Towner is delighted to present Art from Elsewhere, a major Hayward Touring exhibition supported by the Art Fund, of international contemporary art collected by the gallery, and five other museums and galleries across the UK.

Art from Elsewhere at Towner comprises forty-five works by twenty-six of today’s most influential artists including Mohammed Bourouissa, Jenny Holzer, Peter Hujar, Imran Qureshi, Józef Robakowski, Robert Smithson, Nancy Spero and Kara Walker. The wide range of global themes explored in the show - migration, identity, colonialism, gender, censorship, territory, communications, class – are reflected in the rich diversity of media used by the artists, from photography, drawing and works on paper, to Super 8 film, sound and video projections, sculpture and installation works.

Curated by David Elliott, all the works in Art from Elsewhere are drawn from the collections of six museums across the UK which were re¬cently awarded over £4 million by the Art Fund to build outstanding collections of international contemporary art through Art Fund International: – Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery in partnership with The New Art Gallery Walsall; Bristol Museum & Art Gallery; GoMA, Glasgow; mima (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art); and Towner, Eastbourne. Tailored to each touring venue, plus the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, the exhibition concludes at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and Arnolfini in April following its presentation at Towner.

Elliott said, “A number of museums outside London have made remark¬able purchases of contemporary art from around the world with the help of a special programme created by the Art Fund. I have selected this Hayward Touring exhibition show out of this pool with a mind to indicating how art not only continues to be a truthful and often challenging expression of our times, but also has become a way of seeing them more clearly.”

Towner has a growing collection of international contemporary art that developed between 2007 and 2012 with support from Art Fund International and Contemporary Art Society from artists including Olafur Eliasson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Anya Gallacio, Julian Opie, Tacita Dean, Yael Bartana and Eugenio Dittborn. They are situated within an internationally renowned collection of around 4,500 works including the most significant body of work by Eric Ravilious and other important works of modern British art.

Artists in Art from Elsewhere: Ai Weiwei, Shirin Aliabadi, Carl Andre, Stephen An¬tonakos, Yto Barrada, Yael Bartana, Lothar Baumgarten, Mohamed Bourouissa, Robert Breer, Paulo Bruscky, Nathan Carter, Thomas Demand, Eugenio Dittborn, Omer Fast, Meschac Gaba, Shilpa Gupta, Romuald Hazoumè, Michael Heizer, Jenny Holzer, Peter Hujar, Emily Jacir, Jitish Kallat, Amar Kan¬war, Ola Kolehmainen, Barbara Kruger, Ana Mendieta, Aleksandra Mir, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Imran Qureshi, Józef Robakowski, Shahzia Sikander, Robert Smithson, Nancy Spero, Beat Streuli, Kara Walk¬er, Yang Zhenzhong, Yee Sookyung, Akram Zaatari and Horacio Zabala.