Current Events at Photographers’ Gallery

Artist Talk: Yasamin Ghalehnoie

06:30pm – 07:45pm, Wed 10 Jul 2024

Price: £8, £5 members & concessions

Location: The Photographers’ Gallery

Artist Yasamin Ghalehnoie presents their work in this new talk as part of our series entitled Contingencies: Citizens and Photography

Throughout 2024, the University of Westminster and The Photographers’ Gallery have invited various artists and photographers to explore the impact of their work within broader discourses, with each speaker discussing how photography is used as a means to challenge visual representation within socially oriented practices. Moderated by artist and educator David Moore.

Biography

Yasamin Ghalehnoie writes fiction and non-fiction, makes docufictional videos, and facilitates radical pedagogies. Developed through field studies and slow, trans-local collaborative processes, they research informal economies, non-uniformity, autoimmunity, and collective reproduction of resting and the commons. They care for social and political imaginaries, through everyday sci-fi, and magical realism to rehearse subversive futures. They hold an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Inside Out: The Garden

01:00pm – 05:00pm, Sat 03 Aug 2024

Price: Free, booking essential

Location: Soho Photography Quarter

Take part in creative workshops inspired by Siân Davey’s The Garden

Take part in one of two different creative workshops – poetry and flower sculpture – that aim to bring people together, connect and be inspired by Siân Davey’s The Garden.

Inside Out is a free and inclusive summer festival, produced by Westminster City Council and partners, that brings our city’s world-renowned arts, entertainment and culture into the streets and open spaces of Westminster for all to enjoy.

About The Garden:

Starting in 2020, British photographer Siân Davey transformed her abandoned garden over three summers into a vibrant space, filled with wildflowers, birdsong and people.

Together with her son, Luke, Davey cultivated a space rooted in love. They researched native flowers and encouraged biodiversity, sourcing seeds and plants locally.

When the flowers bloomed, they called in the community. Everyone had a place in The Garden; the mothers and daughters, the lonely, the marginalised, lovers, the traumatised and heartbroken and those that had concealed a lifetime of shame. The space became an expression of yearning, defiance, joy and interconnectedness.Discover works from Siân Davey’s The Garden in a free outdoor exhibition in the Soho Photography Quarter just outside the Gallery.

Talk: On Ernest Cole

06:30pm – 07:45pm, Wed 11 Sep 2024

Price: £8, £5 members & concessions

Location: The Photographers’ Gallery

Hear Darren Newbury speak about Ernest Cole and his landmark photographic book, House of Bondage

House of Bondage, Ernest Cole’s landmark photographic book, documented the everyday racial oppression of apartheid South Africa. Yet, it was only in leaving South Africa that Cole, then a young, largely unknown black photographer, was able to publish this work, and in the US and Europe that his photographs reached audiences through magazines and other publications.

This presentation considers Cole’s project and his journey, positioning both photographer and book in a wider context of Cold War, civil rights struggle and Black Power in the US – and reflecting on the complex biographies of the photographer and his photographs.

Details on how to access the event will be confirmed upon registration. Please check your junk folders if you haven’t received an email from TPG staff confirming your place.

Biography

Darren Newbury is Professor of Photographic History at the University of Brighton. He is the author of Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa (2009), People Apart: 1950s Cape Town Revisited. Photographs by Bryan Heseltine (2013) and Cold War Photographic Diplomacy: The US Information Agency and Africa (2024); and co-editor of The African Photographic Archive: Research and Curatorial Strategies (2015) and Women and Photography in Africa: Creative Practices and Feminist Challenges (2021). In 2020 he received the Royal Anthropological Institute Photography Committee Award for his contribution to the study of photography and anthropology.

Artist Talk: Ayesha Kazim and Alice Mann

06:30pm – 07:45pm, Thu 12 Sep 2024

Price: £8, £5 members & concessions

Location: The Photographers’ Gallery

Join South African artist Alice Mann and Nigerian-South African photographer Ayesha Kazim in this new talk

This public talk brings together two dynamic voices in contemporary photography from South Africa. Artist Alice Mann and photographer Ayesha Kazim will give insight into their creative processes, talking through the stories behind their striking images and the social issues that drive them. Central to the discussion will be the concept of ‘home’ – a theme that resonates deeply with their work and their representations of South Africa, its people and its cityscape.

