South London Gallery, founded 1891, often known by the acronym SLG, is a public-funded gallery of contemporary art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

 in Camberwell

Camberwell

Camberwell is a district of south London, England, and forms part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is a built-up inner city district located southeast of Charing Cross. To the west it has a boundary with the London Borough of Lambeth.-Toponymy:...

, London - exhibiting artists included Alfredo Jaar

Alfredo Jaar

Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives in New York. He was born in 1956 in Santiago de Chile. He is mostly known as an installation artist, often incorporating photography and covering socio-political issues and war - the best known perhaps being the 6-year long...

, Ryan Gander

Ryan Gander

Ryan Gander is a disabled English artist. He is a native of Chester.- Personal background :Ryan Gander is a wheelchair user with a long-term physical disability, however, he is reluctant to discuss his physical limitations in interviews with the press.. Some of his work makes reference to the fact...

 and Chris Burden

Chris Burden

Christopher "Chris" Burden is an American artist working in performance, sculpture, and installation art.-Education:Burden studied for his B.A...

. The Director is Margot Heller.

History

The gallery traces its origins back to the South London Working Men's College at 91 Blackfriars Road in 1868, whose Principal was the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, the grandfather of Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...

; the Manager was William Rossiter. In 1878, the College relocated to 143 Kennington Lane, where a Free Library was also opened. In 1879 Rossiter staged an art show of privately owned works at the Library. After this the name was changed to the Free Library and Art Gallery. In 1881, the library and gallery moved again to New Road, Battersea, and in 1887 to 207 Camberwell Road.

Leading artists such as Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, Edward Burne-Jones

Edward Burne-Jones

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...

 and G. F. Watts supported the institution; the Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

, was its first president, succeeded by Leighton in 1887.

On May 4, 1891, The South London Fine Art Gallery opened in Peckham Road in a new building in the grounds of Portland House, whose freehold Rossiter had purchased. In 1893, the Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

 officially opened a lecture hall and library funded by newspaper owner John Passmore Edwards

John Passmore Edwards

John Passmore Edwards was a British journalist, newspaper owner and philanthropist. The son of a carpenter, he was born in Blackwater, a small village between Redruth and Truro in Cornwall, United Kingdom.-Biography:...

. In 1896, the Gallery was relocated at the Vestry of Camberwell. In 1898, Royal Academy President, Sir Edward Poynter

Edward Poynter

Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter, designer, and draughtsman who served as President of the Royal Academy.-Life:...

 opened a Technical Institute, which again had been funded by Passmore Edwards (to commemorate Lord Leighton who had died) on the site of Portland House. It later became Camberwell College of Art, which was run by the London County Council

London County Council

London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...

 from 1904, though the Gallery was still under the local authority.

The Gallery added to its permanent collection in 1953, to celebrate the coronation, with works by contemporary artists such as John Piper

John Piper (artist)

John Egerton Christmas Piper, CH was a 20th-century English painter and printmaker. For much of his life he lived at Fawley Bottom in Buckinghamshire, near Henley-on-Thames.-Life:...

 and Christopher Wood

Christopher Wood (English painter)

John Christopher Wood , often called Kit Wood, was an English painter born in Knowsley, near Liverpool.-Biography:-Early life:Christopher Wood was born in Knowsley to Doctor Lucius and Clare Wood...

, and the next decade acquired over 500 20th century prints. The new London Borough of Southwark

London Borough of Southwark

The London Borough of Southwark is a London borough in south east London, England. It is directly south of the River Thames and the City of London, and forms part of Inner London.-History:...

 took over responsibility for the Gallery in 1965.

Modern phase

David Thorp's appointment as Director in 1992 brought what then came to be known as the South London Gallery into its present phase, when it espoused Britart

Young British Artists

Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...

 and staged significant "cutting edge" exhibitions.

The Gallery was the first venue for the showing of Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

's "tent", Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, when Carl Freedman

Carl Freedman

Carl Freedman is the founder of Carl Freedman Gallery . He previously worked as a writer and a curator, initially with Damien Hirst, to help pioneer the Young British Artists phenomenon.-Life and work:...

 curated the Minky Manky show in 1995. The show catalogue includes an interview with Emin. Other artists in the show were Sarah Lucas

Sarah Lucas

Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...

