Artist in conversation
Hannah Hughes and Lucy Skaer in conversation
Chaired by Rosalind McKever
The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK
This event has passed
Contemporary artists Lucy Skaer and Hannah Hughes discuss the influence of Brâncuşi on their individual practices.
“I’m inspired by the way Brancusi’s works are exactly both: a material and a representation, a bird and the space around it. His Newborn flips between being a solid ball bearing and a screaming infant. The sensuality of the sculpture seems to leapfrog mimesis, to the direct sensation of the origin: soaring bird or screaming child. This quality of ‘bothness’ produces ambiguity that plays out in real time.”
Lucy Skaer, artist
This event has been supported by The Courtauld Institute of Art and The Courtauld Gallery.
Tickets
This in-conversation event is the culmination of our early-career research symposium, Modern Sculpture, Essence, and Difference: Reflections on the Work of Constantin Brâncuşi.
Tickets to this event are free, and can be booked online from the Courtauld’s website, either via the link above or the book tickets button.
Please note that this event takes place at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
About the speakers
Hannah Hughes
Hannah Hughes (b. 1975) is a London-based artist. She graduated from the University of Brighton in 1997 and her work has since been exhibited internationally.
Her first book, Mirror Image, was published by Jane & Jeremy in 2023. She has participated in two collaborative publications with artist Dafna Talmor, Glossaries (Published by Folium in association with Sid Motion Gallery, 2023) and Glossaries II, as part of Emic Units 1 (Shibboleth, 2023).
Hughes’ work is included in Look At This If You Love Great Photography: A critical curation of 100 essential photos by Gemma Padley, (Ivy Press, 2021). She is represented by Robert Morat Galerie, Berlin, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Gloucestershire.
Lucy Skaer
Lucy Skaer (born 1975) is a Turner Prize nominated contemporary artist who works with sculpture, film, painting, and drawing. She graduated from the Glasgow School of Art and has been a founding member of Henry VIII’s Wives artists collective since 1997.
Skaer’s work has a tendency to depict relationships between abstraction and the direct material nature of objects. Many of her works are drawn from historical objects, which are translated and re-contextualized into new concepts.
Rosalind McKever
Dr Rosalind McKever is a curator and art historian specialising in modern European painting and sculpture.
Before joining the V&A in 2018, she worked at the National Gallery, London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
She has also curated exhibitions for the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo, and taught art history at the University of Sussex.
Brâncuşi research symposium
This in-conversation event is the culmination of our early-career research symposium, ‘Modern Sculpture, Essence, and Difference: Reflections on the Work of Constantin Brâncuşi’.
The symposium brings together new research and creative responses that engage with Brâncuşi’s position in twentieth-century art and culture.
Brâncuşi and Britain
Spring & Summer 2024
This Research Season encourages scholars and practising artists to reconsider Constantin Brâncuşi (1876-1957) and his impact amongst British artists, writers, and thinkers.
Getting here
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Vernon Square
Penton Rise
London
WC1X 9EW
United Kingdom
T: +44 (0)20 3947 7777
E: galleryinfo@courtauld.ac.uk