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Nottingham Trent University’s Bonington Gallery announces exclusive solo exhibition by Andrew Logan spanning artist’s 50 year career

Bonington Gallery is delighted to announce a forthcoming solo exhibition by sculptor, jeweller and performance artist Andrew Logan (b. 1945), spanning 50 years of practice.

Andrew Logan as host and hostess of alternative Miss World 1973 (image credit Mick Rock)

The Joy of Sculpture will provide a survey of Logan’s artistic output, featuring large scale sculptures, mirrored portraits, jewellery, and archive displays from his infamous Alternative Miss World competitions – the first time he has displayed works from all areas across his career.

Key works within the exhibition will include Goldfield, first commissioned by the Whitechapel Gallery in 1976 – transforming half the gallery into a giant wheat field. Along the walls will be a number of Mirror Portraits, based upon Andrew’s family and friends including other visionaries such as Derek Jarman, Scarlett Cannon and Duggie Fields. There will be a new artwork, a 4-metre-high mirror portrait of Fields, displayed for the first time to the public.

The Arum Lily (1970) sculpture will also be on display, through which Andrew has selected a daily record to play at 12:30pm each day throughout the exhibition.

The Bonington Vitrines, situated just outside the main gallery, will house archive materials from Logan’s celebrated Alternative Miss World competition. The infamous pageant, inspired by the Crufts dog show, started in 1972 and hosted by Logan who acts as both Host and Hostess. Contestants and judges over the years have included David Hockney, Ruby Wax, Leigh Bowery, Grayson Perry and Zandra Rhodes.

A look at Andrew Logan's exhibition

Curator Joshua Lockwood-Moran comments on the exhibition: “To bring Andrew’s artwork to Bonington Gallery is really exciting, the gallery is situated in the middle of the School of Art and Design and is a perfect context to exhibit Andrew’s practice. The exhibition takes a holistic look at Andrew’s work, and spans 50 years of making. I feel it is important to be highlighting Andrew’s career to both new and existing audiences, examining Andrew’s contribution to alternative culture. The work encapsulates Andrew’s positivity and energy and I hope it brings a lot of joy to everyone who visits.”

Logan first and foremost describes himself as a sculptor, a term that encapsulates all approaches within his practice. He challenges convention, mixes media, and plays with our artistic values.

Logan’s work is difficult to locate, it defies ‘isms’, transcends traditional boundaries of discipline and establishes its own unique position. Logan’s artwork embodies his unrelenting (and infectious) passion, joy and energy. Smashed glass and found objects are transformed through the artists hands, metamorphosing into flamboyant, colourful and glittering objects, in all shapes and sizes.

At first glance objects may look haphazardly constructed and ephemeral, but Logan is methodical in his approach – informed by his time studying architecture and subsequent years prolifically honing his skills. Through his rigorous approach he has created large scale sculptures such as his Cosmic Egg (1983)and giant musical flowers such as Aram Lily (1970), as well as smaller works incorporating trinkets from his travels and mirrored portraits immortalising his idols and friends.

Accompanying the exhibition will be an ambitious programme of public events, as well as a commissioned essay by curator, writer and acquaintance of Logan’s, Lynda Morris.

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    About Andrew Logan

    Andrew Logan was born in 1945, and his artistic inclination was evident from an early age when he was taken to the Ashmolean Museum’s Egyptian Collection at the age of nine, which left a lasting impression.
    In 1963 he attended the Oxford School of Architecture for seven years, taking a year off in 1967 for a trip to North America, where he experienced the hippie revolution and ‘flower power’, another formative experience for Logan. After graduating in 1970, Logan exhibited at the ICA, London in 1970 and received his first commission the following year – a 9-foot silver lily for Theo Porter’s shop in Soho where he subsequently held his first one-man show.
    In 1972 he ran his first Alternative Miss World contest. An intimate affair held at his Hackney studio. As seen in the 2011 film ‘The British Art to Showing Off’, the contest is based on the Crufts Dog Show. Over the subsequent years, Logan has run another 10 contests, including the 2018 at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London. A ‘golden event’ is currently being planned for 2022.
    In addition to sculpture and performance, Logan has worked across the fields of stage design, drama, opera, parades, fashion and interior design. He is also a prolific jewellery maker, often utilising what he has to hand, up-cycling before it was commonly used term.
    As an artist Logan has shown his work all over the world, from Los Angeles to St Petersburg, and his work can be found in the public collections of Arts Council of England; Jaya He –GVK New Museum, Mumbai, India; Metropolitan Museum, New York; MOMA, Moscow; National Portrait Gallery, London; National Gallery of Art, Sydney, Australia; Royal Opera House, London; Yale Centre for British Art, USA; Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