, Gary Hume

Gary Hume

Gary Stewart Hume is an English artist. His work is strongly identified with the YBA artists who came to prominence in the early-1990s. In 1996, Hume was nominated for the Turner Prize, but lost out to Douglas Gordon. Hume was elected a Royal Academician in 2001.-Life and work:Hume was born in...

, Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

, Mat Collishaw

Mat Collishaw

Matthew "Mat" Collishaw is an artist based in London, and one of the Young British Artists.-Career:Collishaw attended Goldsmiths, University of London , alongside Damien Hirst and other YBA artists....

, Gilbert and George

Gilbert and George

Gilbert & George are two artists who work together as a collaborative duo. Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore have become famous for their distinctive, highly formal appearance and manner and their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks.-Early life:Gilbert Proesch was...

, Critical Décor and Stephen Pippin. Freedman said one of the show's themes was:

the artist as a subject, and (to) explore the relationship between the art on the wall and its creator, to make the whole thing more humanistic. And in there somewhere there is the beginnings of a thesis on the relationship and similarities between madness and modernism, for example, defiance of authority, nihilism, examples of extreme relativism, strange transformations of the self, irrationality, and things like that.

Minky Manky then went to the Arnolfini

Arnolfini

The Arnolfini is an arts centre and gallery in Bristol, England. It has a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, live art, music and dance events, poetry and book readings, talks, lectures and cinema. There is also a specialist art bookshop and a café bar. Educational activities are undertaken...

 gallery, Bristol. Two years later Emin staged a solo show I Need Art Like I Need God, which included a debate with artist Billy Childish

Billy Childish

Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...

 about their former relationship.

A strong programme of exhibitions gained the gallery increased publicity and greater visitor numbers, as well as a place in the 1996 Prudential Awards for the Arts, and a nomination for Thorp in 1997 for the Prudential Creative Britons Award. Exhibitors included Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...

 and Gavin Turk

Gavin Turk

Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...

. Works were acquired by artists such as Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley

Antony Mark David Gormley OBE RA is a British sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1995 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site...

, Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor CBE RA is a British sculptor of Indian birth. Born in Mumbai , Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design.He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice...

 and Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Angus Fairhurst

Angus Fairhurst

Angus Fairhurst was an English artist working in installation, photography and video. He was one of the Young British Artists .-Life and work:Angus Fairhurst was born in Pembury, Kent...

.

In 1999, Curator Donna Lynas, began a Live Art programme, which incurred some controversy, with performances including Franko B

Franko B

Franko B is a London-based performance artist. He studied fine art in London at Camberwell College of Arts and Chelsea College of Art . His work was originally based on the bloody and ritualised violation of his own body...

 and Stuart Brisley

Stuart Brisley

Stuart Brisley is widely regarded as the seminal figure of British performance art. Over a career of half a century Stuart Brisley has come to the conclusion, as stated in his recent novel "" that 'what goes down comes up'...

.

In 2001, Margot Heller became Director continuing to develop the gallery's international reputation for its programme of contemporary art exhibitions and live art events, with integrated education projects for children, young people and adults. Five exhibitions each year profile the work of established international figures such as Tom Friedman, Mark Dion, Rivane Neuenschwander, Alfredo Jaar and Superflex; as well as that by younger and mid-career British artists such as Eva Rothschild and Ryan Gander. Group shows bring together works by established and lesser known British and international artists. The gallery’s live art and film programme has included presentations by Rachel Gomme, Nathaniel Mellors, Gail Pickering, OMSK and Gisele Vienne, and occasional large scale off-site projects have included those by On Kawara in Trafalgar Square in 2004, and Chris Burden at Chelsea College of Art Parade Ground in 2006.

The South London Gallery is at 65 Peckham Road, London SE5 8UH. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 11am–6 pm, Wednesdays until 9pm, exhibitions are free.