New Contemporaries celebrates 70 years of supporting contemporary art with new exhibition

That's a sentiment close to our hearts at Creative Boom. Spotlighting a cross-section of the most important artists of recent history, many of its alumni have gone on to forge careers at the forefront of contemporary art from postwar Frank Auerbach; YBAs Damien Hirst and Gillian Wearing; to Tacita Dean, Chris Ofili and Mona Hatoum; and, more recently, exceptional artists including Ed Atkins, Rachel Maclean and Laure Prouvost.

To mark the special milestone, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition will take place at Leeds Art Gallery from 14 September before travelling to South London Gallery in early December. Forty-five artists have been selected for the show by guest selectors Rana Begum, Sonia Boyce and Ben Rivers.

"It’s so important for the enrichment of the arts and the UK’s cultural legacy that a new generation of artists has a platform to present their work to wider audiences, and give them an opportunity to develop a voice," says Rana Begum.

Themes addressed in the exhibition include global and personal politics exemplified by Roei Greenberg's photographs taken along the Israeli/Syrian border, George Stamenov’s re-imagining of post-Soviet era Bulgaria and Eliot Lord’s satirical depiction of Boris Johnson and Brexit.

Class and community will be explored in Roland Carline’s participatory performances and Emma Prempeh’s film shot in her grandmother’s house. While gender and sexuality are highlighted in Louis Blue Newby’s remake of David Cronenberg’s 1996 psycho-sexual thriller 'Crash' and Laura Hindmarch’s delicate watercolours, whilst Taylor Jack Smith explores male identity in his animations.

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2019 launches at Leeds Art Gallery on 14 September and runs until 17 November 2019. It will then travel to South London Gallery from 6 December 2019 to 23 February 2020.