    In 1991, together with his partner Michael Davis, the Andrew Logan Museum of Sculpture was opened in two former squash courts in the Welsh village of Berriew, a place Logan has visited since the 1960’s when the area was popular with fellow radicals including Julie Christie, Mike Oldfield, Eric Clapton, Ronnie Lane and Robert Plant. The museum brings together Logan’s prolific practice under a single roof and allows visitors of all ages to step inside his world.

    Brian Eno regarding Logan’s artistic practice in 1998: “Andrew Logan is a very special kind of artist, a sort of one-of-a-kind kind of artist.  Everybody seems to like his work, and it isn’t hard to see why… it’s gorgeous, desirable, funny, and makes you feel happy.  Nobody seems to have any difficulty with it, except to wonder guiltily if Art should really be this much fun.”

    About Bonington Gallery

    Bonington Gallery was established in 1969 as part of the modernist purpose-built School of Art & Design Bonington Building at Nottingham Trent University.

    Situated at the heart of the art-school, the Gallery is surrounded by a wide range of creative disciplines, with strong connections across several academic departments. Whilst the core association of the Gallery is one of contemporary visual art, the resident context drives an artistic programme that unifies a range of artistic, cultural and research practices. This has enabled the gallery to form a unique identity within the regional cultural landscape, whilst establishing a broader critical context associated with reflecting and exploring artistic production and its relationship to wider societal discourse. The Gallery programmes four exhibitions per year, accompanied by a prolific public events schedule of talks, screenings and seminars.

    The gallery has organised and housed several important exhibitions over the years including Mirage Enigmas of Race, Difference and Desire, 1996 (including Sonia Boyce, Glenn Ligon and Steve McQueen) and BT New Contemporaries, 1992 (including Tacita Dean and Permindar Kaur). Recently we have developed solo exhibitions with Giorgio Sadotti, Sara MacKillop, Dick Jewell, Ruth Angel Edwards and group projects with The Community, Paris, The Serving Library and Nottingham Black Archive.

    Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, School of Art & Design, Bonington building, Dryden Street, Nottingham NG1 4GG

    Opening hours: Mon – Fri, 10 am – 5 pm; Sat, 11 am – 3 pm

    About Nottingham Trent University

    Nottingham Trent University (NTU) was named University of the Year 2019 in the Guardian University Awards. The award was based on performance and improvement in the Guardian University Guide, retention of students from low-participation areas and attainment of BME students.

    NTU was also the Times Higher Education University of the Year 2017, and The Times and Sunday Times Modern University of the Year 2018. These awards recognise NTU for its high levels of student satisfaction, its quality of teaching, its engagement with employers, and its overall student experience.

    The university has been rated Gold in the Government’s Teaching Excellence Framework – the highest ranking available.

    It is one of the largest UK universities. With over 35,000 students and more than 4,000 staff located across four campuses, the University injects £1.6bn into the UK economy. It has been the largest recruiter of UK undergraduates in each of the last four years. With an international student population of 4,000 and an NTU community representing around 160 countries, the University prides itself on its global outlook.

    The university is passionate about creating opportunities and its extensive outreach programme is designed to enable NTU to be a vehicle for social mobility. NTU is among the UK’s top five recruiters of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and was awarded University of the Year in the UK Social Mobility Awards 2019.

Published on 24 August 2021
  • Category: NTU Arts; Press office