Organised by Whitechapel Gallery
How does the global story of abstraction seen in Action, Gesture, Paint reflect a decolonising discourse in modern art? Join art historians for this special discussion, including Dr. Polly Savage (SOAS) who will speak on the work of Italian-Mozambiquan painter Bertina Lopes and Dr. Ceren Özpınar (University of Brighton) addressing the work of Lebanese painter Etel Adnan.
More details to be announced.
About Polly Savage
Dr Polly Savage is Lecturer in the Art History of Africa at SOAS, University of London. Her research focuses on the intersections of art and politics in 20th and 21st century Africa and the Caribbean, with particular concern for transnational solidarity networks and the visual cultures of socialism and liberation movements in Lusophone Africa. Her publications include the edited volume Making Art in Africa 1960-2010 published by Lund Humphries in 2014, and the forthcoming co-edited volume Socialist Exhibition Cultures (University of Toronto Press). She has curated a number of exhibitions, including most recently, with Richard Gray, Our Sophisticated Weapon: Posters of the Mozambican Revolution for London’s Brunei Gallery in 2021 and The Africa Centre in 2022.
About Ceren Özpınar
Dr Ceren Özpınar is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Brighton. She specialises in modern and contemporary art from Turkey, the Middle East, and their diasporas. She is particularly interested in questions of gender, sexuality, and race; artistic networks and communities; and art historiography. Her publications include the co-edited volume, Under the Skin: Feminist Art and Art Histories from the Middle East and North Africa Today (Oxford UP/British Academy, 2020), and the monograph, The Art Historiography in Turkey (1970–2010) (Tarih Vakfi, 2016). Her articles appeared in the Art Journal, Art in Translation, Art & the Public Sphere, and Third Text. Her next monograph, Politics of Writing Art Histories: Narratives of Contemporary Art, Feminism and Women Artists from Turkey, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.