Events

Artist Talk Tom Sachs, Richard Wentworth, and Clare Lilley

Thursday 8 July 2021 | 6PM BST

Ely House, London

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Join us for an artist talk where Tom Sachs will be joining remotely from his studio for an in-person conversation with British artist Richard Wentworth and Clare Lilley, Director of Programme at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, on the occasion of Tom Sachs's current exhibition Ritual in our London gallery.

The discussion will expand upon three decades of ongoing dialogue between the two artists ranging from the use of industrial techniques and materials to traditions of hierarchy, utility and subversion; modes of seeing and the human condition; and art's potential to act as a window to other worlds. Touching on the use of popular icons and art historical references in their work, such as Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, with particular reference to Sachs's new sculptures, the talk will explore the driving impulses behind an artist's need to create.

Tom Sachs (b. 1966) is an American contemporary artist best known for his elaborate, bricolage recreations of masterpieces of engineering and design. Drawing from a dedicated engagement with the histories of his materials and of industrial production, the themes central to Sachs's universe focus on American culture, consumption and society, which he treats with a relentlessly innovative and subversive approach throughout his sculptural practice.

The artist Richard Wentworth first met Tom Sachs in London in 1989. Three decades of conversation has revolved around questions of production, distribution, and the migration of meaning. The conversations are sometimes recorded, never without humour, but frequently with enjoyable collisions between hubris and irony. Richard Wentworth works with the Lisson Gallery, London, Peter Freeman Gallery, New York, and Nogueras Blanchard in Spain.

Clare Lilley is Director of Programme at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and has selected Frieze Sculpture in Regent’s Park since 2012. She has curated numerous exhibitions of modern and contemporary sculpture by artists who include Ai Weiwei, Fiona Banner, Alfredo Jaar, KAWS, Giuseppe Penone, Yinka Shonibare CBE, David Smith, James Turrell, Joana Vasconcelos, Bill Viola and Not Vital. Clare sits on the Government Art Collection advisory panel and the boards of Art UK and the George Rickey Foundation.

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