Biographies

Ayesha Kazim (b. 1999) is a photographer working between New York City, Cape Town, and London. Within her creative practice, she utilises analog and digital mediums to capture the intimate, transient moments of everyday life. Her multicultural background as a Nigerian-South African living abroad influences her desire to create compelling portraits that speak to a wide range of audiences and communities. She has been fortunate to have exhibited her work at Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Photoville (New York, USA) and Art Dubai (Dubai, UAE). A two-time Gordon Parks Scholar, Ayesha has also worked with clients including Airbnb, Adobe and Dior, and has had her work featured on CNN, Bloomberg and The New York Times. Ayesha’s inspiration and art-making practice is rooted in introspection and outward curiosity for the world, often materialising itself in the photographing of subjects that exude resilience, power and quiet confidence.

Talk: On Graciela Iturbide

06:30pm – 07:45pm, Fri 13 Sep 2024

Price: £8, £5 members & concessions

Location: The Photographers’ Gallery

Gain inspiration in this special talk as we look closer at the life and work of renowned Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide with art historian and curator Lassla Esquivel

Take a closer look at renowned Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide in this talk by art historian and curator Lassla Esquivel. Celebrated for her personal and culturally resonant photography that captures the essence of life in Latin America, particularly Mexico, Esquivel will offer insight into Iturbide’s influential career, reflecting on her powerful explorations of identity, ritual, and the interplay between tradition and modernity.

Details on how to access the event will be confirmed upon registration. Please check your junk folders if you haven’t received an email from TPG staff confirming your place.

Artist Talk: Alinka Echeverría

06:30pm – 07:45pm, Wed 18 Sep 2024

Price: £8, £5 members & concessions

Location: The Photographers’ Gallery

Hear artist Alinka Echeverría give insight into her explorations of identity, migration and cultural memory in this new talk

Alinka Echeverría is a Mexican-British artist, working across moving image, photography and installation. With a background in anthropology, Echeverría challenges conventional narratives around identity and home, offering unique perspectives into a range of cultural contexts through the subjects represented.

In this talk, Echeverría will give background behind her latest projects and the wider political and social issues that impact her work.

Details on how to access this event will be confirmed upon registration. Please check your junk folders if you haven’t received an email from TPG staff confirming your place before the event.

Biography

Alinka Echeverría is a Mexican-British artist and visual anthropologist working in multiple media. She holds a Masters degree in Social Anthropology and Development from the University of Edinburgh (2004). After working on HIV prevention projects in East Africa, she pursued a post graduate degree in Photography from the International Center for Photography in New York (2008). Her research based work brings a contemporary and critical approach to questions of visual representation.Her work has been widely exhibited at international venues, including solo exhibitions at Preus Museum, Norway’s National Museum of Photography, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Les Rencontres de la Photographie Arles and The California Museum of Photography at UCR. Her work is part of several public and institutional collections including The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, BMW Art & Culture and The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Recent commissions include the Swiss Foundation of Photography and BBC Four, for whom she presented a three part series: The Art That Made Mexico.

Biography

Lassla Esquivel is a UK-based art historian and curator. Her research interests are currently focused in emerging art markets, while investigating private museums’ models and its role within the art market. She is also interested in gender studies, while championing female artists and their visibility across the art world and its markets.

She is founder of Periferia Projects, a curatorial platform that links emerging markets in Latin America with the UK and Europe in order to promote collaborations between galleries, artists and institutions.

She is currently Senior Lecturer and Course Leader of the MA in Art Business at Kingston. She has taught postgraduate programmes across different institutions such as Christie’s Education (London), IESA arts&culture (Paris), Centro-Sotheby’s Institute (Mexico City), and Art and Skills Institute (Riyadh).

Current Events at Autograph

A Lens in Exile, A BSL response

AUTOGRAPH, London

Thu 11 Jul || 6:30 – 8pm 

Free, booking essential

Join artist Chisato Minamimura for a response to Autograph’s upcoming exhibition Ernest Cole: A Lens in Exile. Minamimura will introduce key themes in the exhibition and use Cole’s body of work to expand on ideas of migration, black history, power and visibility from a Deaf perspective. 

