Who influences whom? How do artistic kinships develop? Conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, this conversation series brings together artists with individuals who have significantly influenced their artistic practice. The artists Ellen Gallagher, Michael Armitage and writer and filmmaker Manthia Diawara meet to discuss their passions and concerns.
Manthia Diawara, writer, filmmaker and Professor of Comparative Literature and Film, New York University
Ellen Gallagher, painter and filmmaker, Rotterdam/Brooklyn
Michael Armitage, artist and founder, NCAI, Nairobi and London
Moderator: Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director, Serpentine Galleries, London
Manthia Diawara holds the title of University Professor in Arts and Sciences at New York University; and is Professor of Comparative Literature and Film. He is the author of several books and articles on literature, cinema and art. His films include: An Opera of the World (Documenta 13), The New Baroque of Voices (Sao Paulo Biennial 2021) and Edouard Glissant, One World in Relation (2009).
Ellen Gallagher is a painter and filmmaker. She lives in Rotterdam and Brooklyn. Gallagher builds intricate, multilayered works that pivot between the natural world, mythology, and history. Ellen Gallagher develops her work as an archaeologist might, through a simultaneous mode of embedding and extracting history and matter. Synthesizing a wide range of pictorial traditions, and working across national borders, Gallagher allows both abstraction and figuration to become portals to a world in which subject becomes formโas reality and dreams combine.
Michael Armitage (b. 1984, Nairobi, Kenya) lives and works between London and Nairobi. He received his BA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2007) and has a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy Schools, London (2010).
In September 2020, Armitage opened a solo exhibition, ‘Paradise Edict’, at the Haus der Kunst, Munich which toured to The Royal Academy of Arts, London in May 2021. The exhibition includes a collaborative project with the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, a non-profit platform founded by Armitage. While in Germany, Armitage was awarded the 6th Ruth Baumgarte Art Award. Armitage is now exhibiting his work ‘You, Who Are Still Alive’ at the Kunsthalle Basel until September 4, 2022.
Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries in London, Senior Advisor at LUMA Arles, and Senior Artistic Advisor at The Shed in New York. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musรฉe dโArt Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 350 shows.
Obristโs recent publications include Ways of Curating (2015), The Age of Earthquakes (2015), Lives of the Artists, Lives of Architects (2015), Mondialitรฉ (2017), Somewhere Totally Else (2018) The Athens Dialogues (2018), Maria Lassnig: Letters (2020), Entrevistas Brasileiras: Volume 2 (2020), and 140 Ideas for Planet Earth (2021).
The Art Basel 2022 Conversations program is curated by Emily Butler.
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