This lecture is part of the 2022 Autumn Art Lecture series:
Modernisms: Decolonising art's history
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About the Autumn Art Lectures
This year’s Autumn Art Lectures are back in person to challenge the concept of Modernism as a monolithic entity: Is there just one Modernism or are there many? What does it mean to think of Modernism on the global stage? Is there such a thing as an ‘alternative’ Modernism or is Modernism itself already inherently hybrid? As many institutions, from galleries and museums to universities, engage with the challenges of embracing global visual culture, this investigation is both vital and timely. Our inter-disciplinary speakers include academics, curators, artists and pedagogues who have grappled with the idea of the Modern, paying particular attention to blackness, Asian-ness, difference and decolonisation. The series aims to expose diversity at the heart of the Modern.
The Autumn Art Lecture series is hosted by the University of Bristol's Faculty of Arts with support from the Centre for Black Humanities and Bristol Ideas.
About this event
Two curators will discuss the many facets of ‘British’ Modernism.
Jane Alison: In Search of a Postwar Sensibility
Drawing on research conducted during the making of Postwar Modern, my presentation will outline what I feel to be the defining qualities of a postwar sensibility in art in Britain between 1945 and 1965. I will make the case for the central significance of loss, trauma and displacement set against the shadow of war and the promise of a better future. I have used a term borrowed from Alison Smithson, ‘rough poetry’ as a shorthand for what I have otherwise described as the ’strange universe’ of art in Britain in the postwar years.
Hammad Nasar: Curating Britishness
I will use my ongoing research and curatorial work—in particular the London, Asia and Curating Nation projects, and two recent exhibitions: Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition at Manchester Art Gallery, 2018-19; and British Art Show 9, 2021-22—as lenses through which to consider questions of curatorial agency in how “Britishness” is curated within institutional frames.
This conversation is presented with an introduction by Dr Elizabeth Robles (History of Art, University of Bristol), who will also moderate the Q&A with the audience.
About the speakers
Until very recently, Jane Alison was Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican, a post she held for ten years. Jane is now working independently as a curator, writer and consultant. Her recent exhibitions have included (in chronological order): The Surreal House; Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde and Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-1965.
Hammad Nasar is a curator, researcher, and strategic advisor. Recent exhibitions he has curated / co-curated include British Art Show 9 (2021-22), Turner Prize (2021), Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition (2018-19) and Rock, Paper, Scissors: Positions in Play – the UAE’s pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). Presently, he is Senior Research Fellow, Paul Mellon Centre (London) and Lead Curator, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (Coventry). Earlier, he was Principal Research Fellow, UAL Decolonising Arts Institute; Executive Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation, London; Head of Research & Programmes at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; and, co-founded Green Cardamom, London. He is a Board Member of the Henry Moore Foundation (UK) and Mophradat (Belgium).
Tickets
Book your free ticket on Eventbrite here: https://bit.ly/3yJrIs1
Check out the other events in the Autumn Art Lecture series: https://bit.ly/3EFba8r