The event will take place in Autograph’s gallery, alongside Cole’s photographic works of his years in Harlem and Manhattan, New York City during the height of the civil rights movement in America.

This event will be in British Sign Language only. 
The exhibition talk will last around 45 minutes, starting promptly at 6:30pm and will be followed by an informal opportunity to socialise over drinks.

Current Events at TATE Modern

YOKO ONO EXHIBITION TALK

23 JULY 2024 AT 13.00–14.00

£34 / £12 for Members

Enjoy a one hour talk prior to visiting the exhibition to learn about the life and work of Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono is a leading figure in conceptual and performance art, film and music. Developing her practice in America, Japan and the UK, she is renowned for her activism, work for world peace, and environmental campaigns. Ideas are central to her art, often expressed in poetic, humorous and radical ways.

Spanning more than seven decades, the exhibition focuses on key moments in Ono’s career, including her years in London from 1966 to 1971, where she met John Lennon.

CORNER CONVERSATIONS

NEW MODELS FOR NATURE RECOVERY

10 SEPTEMBER 2024 AT 19.00–22.30

£24 / £21.60 for Members

Join Charlie Burrell, Ben Goldsmith and Kristen Weldon in conversation at the Corner

A thought-provoking evening with EA Festival and some of the UK’s leading environmental experts, as we explore the importance of rewilding and regenerative agriculture for UK ecosystems.

Three experts at the leading edge of rewilding and nature recovery explain the new ecological and financial paradigms for restoring biodiversity to landscapes and agriculture – and why it is so important. What is “nature recovery”? How does it apply to different landscapes? How do we measure it? Most important, how do we fund it? Those are just some of the questions that we will answer during this session. The benefits of restoring ecological health are incontrovertible. The challenge is devising business models and investment regimes that make nature recovery feasible and commercially viable.

Current Events at The Portrait Gallery

Curator’s introduction to Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens

21 June 2024, 19.00-20.00

The Ondaatje Wing Theatre

Onsite £15 (£12 Members / concessions)

Join exhibition curator Charlotte Bolland as she introduces the Gallery’s new major exhibition Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens. 

The show chronicles the representation of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr throughout history and popular culture in the centuries since they lived. 

Charlotte will delve deeper into the exhibition themes and objects exploring historic paintings, drawings and ephemera, to contemporary photography, costume and film. Drawing upon a wealth of factual and fictional materials, the lecture will present the life, legacy and portrayal of six women who forever changed the landscape of English history.

Dr Charlotte Bolland, Senior Curator Research and 16th Century Collections, joined the National Portrait Gallery in 2011 after completing her doctoral thesis with Queen Mary, University of London and the Royal Collection. She has co-curated a number of exhibitions for the Gallery, including The Real Tudors: Kings and Queens Rediscovered(2014), The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt (2017) and The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics (2022).

In conversation with the Judges of the Portrait Award

19 July 2024, 18.00-19.00

The Ondaatje Wing Theatre

Onsite £15 (£12 Members / concessions)

Join Tom Shakespeare, Russell Tovey and Tanya Bentley, some of the judges of this year’s Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2024, as they share stories and discuss selected works from this year’s exhibition, marking its return to the National Portrait Gallery. With entrants from all over the world, painting in a multitude of styles, the judges will share behind the scenes insights into the process and considerations when judging one of the most prestigious contemporary portrait competitions internationally.

Russell Tovey is an award winning actor with an extensive background in film, television and theatre. He is also a passionate art collector, and was a judge for the Turner Prize 2021. He co-hosts the art podcast, Talk Art, with friend and gallerist Robert Diament, where they interview leading artists, curators, gallerists, and celebrities.

Tom Shakespeare is professor of Disability Research at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, appears regularly on Radio 4, and his novel The Ha-ha was published in March 2024. He was formerly a member of Arts Council England.

Tanya Bentley is the Gallery’s Contemporary Curator. As well as curating exhibitions and displays at the NPG, Tanya is one of the curators that looks after the Gallery’s large collection of contemporary portraits (2000 – now) and acquires and commissions new works for the Collection.

