Amy Sillman, Rebecca Sears, lecturer in the Department of Classics in Arts & Sciences; and curator Meredith Malone will discuss Sillman’s animated video After Metamorphoses (2015–16), the artist’s response to the Roman poet Ovid’s mythic tale of transformation, desire, and power. Sillman’s five-minute video will be screened in advance of the Q&A and is available for viewing now.

To join the ZOOM conversation and live Q&A on 10 April at 11 am (CDT) register here

John Gerrard: Minds Rising Spirits Tuning
13th Gwangju Biennale

Gerrard’s latest piece, Corn Work (Corrib) (2020) is a simulation projected on a cube cast in polished mirror aluminum that features four Straw Boys, figures drawn from Celtic paganism. Still present in rural areas, these young men wear costumes made of straw and are said to visit brides in advance of weddings, recalling rituals in which anonymized human figures unleash celebratory and often ecstatic behaviors. Gerrard collaborated with contemporary dancers, aged sixteen to seventy, who “performed” and animated these figures in suits made from heirloom Irish grain types that correspond to the annual cycle: barley (spring), oat (summer), rye (autumn), and wheat (winter). Each dancer arrives and leaves in a formal exchange on seasonal solstices and equinoxes, echoing the production of flour through the circular motion of the mills as well as an early sun symbol, the solar cross. Through novel forms of technology like motion matching and neural networks, both time and space are captured as data, and a perpetual choreography is produced. In the backdrop, the landscape follows the temporal cycles of Galway, Ireland—where the work was initially presented as a site-specific commission—and the flow of the river Corrib against the rise and fall of daily and annual temperatures.

For Gerrard, these figures originate from a time when a more equitable relationship between humans and the landscape was still intact. Their movements carry the melancholic legacy of exhausted ecologies across the globe and follow a choreographic logic with a keen capacity to “learn,” respond to, and transform a landscape. The artist has described their movements as “a lament, a slow circular solar performance informed by motions of denial, pain and suffering. This is a grieving work for a nonhuman world that perishes as human populations thrive and expand.”

Renowned filmmaker and video artist, Steve McQueen will speak about his interdisciplinary practice across the art world and in mainstream cinema, focusing on the social, psychological, and political traumas thematized in his work. 

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (GMT-7)

Register here to join. 

A+D Thursdays is a public lecture series embedded inside our Creative Gateway undergraduate course. The series exposes students and the public to a range of creative forms across the visual arts, performance, literature, film, and design. It introduces students and the community to our campus’s major museums, presenters, and academic departments, as well as to select Bay Area arts organizations and regional partners.

Further information

Michael Landy: Michael Landy's Welcome to Essex, Firstsite, Essex

Firstsite will present a new body of work by Michael Landy that explores the recent history of his home county, Essex, and its contemporary portrayal in popular culture. The exhibition will unpack stereotypes of the county and question the influence of the media in conjunction with political agendas, in forming regional and national identities and often harmful stereotypes that deviate from on-the-ground reality.

For Welcome to Essex Landy has created an archive entitled Essexism which will occupy several of Firstsite’s gallery spaces. The archive highlights the stereotyping of the county’s population, into figures such as ‘Essex Man’ and ‘Essex Girl’ and comprises of clips from TV shows and films, plus books, magazine articles, music and newspaper articles from the last 30 years. Landy will also look to the history of Essex, such as the Plotlanders, who in the early 20^th-century went from London’s East End to self-build small houses on unwanted farm land in places such as Dunton, near Basildon. 

Connecting this history to experienced reality, Landy has been exploring Essex on foot, taking a series of walks around the county with notable cultural figures from Essex. Conversations undertaken and locations visited will be represented in the show in a new commission on Firstsite’s 140-metre curved internal wall.

Exhibition dates: 25 June - 5 September 2021

Further information

Hurvin Anderson: Monograph, Lund Humphries

As part of the Contemporary Painters Series, Lund Humphries publish the first comprehensive overview of Hurvin Anderson, now available to pre-order. Drawing on interviews with the artist, Michael J. Prokopow offers a critical assessment of Hurvin Anderson’s painting practice to date alongside 100 colour illustrations. 

The Lund Humphries Contemporary Painters Series offers comprehensive, accessible, authoritative and highly illustrated monographs on the world’s leading living painters. Its aim – to ‘take the pulse’ of contemporary painting.

Further information

Hurvin Anderson: School Prints 2021, The Hepworth Wakefield

Hurvin Anderson is one of six artists to create a limited edition print for The Hepworth Wakefield's School Prints 2021. 

Launched in 2018 by The Hepworth Wakefield, School Prints is an ambitious five-year project to engage every primary school child in Wakefield District with contemporary art. Each year, the participating schools are gifted a set of limited-edition prints by leading contemporary artists for display in school and are supported with an in-depth engagement programme led by local artists to encourage creativity across the curriculum.

Further information

Amy Sillman: Live Online Conversation, Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair

As part of Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair's (PMVABF) 'The Classroom' series, Amy Sillman will be joined in live conversation with Rindon Johnson. Taking Faux Pas: Selected Writings and Drawings of Amy Sillman (After 8 Books, 2020) and Rindon Johnson’s The Law of Large Numbers: Black Sonic Abyss, or I do not walk a line that is thin, straight, or secure (Inpatient Press, 2021) as its starting points, this conversation between Amy Sillman and Rindon Johnson will deal with both artists' writing practices and the central question of form in rethinking art history and aesthetic categories. Presented by After 8 Books.

Saturday, 27 February, 2pm (EST, 7pm GMT)

Further information

Luisa Lambri: AUTORITRATTO, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea (PAC), Milan

Curated by Diego Sileo and Douglas Fogle

PAC presents Luisa Lambri's first large-scale solo exhibition in Italy, a project curated in dialogue with the architecture of the Milanese pavilion designed by Ignazio Gardella. Displaying a selection of works made between 1999 and 2017, the exhibition focuses on Lambri's photographs of residential buildings by architects including Mies van der Rohe, Luis Barragan and Giuseppe Terragni. The photographs on display become an extension of the exhibition space, enhancing the interaction between architecture, representation and subjective experience.

Exhibition dates: 16 February - 30 May 2021

Further information 

Amie Siegel: Foundation for Contemporary Arts Awards 2021 Artist Grants

Congratulations to Amie Siegel, who is a recipient of a 2021 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Awards (FCA) Grants to Artists award. Siegel is one of six visual artists to receive the unrestricted award.

Founded in 1963 by John Cage and Jasper Johns, the FCA is a unique “artists for artists” foundation supporting innovative work in the arts. 

Further information

Image: Amie Siegel, Diamond Wire Saw-Imperial Danby, 2019, marble dust on duvetyne. Photo courtesy Blaffer Art Museum, Houston.