SNAP was launched in June 2011 as part of the Aldeburgh Festival’s visual arts programme. Based at the home of Aldeburgh Music, Snape Maltings on the Suffolk coast, SNAP has presented leading international artists alongside some lesser-known emerging talents, many with connections to the area.
Two artists who now live and work in Suffolk, Abigail Lane and Sarah Lucas, have been instrumental to the initiation of SNAP, and in assembling the artists involved. Sadie Coles, part-time resident in the area, was also integral to the project’s instigation. The shows are developed and coordinated by Abigail Lane in association with Aldeburgh Music.
SNAP 2013 celebrated the centenary of Benjamin Britten, co founder of the Aldeburgh Festival. Contemporary artists from both the SNAP 2011* and SNAP 2012* exhibitions were invited to produce and contribute new works related to or inspired by Britten’s legacy. We were also very pleased to include several other artists who had not shown with us before and to make allegiances with the art organisation OUTPOST in Norwich, the Wysing Arts centre, Cambridge and USC Suffolk, Ipswich. SNAP 2013 included works by Glenn Brown, May Cornet, Benedict Drew, Roger Eno, Mark Fuller, Ryan Gander, Maggi Hambling, Scott King, Abigail Lane, Simon Liddiment, Sarah Lucas, Emily Richardson, Julian Simmons, Cally Spooner, Juergen Teller and Cerith Wyn Evans.
SNAP endeavours to encourage artists to try things they might not for other exhibitions. Given that there are no conventional gallery spaces, artists in previous years have penetrated the fabric of the festival’s home by colonizing the derelict and developed, indoor and outdoor spaces. They have also on occasion infiltrated the infrastructure of the festival itself. The result has been an opportunity to see art outside a conventional gallery setting and in a vigorous site specific way. Plans for the future promise to broaden horizons still further afield.
As part of the Aldeburgh Festival in June 2014, SNAP will be very proud to present a new commission by Anya Gallaccio. She proposes to make a work inspired by Orford Ness - an unusual shingle spit on the Suffolk coast.
There are also plans being made for an ambitious group exhibition incorporating the village of Snape for the 2015 Aldeburgh Festival.
SNAP develops the existing visual arts programme that has been present since the first Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. In the past this programme has included a wide range of artists, mostly rooted in the area or linked to the music for which the festival is best known including, amongst many others, John Constable, Sydney Nolan, John Piper and Howard Hodgkin.
I am delighted that SNAP is developing the visual art traditions of the Aldeburgh Festival, presenting work that sits alongside the contemporary music programme for which Aldeburgh is justly world-renowned.
Jonathan Reekie
Chief Executive, Aldeburgh Music
* SNAP 2011 included works by Darren Almond, Don Brown, Cerith Wyn Evans, Mark Fuller, Russell Haswell, Gary Hume, Johnnie Shand Kydd, Abigail Lane, Simon Liddiment, Sarah Lucas, Julian Simmons and Juergen Teller.
* SNAP 2012 included works by Glenn Brown, May Cornet, and Matthew Darbyshire with Scott King, Brian Eno, Ryan Gander, Maggi Hambling, Mark Limbrick, Gavin Turk and Emily Richardson.
* Permanent or long-term sculptures outdoors at Snape include Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man, Henry Moore's Large Interior Form, Alison Wilding’s Migrant and Sarah Lucas’s Perceval.