Associate Events
Jon Thompson
Panel Discussion: Artist as Writer
with JJ Charlesworth and Patrick Coyle
Saturday 24 September 2011, 1.30pm
Whitechapel Gallery, London E1
Jon Thompson’s rules for writing are simple: be jargon free, be an advocate for art and provide a context that is far reaching. He was one of the most influential art teachers of his generation, and over a thirty-year period he wrote on Mat Collishaw, Jannis Kounellis, Piero Manzoni, Mark Wallinger, Ria Pacquee, Marcel Duchamp and Steve McQueen amongst many others. JJ Charlesworth writes regularly on contemporary art for magazines such as Art Monthly, Modern Painters, Time Out London and Art Review magazine, where he is associate editor. Patrick Coyle graduated from MFA Art Writing at Goldsmiths in 2010; recent exhibitions include Fig 3: I don’t know what to say at David Roberts Art Foundation, London, Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2010, A Foundation Liverpool and ICA, London, and performances at Spike Island, Bristol and Flat Time House, London.
In association with Ridinghouse
Existential Territories
Jeremy Akerman and Gavin Everall devised a series of six events focusing on artists’ writings, readings, discussion and debate. The themes were: artists’ publications, nomadism, cosmopolitanism, the avant-garde, transgression and power.
The events were characterised by their informality, speculative nature and open discussion, and were followed by lively question and answer sessions between panel and audience.
Each event highlighted an artist, curator or writer’s work that aims to carve out new territory and which disrupts established forms. No consensus of practice was aimed at, instead, a range of singular and contesting voices were sought, with presentations from Paul Buck, Dan Fox, Maria Fusco, Robert Garnett, Emily Wardill, Stewart Home, Andrew Hunt, Nina Power, Clunie Reid, Lynne Tillman, Paul Rooney, Janice Kerbel, Kit Hammonds and Mark Waugh, among others.
‘Existential Territories on tour’ took place at FormContent gallery on the 17th of July 2010. This bridging event was programmed by Jeremy Akerman, Gavin Everall, Paul Buck and Francesco Pedraglio. It was designed to consolidate material gathered from the first series and to be speculative about ideas for the second. A fantastic line up of performances, readings and DVD presentations were given. Artists: Paul Buck, David Burrows, Clunie Reid, Charlotte Young, Michael Dean, Fiona Banner, Harry Pye, Katrina Palmer and John Russell. A wall text from Margarita Glutzberg and Stewart Home also featured. Themes hit upon included, art school mythologies, inherent absurdities in defining art-writing, the descriptive text, fear and attention, the problem of The End, and sex.
In association with Book Works