Bexhill Artist Research Centre (BARC) is a brand new facility dedicated to our artist development programmes, and house our founding collection of circa 1000 artist catalogues, artist made publications, and archival material which will become a resource for artists and our creative community to access in the East Sussex region. BARC is a place where we will host research residencies in our library, and facilitate think tank sessions with artists to continue our vital work on the South Coast in developing more sustainable futures for artists to make ambitious next steps in their career.
Our refurbishments and development of BARC have been generously funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Governments’ ‘Levelling Up Partnership’ capital funding programme.
We are also delighted that BARC will become the permanent home of Laetitia Yhap’s career long collection of reference books, art history texts, and artist monogaphs. Laetitia Yhap is best known for intricate paintings of fishermen on the beaches of Hastings, UK, created on unusually shaped panels individually hand-made by Yhap for each work. Born in England during the Second World War, Yhap has Austrian and Chinese heritage, which, according to her, throughout her life created a feeling that she didn't belong. Finding solace in art making and, later, in the Hastings fishing community, she has forged a unique and important voice within British art history.
Laetitia’s donation to BARC sites the importance of living a life with books, and in her adjoining essay to her donation she sites the love and attachment that she has grown throughout her life for her books in her collection. In her own words she cites the intimacy of being at one with books. “The time taken to turn the page already means that one is entering a different time zone to that of the digital age. The book has a unique & magical mode. You open it & lo! a different world is there to be explored.“
Founding Collection Donor List:
Alison Jacques, Arcadia Missa, Barbican, Books About Art, Cecilia Brunson Projects, David Zwirner, De La Warr Pavilion, Edel Assanti, Frith Street Gallery, Galerie Max Hetzler, Gagosian, GRIMM, Hales Gallery, Hauser + Wirth, Kate MacGarry, Montez Press, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Sadie Coles HQ, Serpentine Galleries, TACO!, Thaddeus Ropac, Tiwani Contemporary, Towner Gallery
Courtesy of the artist and Hales Gallery, London.