SAATCHI GALLERY TALK: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS BRITISH ART?

Above painting is by Barry Reigate.

SAATCHI GALLERY

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS BRITISH ART?

Louisa Buck, Hew Locke and Barry Reigate in conversation
7.30pm, 29 November 2010
Tickets: £10 / £6 students - Book now

With the opening of Newspeak: British Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery, and the British Art Show 7 at Nottingham Contemporary, the question of British Art is once again in the spotlight. Both exhibitions include a host of radically divergent artists connected by 'Britishness'. Does this tag reveal anything more than shared geography?

Artists Hew Locke and Barry Reigate, and journalist Louisa Buck, discuss the problematic concept of British Art as a coherent context for artistic production. Is there a particular British sensibility, style or technique discernable in contemporary art produced in the UK today? Or, have we reached a point at which the idea of a national artistic identity has broken down leaving a multiplicity of artistic forms and languages?

Speakers:

Louisa Buck is a writer and broadcaster on contemporary art. She is a columnist for The Art Newspaper and a regular reviewer on BBC radio and TV. Her books include Moving Targets 2: A User's Guide to British Art Now (2007), Market Matters: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Art Market (2009) and Owning Art: The Contemporary Art Collector's Handbook (2006, with Judith Greer). Buck was a judge for the Turner Prize in 2005.

Hew Locke lives and works in London. Locke moved from Edinburgh to Guyana where he spent his formative years. Back in the UK he completed an MA in sculpture at the Royal College. Locke has exhibited extensively around the UK, including Tate Britain, The V&A Museum, The New Art Gallery Walsall, Rivington Place, The Bluecoat Gallery and The British Museum. In the US he has shown at The Luckman Gallery LA, The New York Museum of Art and Design, Atlanta Contemporary Arts and at The Brooklyn Museum. Locke has recently been shortlisted for the 4th Plinth Commission, and will be exhibiting as part of the Folkestone Triennial in 2011. He is represented by Hales Gallery in London.

Barry Reigate lives and works in London. He completed an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University and has since gone on to exhibit internationally. His work has been included in major national shows such as Rude Britannia: British Comic Art at Tate Britain and Newspeak: British Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery, and in exhibitions at Trolley Gallery, Baibakov Art Projects, Moscow, Chapman Fine Arts, The Agency Gallery and Stephen Friedman Gallery. He is represented by Paradise Row Gallery in London.


Is there such a thing as British Art?
7.30 pm, Monday, 29 November 2010
Saatchi Gallery
Duke of York's HQ
King's Road
London SW3 4SQ
www.saatchigallery.com/talk
Tickets: £10 / £6 students - Book now

Partnered by Broadword Group

SAATCHI GALLERY,
Duke of York's HQ,
King's Road,
London,
SW3 4SQ

www.saatchigallery.com