Category: Uncategorized

MK Calling 2024

22 June – 29 September 2024

This year’s MK Calling features artworks spanning sculpture, painting, photography, installation and film. Over 120 established and emerging artists explore themes including identity, inclusivity, possible futures, heritage, and significant moments across five thematic gallery spaces.

Book now

Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour

19 October 2024 – 23 February 2025

Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 1879–1961) was a key figure in 20th-century British art and played a central role in the Bloomsbury Group. The exhibition at MK Gallery – the first solo show of Bell’s work in over seven years and the largest to date – will be an overview spanning the artist’s illustrious career, including over 120 items.

Book now

MK Gallery receives funding from the Community Foundation to extend work with blind and visually impaired audiences 

MK Gallery is thrilled to have been awarded funding from the Milton Keynes Community Foundation to support a new programme of activities including exhibition tours, and equipment that will enhance the experience of visitors with sight loss.  

Commencing in Spring 2024 MK Gallery will work with visually impaired students from St Paul’s Catholic School – who have a leading Visual Impairment (VI) department and specialist teachers – along with MK Gallery Associate Artist Julia Collar to develop and deliver new sensory exhibition tours. Julia currently leads the Gallery’s award-winning programme of Sensory Tours and will work with the children and young people from St Paul’s to bring their experiences and voices to the forefront.  

Lucie Gray, Head of St Paul’s VI department commented about the news:  

“We are thrilled to be working with MK Gallery’s Inclusive Practice in the Arts team and with Julia Collar. The students in the VI Department are so excited to have this amazing opportunity to be involved in a sensory art project in their community. They are hoping that the exhibition will encourage those with vision impairment to get more involved.”  

The funding will also extend and enhance MK Gallery’s existing accessible tour programme – increasing the number of artist-led audio-described tours per exhibition and introducing new portable gallery seating and tactile image printing. Opening in June 2024 the MK Calling exhibition will also trial new audio labels, accessible via the Bloomberg Connects app.  

Mike Pearson, MK Gallery volunteer and campaigner for improving accessibility in the arts for people with sight loss, said about the award: 

“This funding by Milton Keynes Community Foundation will open a pathway for visually impaired people of all ages to actively participate and engage with the Gallery, extending their programme of Inclusivity in the Arts. I hope that, going forward, many more galleries will include artworks that actively invite touch and offer audio description to enrich the visitor experience.”   

MK Gallery is one of the most accessible venues in Milton Keynes and is committed to making its spaces and diverse programme of exhibitions and events relevant and engaging for all members of the local community. This new area of work will bring new visitors to the Gallery and inspire a younger generation to connect with the arts in meaningful and multi-sensory ways.  

 

Find upcoming dates for MK Gallery’s Audio Described and Sensory exhibition tours here.

MK Gallery presents largest UK exhibition of works by Saul Leiter, pioneer of colour photography

‘Photographs are often treated as important moments but really they are fragments and souvenirs of an unfinished world.‘ – Saul Leiter

A major survey of works by American photographer Saul Leiter (1923 – 2013), one of the most important practitioners of the post-war period and a pioneer of colour photography, opens today at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes.

Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World is the largest exhibition of Leiter’s work to take place in the UK, featuring 171 photographs alongside a selection of over 40 of Leiter’s lesser-known paintings, presenting a complete overview of his life’s work for the first time. 39 of these works have never been exhibited before.

Click here to book tickets for the exhibition.

The exhibition at MK Gallery is curated by Anne Morin, co-produced by the Rencontres d’Arles and DiChroma Photography, Madrid with the collaboration of the Saul Leiter Foundation, New York.

We’re pleased to announce that our Sky Room Cinema is now a Meerkat Movies partner!

Compare the Market customers can now enjoy the amazing 2-for-1 cinema ticket offer at MK Gallery every Tuesday and Wednesday.

Offer is redeemable when visiting our Box Office or over the phone: 01908 676900.

Click here to see what’s on.

Click here to learn more about Meerkat Movies.

American photographer Saul Leiter (1923 – 2013), one of the most important practitioners of the post-war period and a pioneer of colour photography, celebrated for his evocative images of New York City in the 1950s and 1960s, will be the subject of an exhibition opening 17 February 2024.

