The Trouble with Artists' Brands

Chaired by writer and academic Sarah Thornton, this panel discussion investigates the role of individualism and the 'artist brand' in contemporary practices, its influence on production and its role in the art market. Thornton is accompanied by a panel, including Peter Davies (artist) and Michael Elmgreen of Elmgreen & Dragset (artist).

Dr. Sarah Thornton is the author of Seven Days in the Art World and Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. She has a BA in Art History and a PhD in the Sociology of Culture. Once the chief writer on contemporary art for The Economist, Thornton is currently taking a break from journalism to write a book about artists.

Peter Davies is an artist based in London. Recent exhibitions include The Making of Art, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Starstruck: Contemporary Art and the Cult of Celebrity, The New Art Gallery, Walsall; The Epoch of Perpetual Happiness, The Approach, London; Art curated by Michael Craig-Martin at Galerie Haas and Fuchs, Berlin, and The Indiscipline of Painting at Tate St Ives and The Mead Gallery University of Warwick. And forthcoming solo exhibition, Invocation The Approach, London November 2012. 

Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, based in Berlin and London, have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. They have held numerous solo exhibitions in art institutions worldwide, including Serpentine Gallery and Tate Modern in London, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, ZKM Museum of Modern Art in Karlsruhe, The Power Plant in Toronto, MUSAC in Léon, and Kunsthalle Zürich. Their work has been included in the Berlin, São Paulo, Gwangju, Moscow, Singapore, Istanbul, and Liverpool biennials, and in 2009 they exhibited “The Collectors” in the Nordic and Danish Pavilions at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Elmgreen & Dragset’s work is included in the Liverpool Biennial 2012 and in autumn 2013 they will have a major exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Due to an unavoidable commitment curator Nicholas Cullinan is now unable to participate in the talk.