Past Event
How has the figurative art of our time hybridised the human and non human, being and identity?
Morphing industrial materials into flying animal skins, Alice Channer transforms matter into life form. While Linder takes photography as raw material for her re-imagined femininity, Prem Sahib deploys public architecture to express an intimate queer sensibility; and Daniel Silver’s ‘archaeological sculptures’ embody the unconscious. These renowned artists, among a 100 modern and contemporary artists who feature in the remarkable ISelf Collection, discuss their work with former Whitechapel Gallery Director, Iwona Blazwick.
Alice Channer (b.1977) studied fine art at Goldsmiths College before completing a Masters degree in sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London. She is currently part of two International group shows Crash Test curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at La Panacée, Montpellier, France and Actions: The Image Of The World Can Be Different at Kettles Yard, Cambridge. Her work also features as part of the ISelf Collection display The Upset Bucket, at Whitechapel Gallery, London. Recent exhibitions have taken place at Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, USA and Kunsthaus Hamburg, Germany (2017); Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Germany, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2016); Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2015); Fridericianum, Kassel and Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (2014); The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire; the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy and Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany (2013) and Out Of Body at South London Gallery (2012). Her work appears in numerous public collections such as the Guggenheim Museum, New York (USA), Tate, London, Government Art Collection and Arts Council England.
Prem Sahib lives and works in London. Forthcoming exhibitions include Art Night, curated by the Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2018). Previous solo exhibitions include Heron, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels, Belgium, Balconies, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, LISTE Art Fair Basel, with Southard Reid, London (2017); Cruising the House, curated by Milovan Farronato, residency at Inclusartiz Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Grand Union, Grand Union, Birmingham, (2016); Side On, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, END UP, Southard Reid, London (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Cruising Pavilion, 16th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2018); Markers, David Zwirner, London; Si Sedes Non Is, curated by Milovan Farronato, The Breeder, Athens, Greece; ISelf Collection: Self-Portrait as the Billy Goat, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2017).
Linder (b. 1954, Liverpool, UK, lives and works in Heysham, UK). Linder Sterling’s feminist montages and photographs comment on the commodification, expectations and objectification of women. Bringing together adverts, magazine cut-outs and pornographic images, she emphasises the cultural desire for women and their bodies. Her early work was circulated in the punk fanzine ‘Secret Public’ that Linder co-founded with music writer Jon Savage in 1978.
Daniel Silver (b. 1972, London, UK, lives and works in London, UK).
Many of Silver’s stone carvings and heads are based on 18th century portrait busts and archetypes from ancient Greek sculpture, which he spent time studying at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
He manipulates and abstracts figurative forms, with a specific interest in the head as it is the most ‘object-like part of the body’.
