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Conference

Touch-Space: The Tactile Imagination in Contemporary Sculpture

10:30–19:00

University of Leeds, Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery

Congo the chimpanzee stands on a table, partially behind a framed painting, which he is supporting with his left arm. His right arm rests lightly on the front of the painting, palm open, as though caressing it; and his chin rests on the upper left corner of the frame, his head angled downwards to look at the painting he has made.

Presenting research into the ways in which contemporary artists are interpreting and reimagining tactility.

This conference is the last in a collaborative season of research events programmed by the Henry Moore Institute in partnership with the University of Leeds. The impetus for the research season is the launch of the University of Leeds’ digital exhibition on Herbert Read (1893-1968) and enhancements to its Herbert Read archive.

This one-day conference seeks to examine the continued currency of Read’s assertion that the most important qualities of a sculpture are those which are tactile: its surface, its weight, mass and volume. Read’s contention is not that we need all literally touch a sculpture, but that our ability to imagine these qualities and be moved by them is one of sculpture’s key fascinations.

The twentieth century saw a rich and wide variety of sculpture produced which chimes imaginatively with Read’s words. Examples can be found throughout Fauvism, Vorticism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism, and including work more difficult to categorise such as Kurt Schwitters’ (1887-1948) remarkable small-scale plaster sculptures made in the 1930s and 40s. This continued into the latter half of the century with Claes Oldenburg’s (1929-2022) ‘soft sculptures’, Mike Kelly’s (1954-2012) blankets and stuffed toys, and the felt and fabric work produced by Louise Bourgeois well into the twenty-first century. More recently, as demonstrated in the Henry Moore Institute’s exhibition programme, such concerns can be seen in the work of artists including Michael Dean (b. 1977), Paul Neagu (1938-2004), Rasheed Johnson (b. 1944), Senga Nengudi (b. 1943), Alena Matĕjka (b. 1966) and Lungiswa Gqunta (b. 1990).

Tickets

This event is now fully booked. You can join the waiting list on Eventbrite in case tickets become available.

 

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10:00

Welcome and introduction

 

10:30

Panel 1: The Haptic and the Domestic

Touching the Untouchable

Touching the Untouchable

Linda Aloysius (Central Saint Martins and Sphinx International)

Rethinking Tactility, Domesticity, Labour and the Female Body

Rethinking Tactility, Domesticity, Labour and the Female Body

Lana Locke (University of the Arts, London)

Sculpture and the Unheimliche: Brandon Ndife

Sculpture and the Unheimliche: Brandon Ndife

Sydney Smith (Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford)

A Sculptor’s Perspective: Owning the ‘Touch-Space’; Mmodelling the Phenomenon from Inside the Practice

A Sculptor’s Perspective: Owning the ‘Touch-Space’; Mmodelling the Phenomenon from Inside the Practice

Sheila Gaffney (Leeds Arts University)

12:30

Lunch (provided)

 

13:30

Panel 2: Touch and Opticality

Proprioception and Herbert Read's 'Touch-Space'

Proprioception and Herbert Read's 'Touch-Space'

Ken Wilder (Chelsea and Camberwell Colleges of Art, University of the Arts London)

Navigating Sculptural Stories of Touch

Navigating Sculptural Stories of Touch

Helen Barff (artist)

Can Intangible Touch Become Tangible in the Art Museum? Prosthetic Encounters through Pedagogical Art Objects

Can Intangible Touch Become Tangible in the Art Museum? Prosthetic Encounters through Pedagogical Art Objects

Kimberley Foster (Goldsmiths, University of London)

What Actually Takes Place

What Actually Takes Place

Martin Elphick (Cotswold Sculptors Association)

15:30

Break and refreshments

 

16:00

Panel 3: Surface and Materiality

Survivor Steel

Survivor Steel

Samuel Holleran (University of Melbourne)

The Thickness of Surface

The Thickness of Surface

Laurence Kavanagh (artist)

Points of Contact: Phyllida Barlow’s Shedmesh (1976) and an Expanded Exploration of Touch

Points of Contact: Phyllida Barlow’s Shedmesh (1976) and an Expanded Exploration of Touch

Natalie Rudd (University of Birmingham)

Haptic Sensibilities: a Critical Revision of Touch through Everyday Fabric

Haptic Sensibilities: a Critical Revision of Touch through Everyday Fabric

Mia Mai Symonds (practice-led researcher)

18:00

Keynote lecture

Herbert Read: We are living in a material world

Dr Michael Paraskos

Michael Paraskos was born in Leeds and is an art historian with thirty years teaching experience universities and art schools around the world. In 1992 he was the research assistant on the landmark exhibition Herbert Read: A British Vision of World Art which helped to re-evaluate Herbert Read’s position in global art history, and he went on to write his PhD on Read, at the University of Nottingham, in 2005. He was also the organiser of the 2004 Herbert Read Conference at Tate Britain, and edited the book that came out of this, Re-Reading Read: New Views on Herbert Read, published by the Freedom Press in 2008. He has also published on other aspects of historical and contemporary art and culture, including writing for The Guardian newspaper, The Spectator magazine and numerous academic journals, as well as a brief stint on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row programme.

 

19:00

Wine reception

 

This event is part of our current season of research looking at renowned novelist, publisher, editor and art critic Herbert Read.

Getting here

This event will take place in the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, in the Parkinson Building at the University of Leeds.

Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, University of Leeds

Parkinson Building
Woodhouse Lane
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

United Kingdom

T:  0113 343 5663
E:  gallery@library.leeds.ac.uk