Six Lives study day: the material culture of the Tudor Court

7 September 2024, 11.00-17.00

The Ondaatje Wing Theatre

£40 (£32 Members / concessions)

Drawing on the extensive variety of objects from the Tudor court as seen in Six Lives: The Story of Henry VIII’s Queens, this study day is a chance to learn from a range of art historians, authors and academics about the historic material culture on display. 

From portraits and miniatures to drawings and tapestries, illuminated manuscripts and heraldic badges, the exhibition draws upon a wealth of materials to present the life, legacy and portrayal of six women who forever changed the landscape of English history. This study day will welcome experts who will explore topics from jewellery and historic dress to paintings and drawings, revealing and celebrating the scope of artistic creativity in England at the time of the reformation and beyond.

With exhibition curator Charlotte Bolland. 

Full programme and speakers to be announced.

Francis Bacon and post-war London through a queer lens

Lecture

24 October 2024, 13.00-14.00

The Ondaatje Wing Theatre

£10 (£8 Members / concessions)
Priority booking for Gallery Members is open now. Public booking will open on 24 June.

Join Gregory Salter as he discusses how we might look at Francis Bacon’s art from the 1950s and 1960s through a queer lens. Many of Bacon’s paintings depict lone or coupled male figures, situated in bedrooms, bars, and other spaces occupied by men who were beginning to think of themselves as homosexual in London during the post-war decades. This lecture will place these works in the political, social, and cultural contexts surrounding homosexuality in this period, while also acknowledging the international journeys that involved and shaped Bacon’s art and queer culture at the same time.

This lecture is held as part of the public programme for the major new exhibition Francis Bacon: Human Presence which features works from the 1950s onwards, and explores Francis Bacon’s deep connection to portraiture and how he challenged traditional definitions of the genre.

Gregory Salter is Associate Professor in History of Art at the University of Birmingham. He researches and teaches on art from Britain after 1945, focusing particularly on sexuality, gender, and migration in this period. He published a book Art And Masculinity In Post-War Britain: Reconstructing Home in 2019, and is currently researching a transnational history of art from Britain between 1957 and 1988.

Francis Bacon’s portraits and photography

Lecture

12 December 2024, 13.00-14.00

The Ondaatje Wing Theatre

£10 (£8 Members / concessions)
Priority booking for Gallery Members is open now. Public booking will open on 24 June.

Dr Katharina Günther discusses the importance and prominence of photographic source materials throughout Francis Bacon’s work.

Portraits and self-portraits formed an inherent part of Bacon’s practice. While it is well-known that Bacon often based them on photographic source material, this process has rarely been systematically analysed. This lecture will explore the role photography played in Bacon’s portrait painting.

Learn how the physical state of material and photography influenced the imagery on his canvas, and what patterns and recurring methods can be detected in Bacon’s working ethos and preparatory practice, along with how they can be interpreted. 

Günther will also discuss how photography acted as a tool to help Bacon express individual feelings and attitudes towards a sitter and facilitated Bacon’s challenging and blurring of conventional ideas of representation, portraiture, and identity.

This lecture is part of the programme of events in relation to our current exhibition Francis Bacon: Human Presence.

Dr Katharina Günther studied art history in Cologne and Antwerp and received her PhD from the University of Cologne in 2019. Her thesis was published as Francis Bacon – In the Mirror of Photography. Collecting, Preparatory Practice and Painting(Boston/Berlin 2022) and won several prizes, including a gold medal at the German Photo Book Awards. 

Since 2009, Katharina Günther has worked as a researcher for The Estate of Francis Bacon, the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation, and the John Deakin Archive in Dublin and London, including at Tate Britain and Hugh Lane Gallery. From 2015, she was the project manager of francis-bacon.com, the official website with a digital catalogue raisonné of The Estate of Francis Bacon. 

In 2020 she returned to Germany to head the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association at Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Dr Günther is currently working as an independent researcher and curator. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary photography and painting, especially British 20th century art, the relationship between painting and photography, post-war figurative painting, conflict art and augmented reality in art, which she addresses in international publications, exhibitions and teaching assignments.