What is the value of the visual arts in international cultural exchange? What do exhibitions of
wok by leading British artists communicate as they travel overseas? For more than eight decades
the British Council has sent British art abroad as ambitious acts of cultural dialogue with
over a hundred countries from Afghanistan to Zambia. Along the way it has amassed a
distinctive and unique national art collection comprising over 8500 pieces ranging from
painting print and sculpture to film works photography and craft by some of the most
significant artistic talents of the 20th and 21st centuries. It continues to acquire new art by
emerging practitioners and to operate in new geographical territories using innovative methods
of cultural engagement. Its works are on display in over 100 countries worldwide and its
exhibitions are seen by millions of people per year. Art without Frontiers follows the
expectations made of visual arts in the work of the British Council since 1935 locating its
achievements in the shifting contexts of global politics and art history across the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries. Through a series of chronological exhibition histories that act as
testing grounds and turning points Art without Frontiers explores key moments in the British
Council's visual arts programme and in particular the development and use of the British
Council Collection to examine what art can do for cultural relations in an ever-changing
world.
