the Roberts Institute of Art

Osman Yousefzada’s poem, Untitled (for Prem), is written in response to Prem Sahib’s User_01 (2016), a panel of black aluminium covered with drops of resin that look like sweat and moisture, smudged in one part as if by a hand. The work’s eroticism, inspired by the sweaty walls of clubs, is framed by Yousefzada’s evocation of memory, longing and sensuality. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Marina Warner’s Pentimento is written in response to Paula Rego’s drawing in pencil and conte, St Mary of Egypt (2011) and tells the story of the little-known saint from fragments of reports of those who knew and remembered her. Knowing Rego’s love of storytelling and character studies, Warner has written a fictional account of a professor who has discovered Rego’s drawing and has pieced together memories of the saint gathered from a fictional fourth-century palimpsest she is researching from the city of Fustat (old Cairo). The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Heather Phillipson’s The Creeps is written in response to Emma Talbot’s How the Web was Woven (2009), an acrylic on canvas work with a variety of vignettes, spider webs, texts and mysterious figures. Reflecting the haunting, unsettling atmosphere in Talbot’s painting, Phillipson considers how an artwork can never be fully understood or described, but is something we can continually think with and learn from. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Julie Ezelle Patton’s Three Phases of Eva, 1965 is written in response to Eva Hesse’s Three (1965), a triptych of gouache and oil on paper collage. Patton takes Hesse’s triptych and title to structure the poem in three, imaginatively exploring Hesse's name, work and life, from Patton's first memory of hearing the artist’s name to once assisting Hesse’s partner, artist Tom Doyle. For Patton, the encounter with this work becomes a point of departure to play with language just as Hesse experimented with materials, and to reflect on acts of violence, from Hesse’s experience of fleeing from Nazi Germany in her childhood, to current events today. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter

Imani Mason Jordan’s 1:1 is written in response to Ellen Gallagher’s Untitled (2005). Gallagher’s intimate work shows two silhouetted figures etched onto a gold leaf background. The figures, posed as if in conversation, recall nineteenth-century portraits of authors found in narratives of slave emancipation. Jordan’s couplets of words and sounds, pulsing and intimate, fragmentary and accumulative, reflects Gallagher’s own process of gathering, erasing, cutting and collaging materials. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Renee Gladman’s All These Not-Places for Wandering is written in response to Ayan Farah’s Stardust (2011), a work dyed and bleached by UV light and painted with acrylic paint. Gladman approaches the work and the project of writing about it questioningly. Taking the encounter with the work as one of ‘wandering’ through it, Gladman follows the different lines of thought that Farah's atmospheric work prompts, reflecting on the relationship between thinking, seeing and sensing. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

In this podcast, we invited Liliane Lijn, whose work is featured in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection to choose a piece from the collection as a starting point for a conversation. Lilliane is one of the curatorial collaborators for Deep Horizons, our exhibition with MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, and she selected Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work Water Towers, 1972-2012 which features in the exhibition. Liliane describes her early encounters with Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work and its impact on her practice. The conversation explores her own fascination with industrial structures, the role of fantasy and imagination in design and how she has experimented with light in her work. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

In this podcast, artist Valerie Asiimwe Amani discusses her first live performance To dismantle a house which was jointly commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and South London Gallery and presented in June 2022. RIA and South London Gallery invited Valerie to participate in a new five-week performance residency at South London Gallery. The work she developed whilst in residence presented a multisensory installation and performance that explored the intersection of cultures, reflecting Amani's diverse interests. During the conversation, Amani shares her experience of the residency, her feelings about performing live for the first time and reflects on the impact this experience has had on her artistic practice. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

In this podcast series, we ask an artist represented in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, and who was also part of one of the Evening of Performances, to select a work by another artist represented in the collection as the starting point for the discussion. We invited Dora García, an artist who often draws on interactivity and performance in her work. At our 2008 Evening of Performances, García performed The Game of Questions, a performance that blurred boundaries between spectator and performer. In this edition, she chose Ida Applebroog’s A Performance, (1977-1981) which sparks a discussion about reading and performance, marginality and collaboration. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

