Andy Holden
- Associate Lecturer
- Associate Lecturer
- Contemporary Art Practice MA
Andy Holden is an artist whose work includes sculpture, large installations, painting, music, performance, animation and multi-screen videos.
Andy's work can be found in the permanent collections of Tate Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery, Bristol Museum, Arts Council Collection and Zabludowicz Collection in the UK, Kroller Muller Museum, NL, and various collections in Europe.
He also performs and releases music with the band The Grubby Mitts, which was the subject of the film, Oh! My Friends, made for the exhibition about the history of Charles Schulz and Peanuts at Somerset House in 2018, and he curated the first festival of artists’ music at Wysing Art Centre in 2010.
Holden lives and works in Bedford, where he is currently running a project space, Ex-Baldessarre, from his studio, showing a mixture of outsider art, curated projects, experimental music and collaborative installations.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Gallery
More information
Current and recent projects
Recent solo exhibitions include Natural Selection, commissioned by Artangel for the former Newington Library and touring to Leeds Art Gallery, Towner Gallery Eastbourne and Bristol Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto; and the 2016 Glasgow International, where Holden premiered his acclaimed animated video Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape. Laws of Motion was subsequently included in the Future Generation Art Prize, presented by the Pinchuk Art Foundation in Kieve and at the 2017 Venice Biennale, and then toured to New York, Canada, Germany, Dubai and China. Other solo exhibitions include Towards a Unified Theory of M!MS at Zabludowicz Collection, London and Spike Island, Bristol in 2013–14, Chewy Cosmos Thingly Time at Kettles Yard Cambridge in 2011, Cookham Erratics at the Benaki Museum, Athens and Art Now: Andy Holden at Tate Britain in 2010. Other recent exhibitions featuring work by Holden include Good Grief Charlie Brown at Somerset House, Animals and Us at Turner Contemporary, and Front International, Cleveland USA.
In 2014 Holden’s band The Grubby Mitts toured artist-run spaces throughout the UK and released a number of records. Holden also created the first of the annual artist music festival at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge in 2010. His adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men was staged at the ICA, London and Arnolfini Bristol in 2012. Holden also runs a project space, Ex-Baldessarre in Bedford, regularly curating exhibitions and recently was commissioned by the BBC and Google to make a new short animated work for television. In 2012 he received the Paul Hamlyn award. His work is held in the collections of Tate and Arts Council England.
Awards
Paul Hamlyn Award, 2012
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Solo Exhibitions
2025
Natural History of Nest Building, Huddersfield Museum
2024
Natural History of Nest Building, Tate St Ives, Cornwall, UK
Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, The Perimeter, London, UK
What I was for What I am Becoming, Charles Moffett, New York
2023
Song of Songs, Seventeen, London
Full of Days, Gallery of Everything, London,
Full of Days, CAST, Helston, Cornwall
2021
Collected Domestic Conceptualism, Pitt Studio, Worcester
2020
Structure of Feeling (Ghost Train), Block 336, London
2019
Natural Selection (with Peter Holden), Shetland Arts, Shetland, Scotland
Natural Selection (with Peter Holden), Arbroath Laws Courts with Artangel/Hospitalfields
Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, Cinema Museum, London
2018
Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto*
Natural Selection (with Peter Holden), Inverleith House, RBG, Edinburgh* with Artangel
Natural Selection (with Peter Holden), Leeds Art Gallery* with Artangel
Natural Selection (with Peter Holden), Towner Gallery Eastbourne* with Artangel
Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, Alserkal Avenue Project Space, Dubai
2017
Natural Selection, Artangel London (with Peter Holden)
World as Cartoon, Tate Britain, Performance
As Speed Increase Objects can Ben in Several Places At Once, Lancaster Arts
50 Years of Milton Keynes, M!MS Dream Sequence, Milton Keynes Gallery
Laws of Motion, Kunsthall Viborg, Denmark
2016
If you Instagram my Dead Body Use Walden but Tag it #NoFilter, Rowing Projects, London
Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, Wasps, Glasgow International
2015
Towards a Unified Theory of M!MS, Kunsthall Winterthur
It’s Only Bondage was the Circling Sky, SVA/Site Festival, Stroud
Lecture on Nesting, Bristol Museum with Spike Island
2014
The Politics of Friendship Tour, tour of nine artist-run spaces around the UK with the Grubby Mitts. inc: Primary, S1 Artspace, Rhubaba, Supercollider, Karst, Aid and Abet, Grand Union, Open School East
Towards a Unified Theory of M!MS, Spike Island, Bristol
The Proper Situation is Sublime, commission for Cambridge Hospital
2013
Seven Short Works in Time, Hospitalfield Arts, Angus
Lecture on Nesting, Performa 13, New York, USA
Towards a Unified Theory of M!MS, Zabludowicz Collection, London
Folly and Landscape, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh
Random Acts, film for Channel 4, commissioned by TATE Media
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Arnolfini, Bristol (stage production)
2012
Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston
The Dan Cox Library for the Unfinished Concept of Thingly Time, Cubitt
Lecture on Nesting, Penzance Convention, performance with Peter Holden.
