Talk

The transformative object

Panel discussion

Friday 13 October 2017 6.30 - 7.45pm

The Reynolds Room, Burlington House, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly

£12, £6 concessions.

Sold out

Dalí / Duchamp

Go to the exhibition

In this panel discussion chaired by Professor Michael Archer, artists Sir Michael Craig Martin CBE RA, Alice Anderson and Professor Dawn Ades CBE FBA explore how artists transform our perception of everyday and familiar objects.

While diverse in their practice, Henri Matisse, Jasper Johns, Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp all carefully considered the representation of objects in their work. Whether artists use objects as the subject of a still-life or directly incorporate them into the work itself, the hand of the artist encourages us to reconsider everyday objects as though we are seeing them for the first time. As the viewer we are inspired to look beyond function and utility to read into the social, cultural and political significance of these inanimate objects.

In this discussion, artists Sir Michael Craig Martin CBE RA, Alice Anderson and art historian Professor Dawn Ades CBE FBA examine why artists continue to explore the representation of objects, at a time where virtual reality and technological advances pose a challenge to the very presence of objects in our material world. This event is chaired by Professor Michael Archer.

£12, £6 concessions.

Sold out

Dalí / Duchamp

Go to the exhibition

Biographies

Alice Anderson

Anderson’s practice is rooted in performance and concerned with the exploration of the post-digital through objects – in particular, the physical and physiological mutations associated with transhumanism.

The various rituals around objects takes Anderson into a meditative and rhythmic space of repetition. Through the act of ‘performing the object’, the artist connects with it by recording and charging it with her bodily movement that generate wire sculptures (Memorised Objects), steel sculptures (Capsules Objects), as well as performative drawings with pastels (Objects’ Portraits & Pulse). Anderson has recently begun a series of visits to the Indigenous community of the Arhuacos in Sierra Nevada, Colombia, whose ancestral rituals share an affinity with her processes.

Alice Anderson lives and works in London. She studied Fine Art at the Goldsmiths College, London. Her first solo exhibition took place at the Freud Museum, London in 2011. Since then her sculptures and performances have been shown at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (2012), 55th Venice Biennale (2013), Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2014), Wellcome Collection, London (2015), Saatchi Gallery, London (2016), Drawing Room London and the Pompidou Centre, Paris (2017). Coming solo exhibitions in 2018 include new large-scale sculptures at La Patinoire Royale, Brussels and at Pifo Foundation, Beijing.

Michael Craig-Martin RA

Michael Craig-Martin grew up and was educated in the United States. He studied Fine Art at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture and, on completion of his studies in 1966, he moved to London where he has lived ever since. An Oak Tree, 1973, is one of his best known early works. His more recent work, which includes painting, printmaking, installations projections and drawing, continues to depict common place objects.

Craig-Martin is widely recognised as an effective and influential teacher. His teaching career started in 1966, but it is his period at Goldsmiths College, London for which he is best known. His former students include many of those artists who made such a significant impact on the art scene in the 1990s; these include Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas.

He has curated exhibitions including Drawing the Line, which toured venues including the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1995. He has also published many articles and essays and was a Trustee of the Tate Gallery.

Dawn Ades

Dawn Ades is a Fellow of the British Academy, a former trustee of Tate, Professor of the History of Art at the Royal Academy and was awarded a CBE in 2013 for her services to art history. She has been responsible for some of the most important exhibitions in London and overseas over the past thirty years, including Dada and Surrealism Reviewed, Art in Latin America and Francis Bacon.

Most recently she organised the highly successful exhibition to celebrate the centenary of Salvador Dalí at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice (2004) The Colour of my Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2011), and was Associate Curator for Manifesta 9 (2012) . She has published standard works on photomontage, Dada, Surrealism, women artists and Mexican muralists.

Michael Archer

Michael Archer is a critic and writer on modern and contemporary art. His work has appeared in many journals, including Artforum, Art Monthly, Frieze and Parkett, and in numerous catalogues. He is the author of Art Since 1960 (Thames & Hudson 1997/2002/2015). He provided the text for Installation Art (Thames & Hudson, 1994), and wrote the later chapters on modern and contemporary art for Hugh Honour and John Fleming's A World History of Art (Laurence King, 2009), as well as contributing to monographs on Mona Hatoum (Phaidon, 1997/2016) and Richard Wilson (Merrell, 2001). In the 1980s he worked with William Furlong as part of Audio Arts, making installations, records and performances as well as contributing to the editing and production of many issues of Audio Arts magazine. He has curated a number of exhibitions, including Material Culture: The Object in British Art of the 80s and 90s (1997), and How To Improve The World (2006), both at the Hayward Gallery.