Leiter photographed every day for sixty years, keenly observing daily life and discovering beauty on the streets of the East Village neighbourhood where he lived his entire adult life and which became his enduring subject. Upon his death in 2013, Leiter left behind a remarkable collection of around 15,000 black and white prints, at least 40,000 colour slides, a similar number of black and white negatives and over 4000 paintings, only a handful of which had seen the light of day. Once lost to obscurity, his work has since been rediscovered and revaluated for its ground-breaking role in the emergence of colour photography.

Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World at MK Gallery will be the largest exhibition of Leiter’s work to take place in the UK, featuring 171 photographs alongside a selection of over 40 of Leiter’s lesser-known paintings.

The exhibition at MK Gallery is curated by Anne Morin, co-produced by the Rencontres d’Arles and DiChroma Photography, Madrid with the collaboration of the Saul Leiter Foundation, New York.

Click here to learn more about the exhibition and book tickets.

We are pleased to announce that based on feedback from our valued visitors, we have introduced a new ticket option that offers unlimited return visits to Beyond the Page. We hope this will provide the opportunity to fully explore and enjoy all that the exhibition has to offer.

The ticket is priced at £20 and remains valid until the exhibition closes on 28 January 2024.

Click here to book tickets.

About the Exhibition

“Small wonders” The Guardian

“Many of the most exquisite contributions to this ambitious show can only be brought out of store once every ten years.” The Spectator

“This rare exhibition juxtaposes exquisite traditional miniatures from sacred and secular texts with modern and contemporary works they inspired, from sculpture to film and installation.” The Financial Times

Beyond the Page explores how the traditions of South Asian miniature painting have been reclaimed and reinvented by modern and contemporary artists, taken forward beyond the pages of illuminated manuscripts to experimental forms that include installations, sculpture, and film.

We invite artists working across all art forms to submit your work to MK Calling, MK Gallery’s open call group exhibition showcasing the most dynamic work being made today.

Applications are welcomed from artists and artist collectives working in any medium, at any career stage. If you are an artist, maker, craftsperson, fashion or graphic designer, architect, composer, performer, illustrator, writer or facilitator we want to hear from you.

To celebrate MK Gallery’s 25th anniversary, five local community groups will co-curate this year’s MK Calling. Co-curation is a core element of this exhibition as we want to ensure that different voices are included in the selection process and challenge who decides what is showcased in the art world.

MK Gallery works year-round with partners locally, nationally and internationally to bring the best in arts programming to the region. We have longstanding and ongoing relationships with the communities co-curating this exhibition. Together they will shape the themes and select the artworks featured in MK Calling 2024.

Submissions for MK Calling 2024 have now closed.

MK Gallery’s Inclusive Practice in the Arts (IPA) team have branched into a new area of programme development through a partnership with Aylesbury based specialist school, The Pace Centre, who support children with Neurodisability’s to achieve their potential.  

Taking place across both venues, the partnership is offering innovative artist-led workshops, creative child-led learning experiences, and exciting exhibition visits.  Through this work our IPA team will build upon their existing skillsets for working with children with complex needs, including cerebral palsy, and Pace staff will gain new creative toolkits to bring to their teaching on a long-term basis.  

Sophie, Producer of Inclusion said “Having this opportunity to work with such a unique school is incredible. The Pace staff team are so supportive and generous, and we hope that this partnership can offer their children a greater experience of the arts and access to cultural spaces, which will inspire them into their futures.” 

Working with IPA Associate Artists Matt Shaw and Sarah Hunt, four encounters initially took place during the summer term of 2023, including a class visit to Boyd and Evans: High Time. Matt and Sarah also transformed the children’s classroom into a glittering party palace and turned MK Gallery’s Event Space into a dynamic painting studio, which prompted one child to comment “it’s mind-blowing!” 

Artist Sarah said about the project so far “having the children in the Gallery and getting really messy were particularly fun” and teacher Catherine commented “For us it’s seeing a difference in the children. It’s been an amazing experience and the children are still talking about it!” 

Diving into the new term the IPA team are excited to be doing some more workshops at Pace in the lead up to Christmas.

