had happened in Italy, and concrete sculptures remade from a previous exhibition the artist had put on.

The House of Fame: Convened by Linder (March - June 2018)

This was a retrospective of the work of Linder Sterling, more commonly known as Linder, who in the 70s became a prolific figure in the Manchester punk scene, forming post punk band Ludus, and creating lots of famous art. This exhibition was her way of portraying the influences she’s received from various different places over the decades, including fashion, theatre, music, design, and architecture, while also including the work of thirty other select artists. At the time, she’d also been the very first artist in residence at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, so had developed a strong connection with our part of the country.

Grace Before Jones: Camera, Disco, Studio (September 2020 - April 2021) 

On-and-off Coronavirus restrictions meant that not quite as many people got to see this exhibition as would have been ideal, but people that did were in for a treat. On display were a diverse range of artistic collaborations that famous Jamaican, disco and RnB artist Grace Jones had done with designers and photographers through time, theatrically reinventing herself through a range of different looks. It was created by Cedric Fauq, who lectures on art in Paris, and Olivia Aherne, who had come up from London to curate in Notts as part of a curatorial research project.