Talking Pictures

LSE Arts is pleased to present Talking Pictures: a brand new series of lunchtime talks involving art historians, gallery curators and artists who have each been invited to offer a concise and insightful interpretation on their chosen work of art. The first series of talks will focus on works in painting, photography and video. Talking Pictures aims to be an informal but informative and accessible event, intended to appeal to anyone interested in gaining greater insight into the making of and meanings behind visual art past and present.

Attendees are welcome to bring along their lunch.
Location: Shaw Library, Old Building

Time: 1.05pm - 2pm

22 January 2008

Clare Grafik (Curator, The Photographers’ Gallery) talks about Canadian photographer Jeff Wall’s photograph, Picture for Women (1979).

29 January 2008 Uriel Orlow (Artist) talks about his latest work The Benin Project (2007) took which took Orlow to present- day Benin City in Nigeria, where he had an audience with the current king and documented the work of contemporary brass-casters. Born in Switzerland he lives and works in London. Uriel Orlow is a London-based artist who exhibits internationally. In 2002 he graduated with a PhD in Fine Art from the University of the Arts, London. He is currently AHRC research fellow in the creative arts at University of Westminster.

Orlow's art explores the roles of language, the image and memory play in structuring our experience. Working in a range of media – from video and sound to photography, print-making, writing and drawing – Orlow engages with questions of place, representation and translation.

Recent exhibitions and screenings include Videonale, Museo Nacional Centro del Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and Kunstmuseum Bonn (2007) , New Work UK, Whitechapel Gallery London (2007), Play Forward, Film Festival Locarno (2007), Retracing Territories, Kunsthalle Fribourg (20007), New Lands, BFI Southbank, London (2007); Ghosting, Arnolfini, Bristol (2006), Glad to be of service, ifa-Galerie, Berlin (2005). In 2006 and 2007 he was shortlisted for a Swiss Art Award at Art Basel.

5 February 2008 Sandy Nairne, (Director of the National Portrait Gallery) will discuss the portrait of Sir Christopher Wren by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt - an oil on canvas portrait dating from 1711 and on display at the National Portrait Gallery (Room 10). He has worked as a curator and writer and is well known for his innovative television series and book State of the Art, 1987, and co-edited anthology Thinking about Exhibitions, 1996. He has curated and co-curated exhibitions which include Objects and Sculpture; Leon Golub; British Sculpture in the 20th Century; Jeff Wall; The Impossible Self; American Realities and the first retrospective for Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs. Sandy Nairne was previously Director: Programmes at Tate for eight years working alongside Nicholas Serota in the building of Tate Modern and the Centenary Development at Tate Britain. He was also directly responsible for the development of international and digital programmes, the Tate Partnership Scheme and the co-ordination of Tate public programmes as a whole.

12 February 2008

Sumi Ghose (Public Programmes Manager at the National Portrait Gallery) will discuss Cornelia Parker's Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991). This work is now part of Tate's collection and was originally commissioned Chisenhale Gallery. Sumi's talk is titled 'Destruction and Nostalgia - Cornelia Parker's Cold Dark Matter'.

Sumi Ghose is a lecturer, gallery guide and arts programmer. He lectures on modern and contemporary art for numerous institutions including Tate, Sotheby's and has had reviews published in the Guardian, Modern Painters and the Independent. He was the winner of the 2004 Guardian/Modern Painters art writing prize. He is also the Public Programmes Manager at the National Portrait Gallery where he organises the programme of artists' and writers' talks, film, lectures and workshops.

19 February 2008 Hana Sakuma (Artist) will talk about her conceptual work diffelence (2002) in which the letters 'R' and 'L' have been removed from a bag of tiny alphabetically shaped pasta. The letters 'R' and 'L' do not exist phonetically in Japanese and are difficult to pronounce. Sakuma states “There is an implicit desire that I want to 'eat' the problem as I would eat the pasta. Then the problem will disappear. I eat the problem, and then I gain energy from it…”

Hana was born in Japan and currently lives and works in London. Her work involves object making, photography, video, writing and talking. She has experience in undertaking public art projects, lecturing, curating and collaborating with artists, curators and academics. Solo exhibitions include: Solo Sakuma, Seven Seven Contemporary Art, London, 2006; 100 Books Which I Didn’t Buy, Unit 2 Gallery, London, 2005; From the middle through the middle, Changing Room, Stirling, Scotland, 2002; Unframing Process, CAS, OSAKA, Japan, 2000.

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