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Angle of Vision: The Frangenberg donation to Wolfson College, Cambridge: Artists' Edition [Exhibition catalogue]

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posted on 2025-01-23, 16:49 authored by Phillip LindleyPhillip Lindley

This book commemorates the donation to Wolfson College, Cambridge, of the majority of the remarkable art collection formed by my late colleague, Dr Thomas Frangenberg (1957– 2018) [Fig. 1], by Thomas’s executors, his brother Andreas and sister-in-law Rita. Thomas bequeathed some notable works to Tate and donations were also made to municipal galleries in Leeds, Manchester, Coventry and elsewhere. However, these bequests comprised less than a quarter of the collection. Approximately 750 works have come to Wolfson. It is a varied as well as a large collection but possesses a particular coherence: predominantly, it comprises ideas-based ‘conceptual’ art-works produced in London from the mid-1970s until 2017, just before Thomas died. Many Turner-Prize winners and short-listed nominees as well as a host of other internationally and nationally celebrated artists are represented. This account of the collection is intended to set the scene for later exhibitions at Wolfson and will, I hope, prepare the way for a full inventory and iterative, on-line catalogue.

Thomas acknowledged that any art collection is, to an extent, a reflection of its collector. We shall see that all the works Thomas collected foreground the active participation of the viewer in interpreting meaning. They often probed the definition of art, problematised its production, deployed texts as images and challenged media boundaries, disrupting categories and inverting traditional art hierarchies. Aspects of Thomas’s personality can be glimpsed in the flashes of humour found in some of the works and in a few examples of homosexual eroticism. Some pieces have a particular resonance for gay men. For example, the tile from Simon Patterson’s I Quattro Formaggi (1992) bears the name Spartacus. Spartacus, the Thracian slave who led a rebellion against Rome, popularly known through Kirk Douglas’s starring role in Kubrick’s eponymous 1960 film, is also the name of a gay international holiday guide.

History

School

  • Design and Creative Arts

Department

  • Creative Arts

Pages

6 - 171

Publisher

756 Press

Version

  • AO (Author's Original)

Rights holder

© Phillip Lindley

Publisher statement

Reproduced with permission of the publisher

Publication date

2024-07-01

Copyright date

2024

ISBN

9781999328542

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Phillip Lindley. Deposit date: 23 January 2025

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