“Each of our encounters with Pace so far have been so joy filled and we are really excited to see what happens next!” (Rosie, Inclusion Coordinator) 

This work is generously supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. 

Read more about MK Gallery’s IPA programme here

Learn more about the Pace Centre here

The team at MK Gallery are putting on a not-to-be-missed offer for kids this summer. Take part as we press the replay button on the Sky Room Cinema projector, showing the best kids’ films from the past six months throughout the entire school summer holidays.

The Summer Replay offer will feature firm family favourites:

• Lyle Lyle Crocodile
• Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie
• Mummies
• The Little Mermaid
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Elemental

All tickets are just £5 per person and include bag of popcorn or a hot drink, and 20% off lunches in the café on the day of the screening.

Screenings are on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 25 July – 31 August, at 10:30am and 2pm. For more information or to make a booking, click here to see what’s on or call 01908 676 900.

Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now 
7 October 2023 – 28 January 2024 

Including exquisite historic works drawn from major collections including the Royal Collection, Tate, The Ashmolean Museum and National Museums Scotland, many of which can rarely be displayed due to their fragility, Beyond the Page will explore how the traditions of South Asian miniature paintings have been reclaimed and reinvented by modern and contemporary artists.

Gory battle scenes, intimate love affairs, spiritual parables or exquisite depictions of the natural world, this exhibition presents an overview of South Asian miniature painting since the 16^th century. The exhibition features over 170 historic, modern and contemporary works by artists from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, Netherlands, UK and USA.

South Asian miniature painting often assimilated global cultural influences from Persia and Europe but continues to be defined by qualities such as intricate craftsmanship, intimate scale and intense narrative. Beyond the Page focuses on Britain’s role in the development of this tradition and explores how it has been reclaimed and reinvented as artists, since the 20^th century, have taken it beyond the pages of illuminated manuscripts to experimental forms that include installations, sculpture and film.

The exhibition is curated by Hammad Nasar and Anthony Spira with advice from Emily Hannam, and will be accompanied by a new catalogue. 

The exhibition is organised by MK Gallery in partnership with The Box, Plymouth.

We are grateful for generous support from The Bagri Foundation, The Australia Council, and the Circle of Friends, chaired by Tarana Sawhney.

The exhibition has been made possible as a result of the Government Indemnity Scheme. MK Gallery would like to thank HM Government for providing Government Indemnity and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England for arranging the indemnity.

Read more via The Art Newspaper

Book tickets

After a short break, we are excited to announce that our Tuesday sessions designed to nurture children’s love of art will be back this June.

This term we will focus on painting, taking inspiration from our summer show Boyd & Evans: High Time, led by artist Lee Farmer.

From colour theory to painting techniques, each week will progress and develop skills so that each little artist will come away with a finished painting on canvas.

We are now offering a 10% discount when you book in advance for the whole half term.

Art Club: Ages 5-8 Book now

Art Club: Ages 8-11 Book now

Throughout the summer, Milton Keynes residents are invited to visit our next exhibition, Boyd & Evans: High Time, for just £1 during all opening hours.

For visitors to MK, we continue to offer Pay What You Can entry on Sundays, whilst remaining free for under 26 year-olds. This Summer Special provides an opportunity for new and returning visitors to enjoy the exhibition, while also encouraging those who can to pay more or make a donation.

Our updated exhibition admission prices are as follows:

Adult £11.50 (£12.65 with Gift Aid)
Concessions (Jobseeker, full time student & reg. disabled) £8.50 (£9.35 with Gift Aid)
Art Fund Pass £5.75 (£6.33 with Gift Aid)
Members / Under 26s / Accompanying Carers Free
Milton Keynes Residents £1 (£1.10 with Gift Aid)
Pay What You Can £3 / £5 / £9 / £12 / £15 every Sunday

We have also permanently removed booking fees for exhibitions, saving visitors £1 per ticket.

MK Gallery relies upon the generosity of audiences and supporters to bring exceptional artists and award-winning exhibitions and programmes to Milton Keynes. Those who wish to support the ambitious work of the Gallery are encouraged to become Members to benefit from a year of free entry to exhibitions, discounts, exclusive events and much more.

Tickets on sale now: Boyd & Evans: High Time

Become a MK Gallery Member: Support Us