Culture Now: Liam Gillick in conversation with JJ Charlesworth

Join artist Liam Gillick in conversation with JJ Charlesworth, for a lunchtime talk at ICA.

Probably best known for his multicoloured and modular sculptural interventions, Liam Gillick examines the social role and function of art through experimenting with constructed situations based upon familiar realities. In adopting conceptualist tendencies, Gillick uses his work as a platform to question ideas of active participation, discussion and social exchange. An influential artist, writer, critic and curator, Gillick’s discursive mode of practice employs a wide range of media such as text-based proposals, wall drawings, films and book forms.

After graduating from Goldsmiths College of Art in 1987, Gillick initially emerged as part of the generation of Young British Artists (YBAs) that shaped the art scene during the 80s and 90s. With many successful solo exhibitions, including shows at the Whitechapel Gallery in London (2002), Palais de Tokyo (2005), and most recently, a major mid-career retrospective project Three Perspectives and a short scenario, at Witte de With in Rotterdam, Kunsthalle Zurich, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2008-2010), he was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002 and in 2008.

Liam Gillick now lives and works between London and New York and teaches at both Columbia University (New York) and the Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

JJ Charlesworth is an art critic, curator, artist and lecturer. Writing about contemporary art since he left Goldsmith’s in 1996, his critical concerns centre around social and political contexts, and the changing values of aesthetic discourse in contemporary art production. An Associate Editor for Art Review magazine, Charlesworth is also a regular contributor to Art Monthly, Modern Painters and Time Out London. In 2003 he was a selector for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition, and currently teaches at the Royal College of Art.