Lecture on Bird Song, House of Beasts, Attingham Park, performance.
Latitude Contemporary Art, Latitude Festival, Suffolk (commission)
Stalagmite Rock Club, Art Rotterdam, solo presentation
Cookham Erratics, Works|Projects, Bristol*
Brief Interview’s with Hideous Men, ICA, two night production in collaboration with David Raymond Conroy
2011
Chewy Cosmos Thingly Time, Kettle's Yard Cambridge
Cookham Erratic, Benaki Museum, Athens
Art Now Live, Tate Britain (Lecture on Birdsong)
2010
Art Now: Andy Holden, TATE Britain*
Be Glad for the Song Has No End ~ a Festival of Artists Music (curator)
Lecture on Nesting, London Festival of Architecture
Permanent Vacation, Bureau Manchester*
Three Short Works in Time, TATE Britain (performance with Grubby Mitts)
2009
Desert Project, Works/Projects, Bristol*
Lecture on Migration, performance, Transition Gallery, London
A Series of Small Encounters, Hidde van Seggelen*
Two Short Works In Time, Performance, Odeon Cinema, Covent Garden
Group Exhibitions
2019
Fragile Earth, MIMA, Middlesborough
Cartoony, New Media Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Sour Persimmons Chasm, Ex-Baldessarre, Bedford
Dark Matter, Science Gallery, London
2018
Good Grief Charlie Brown, Somerset House, London
Opposite of Time, Live Performance, Henry Moore Studios*
Animals and Us, Turner Contemporary, Margate
Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, Groundwork, Cornwall
Front International, Cleveland, USA
Rinnzekete bee bee nnz err müü, Kunstverein Weisbarden, Germany
2017
Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Foundation, Ukraine
Future Generation Art Prize at Venice Biennale, Italy
2016
The Practice of Theories, Wysing Arts Centre, group exhibition
Secret Surface, K-W Berlin, group exhibition
Playing by the Rules, Royal Standard, Liverpool, group show
Music vs Ceramics, at Pulse New York, new works editions and films
TEFAF Maastricht, NL, Installation with Hidde van Seggelen,
2015
20 Years, Zabludowicz Collection
Performance as Publishing, Whitechapel Gallery, (performance with Bohman Brothers)
2014
Hey I’m Mr Poetic, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge
Anatomy of Anxieties, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong
Cacotopia / Peach Blossom Spring, Kui Yuan Gallery, China (touring)
On the Devolution of Culture, Rob Tufnell, London
The Proper Situation is Sublime, commission for Cambridge Hospital
2013
As real as walking down the street and going to the grocery store, Rowing, London
Universal Addressability of Dumb Things, Hayward Touring curated by Mark Leckey, Liverpool Bluecoat, Nottingham Contemporary, De la Ware Pavilion
Version Control, Arnolfini, Bristol
2012
Soundworks, ICA London
Becoming Thing, Whitechapel, performance with Ed Adkins
Nothing Like Something Happens Anywhere, Chapter, Cardiff
Discussing Metamodernism, Gallery Tanja Wagner, Berlin
A Plea for Tenderness, Seventeen Gallery, Curated by David R Conroy
Human Made Things, Aspex, Portsmouth
Occupants, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston
2011
Transcendental Empiricism, Rob Tufnell, London
Art Now Live, Tate Britain (Lecture on Birdsong) BruderKreigSoundSystem, ICA, London, cuarted by Mark Leckey I Promise To Love You, Kunsthalle Rotterdam
A Fire in the Master's House is Set, Chapter, Cardiff.
Life of the Mind (Grubby Mitts performance), New Art Gallery, Walsall,(Curated by Bob and Roberta Smith)
Off the Record, Resonance 104.4Fm, curated by Royal College curating MA
2010
Props, Events and Encounters, Hub, Athens
Six Short Works in Time, Victoria University Gallery, Liverpool
Daily, Action, Poetry, (with Grubby Mitts), Hayward Gallery
The Eccentric, The Idiosyncratic and the Unpredictable, Schirman & de Beaucé, Paris
Canadian Pharmacy, Neon Parc, Melbourne, Australia
Performed, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge
Abstract, Almost Abstract 2 , Gallerie van Gelder, NL