Camden Arts Centre, which has just celebrated its 50th anniversary, and its longstanding director, Jenni Lomax, have a special place in many artists’ hearts. Works donated by Glenn Ligon, Martin Creed, Wolfgang Tillmans and Kerry James Marshall, among others, are going under the hammer at Christie’s in an auction to support the centre’s Artists for Artists fund.
Six pieces go up for sale in a live auction today and eight others are in an online auction that began on 4 October and concludes on 13 October. Visitors to Allied Editions’ stand at Frieze London can also support the centre by buying works donated by artists, including a limited-edition sculpture by Eva Rothschild.
Many international artists had their first solo show in the UK at the centre in north London, including Mary Heilmann, Kara Walker and Hilma af Klint. British artists who have exhibited or had residencies there at key moments in their career include David Shrigley, Mike Nelson and Simon Starling. Nelson found old doors, false ceilings and partitions in the basement during his 1998 residency and used them to create a typically Nelsonian installation. It was “all the stuff we’d taken out” to open up the galleries, Lomax recalls.
Meanwhile, a new online archive documents hundreds of Camden’s shows and residencies, and a book on the centre’s anniversary lecture series is due to be published this autumn.