BNC 2007, The New Art Gallery

A total of 1150 applications were received from this year's national open submission, from over 70 art schools across the UK. From this, selectors Nigel Cooke, Michael Landy and Linda Norden shortlisted over 100 artists and their work brought to Club Row for further deliberation, before selecting the 47 Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2007 artists.

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2007 artists are: Steve Bishop, Sarah Bowker-Jones, Lucy Coggle, Rhys Coren, Charlie Crane, Mary Ferguson, David Fletcher, Katarina Forss, Alistair Frost, Dido Hallett, Gabriel Hartley, Alexander Heim, Laurie Hill, Margot Hill, Adam Holmes-Davies, Luke Jackson, Hannah James, Heike Kabisch, Maria-Brigita Karantzi, Camilla Kesterton, Penny Klepuszewska, Ian Larson, Francisco Lobo, Fiona Mackay, Amy Grace McDonough, Janine Mclallan, Andrew Mealor, Jason Nelson, Jack Newling, Gemma Pardo, Daniel Pasteiner, James Ryan, Charlie Tweed, Tom Walker, Jackson Webb, Gesche Würfel, Yohei Yashi.

New Art Gallery Walsall is a magnificent custom-built space, specially commissioned from architects Caruso St John, to house the Garman-Ryan collection and to provide spacious temporari exhibitions of contemporary art. It is a municipal gallery, serving a local community and building an ambitious programme of contemporary work in a particular context.

There was a time when the annual open studio was about the only prospect for young artists to exhibit their work, now Britain is a place where small towns like Walsall have magnificent public galleries of contemporary art. The art world is post 'Brit-Art', post-Tate Modern, post-Frieze Art Fair, and there is an abundance of small galleries hungry for new artists. So, is there still a need for New Contemporaries? The answer, it seems, it yes; it combines a professional (rather than educational) attitude with a non-commercial ethos. To this end, its selectors are primarily artists (this year Michael Landy and Nigel Cooke) supplemented by writers or curators (Linda Norden), and the continued quality of these ever-changing selectors ensures that the exhibitions focus on the battles that young artists will always have as they wrestle with the art of the past and the world of today.

David Barret review of 2007 exhibition at New Art Gallery Walsall, for Art Monthly Oct 07 no 310.