In 2012 The Courtauld Institute of Art celebrates 20 years of its biennial contemporary art exhibition, the East Wing Collection. This anniversary exhibition explores the material boundaries of art created in the years since the show’s inception through an 18-month programme of events and one of the largest exhibitions in the show’s history. East Wing X offers the viewer the chance to see the work of celebrated, established and emerging artists, many exhibiting in the United Kingdom for the first time. Observing the way in which the curators overcome the challenge of presenting contemporary art on the crooked and winding walls of an 18th-century building remains one of the most intriguing novelties of the biennial collection.

Alongside larger installations, 'Material Matters' presents sculpture by Rebecca Stevenson and the microphotography of emerging artist Slinkachu, with new works by London-based War Boutique and Georgia Russell’s latest paper sculptures. Projecting work on to the walls of Somerset House artist Hugo Dalton displays the versatility of new media and reinterprets the fusing of old and new, something that preceding East Wing Collections have always strived to achieve.

'Material Matters' celebrates our ever-growing access to the internationalism of contemporary art and the diversity of media being used in its creation. With artists from four continents exhibiting works ranging in material diversity from soap to stained glass, The Courtauld again demonstrates the value of the East Wing Collection in its continued expansion into new media and new audiences for cutting edge artistic developments.