Events

This series of talks throughout July has been programmed to accompany the current Institute exhibition Savage Messiah: The Creation of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (Gallery 4 to 31 July) which looks at the ways in which the life and work of this twentieth-century sculptor was constructed through biographical narratives and, in turn, through film.

Three contemporary artists and writers will discuss the fictionalisation of an artist's life and work from a broader perspective, and the compelling power of the myths which structure and further generate these fictions.  They will explore the re-mediation of history through unconventional methodologies, drawing on their own practices, and variously combining received narratives with the make-believe, examining the creation and destruction of artistic celebrity, and through performance, exploring the potential of the abstract to overcome physical perceptions.

 

Wednesday 6 July: Paul Becker

The Life and Work of Anton Lesseman

Paul Becker's period of research at the Henry Moore Institute (and lecture topic) is the study of the neglected British sculptor Anton Lesseman (1899-1971).  He will be making a biographical study of the artist's extraordinary life and producing a body of work based on the small collection of studies and tiny maquettes available in the archive.  Becker will be talking about Lesseman's life and work, which has been completely overshadowed by contemporaries Moore, Hepworth and which represents something of an antithesis, a reverse image of both artists.  Lesseman's reduced scale, his wholehearted rejection of Modernism and his life-long regard for Romanesque stone carving, placed him at odds with the bolder, public scale so prevalent in post-war British sculpture.

Becker is an artist and writer based in Newcastle.  His work is concerned with history and its re-mediation.  Imposture, invented narratives and faux historical figures function almost as 'research tools', a way of travelling back and shedding some new light on the familiar or bringing real historical incidents and personalities back out of the shadows.  Verisimilitude is a vital component of each story and biography and if it is employed successfully, with the requisite suspension of disbelief, the work begins to have life of its own.

 

Wednesday 13 July: Francesco Pedraglio

A Few Stories in the Shape of Abstract Objects

A Few Stories in the Shape of Abstract Objects is a performative talk based on suppositions and rumours, a narration that uses invisibility and abstraction as red threads to make sense of a number of seemingly chaotic clues. 

Turning to the help of an Eygptian man and his French alter-ego, a rock, an arrow, a hole in the ground and a stomach filled with earth, Francesco Pedraglio will attempt to demonstrate the existence of non-experiential memories and their link with the production of abstract objects.

Francesco Pedraglio is a current Henry Moore Institute Research Fellow and is a writer and independent curator based in London, where he runs the art-space FormContent - a curatorial space which experiments with exhibition formats and fosters collaboration between artists and curators while challenging their roles. Pedraglio has an MA in curating from Goldsmiths College and has published extensively both independently and in collaboration with others, including the artist Michael Dean. He has also recently performed at the ICA, the National Portrait Gallery and the South London Gallery.

 

Wednesday 20 July: Chris Evans

The Freedom of Negative Expression

The Freedom of Negative Expression consists of a production treatment, a trailer for the pilot of a proposed television mini-series, and two sculptures that cast their shadow on the projected trailer.  The tagline for the proposed television mini-series could read 'Betrayal is a Fine Art'.  A wealthy, ambitious young American sets out to make his mark on the London art world, and uses the talents of a respected older artist to launch his career. But once his success seems assured, he discards her. She created him - now can she find a way to destroy him?  The dialogue for the British Constructivist is written by Tirdad Zolghadr and is based on Evans' recollections of a meeting with Gillian Wise, an artist relatively prominent in Britain in the 1960s. Will Bradley has scripted the part of the Nihilist and, collaborating with Evans, has developed The Freedom of Negative Expression into a production treatment - a plot-by-plot breakdown for the pilot of a television series.

Evans will also be talking about another work, COMPANY - a 6 minute video developed through a script written with Will Bradley and edited by Dr. Walid El Kafrawy, the director of an Egyptian real estate company. In the short film we are witness to El Kafrawy's vision of "building communities from nothing but sand and flies'', where motivated people can escape the dense mayhem of Cairo to live in seclusion in the desert. Through given words, El Kafrawy reflects on how communities can be nurtured and how people can find company through the concurrence of "management and imagination, politics and engineering, capital and labour."

Chris Evans' work often evolves through conversation with people from diverse walks of life, selected in relation to their public life or symbolic role.  Sculptures, letters, drawings, film scripts and unwieldy social situations created as a result of this, are indexes of a larger structure through which Evans deliberately confuses the roles of artist and patron, genius and muse.   Evans is based in London and Brussels.  He has exhibited widely nationally and internationally and was a Henry Moore Institute Research Fellow in 1999.

 

All the talks start at 6pm. Entrance is free and all are welcome, though seating is limited.