In this podcast series, we ask an artist who performed in one of the Evening of Performances to choose someone to be in conversation about collaboration, their respective practices and the future of performance. In this edition, DJ and producer, Nkisi, aka Melika Ngombe Kolongo, who was commissioned as part of the 2017 Evening of Performances, invited artist and choreographer Tiran Willemse, to chat about performance, their collaborations, and their most recent work (bb), which looks at the structures of support and maintenance from the theatre. This special edition of our 'On Togetherness' series is part of Recall: Evening of Performances (2008–2019), a year-long programme of interviews, podcasts and contributions from some of the artists who participated in the twelve editions of the celebrated Evening of Performances. Highlighting the evenings’ extraordinary legacies, we will be exploring what the next wave of contemporary performance can become with the artists who have shaped it so far. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Grace Schwindt is a German artist working with film, live performance, sculpture, and drawing. As part of Evening of Performances 2018, Grace presented The Boxer. The Boxer proposed the intimate moment of sharing physical and mental wounds as a possibility to create open social relations. Belgian curator and academic Katleen Van Langendonck joins Grace Schwindt in conversation about Grace's practice and the crossovers between Katleen's current research into performance and the translation of the medium between visual arts and theatre. The pair discuss the transmission of trauma and the translation of performance within different contexts with reference to Schwindt’s work. They unpick the mechanisms and methodologies used by museums and theatres to understand how each can achieve better working models when it comes to cross-disciplinary performance work. This special edition of our 'On Togetherness' series is part of Recall: Evening of Performances (2008–2019), a year-long programme of interviews, podcasts and contributions from some of the artists who participated in the twelve editions of the celebrated Evening of Performances. Highlighting the evenings’ extraordinary legacies, we will be exploring what the next wave of contemporary performance can become with the artists who have shaped it so far. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

We invited Phyllida Barlow, whose work is featured in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, to choose a piece from the collection as the starting point for a conversation about influences and objects of interest. She chose Bethan Huws’ Untitled, 2002. Untitled is from Huws' Word Vitrine series and is a text-based work of sculptural form, using standard office word vitrines made from aluminium, glass, rubber and plastic letters. First created in 1999, her Word Vitrines reference Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades, though they alter this concept with the addition of an evocative text. Barlow discusses that what drew her to Huws' work is the sentience she imbues in her sculptures. She joins Ned McConnell from her London home for a conversation about memory, the ‘performativity’ of sculpture and the difference between someone and something. British artist Phyllida Barlow takes inspiration from her surroundings to create imposing installations that can be at once menacing and playful. Creating anti-monumental sculptures, she uses inexpensive, low-grade materials such as cardboard, fabric, plywood, polystyrene, scrim and cement. Her constructions are often testing the limits of a space whether through height, mass or volume and balance engage the audience by blocking straddling or precariously balancing in the space. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Arike Oke is currently the Managing Director of the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, which is known as the leading institutional voice on the Windrush Generation and the home of Black British history. Independent curator, writer and researcher Pelumi Odubanjo joins Arike Oke for a discussion about how their work with archival materials creates spaces to heal, discover new stories and find other ways of living and possibilities for making art. The pair talk to Lucy Cowling from the Roberts Institute of Art about the importance of knowledge transmission between generations and community building within Black British cultures. NOTES At 7 min 51 sec Arike Oke refers to the Jamaican/Scottish nurse Mary Seacole as looking after troops in the Boer War, this should be the Crimean War. MORE INFO This episode is part of our ‘On Togetherness’ podcast mini-series, where we invite conversations between artists and practitioners in the cultural field, exploring collaboration and how to be together in all its forms. Find previous conversations between acclaimed photographer Hrair Sarkissian and curator Michaela Crimmin, plus academics Matthew Spellberg and Richard Sommer. Arike Oke is Managing Director for the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. Arike has worked in cultural heritage for over 15 years, from the seminal Connecting Histories project in Birmingham, to building Wellcome Collection's archive, and co-convening Hull's first Black History Month. She is also a writer of short stories, which you can find on arikewrites.com. Pelumi Odubanjo works as an independent curator, writer and researcher interested in diasporic black vernacular culture and image making, informed by decolonialism and black feminism. Pelumi works with artists, archives, and cultural artefacts to explore historical and contemporary links between the intersectionality of women, migration, and identity. as means to disentangle our understandings of archival practice. She was Curator in Residence at the Black Cultural Archives in 2020. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Michaela Crimmin is an independent curator and co-director of the not-for profit agency, Culture+Conflict. For over 15 years she taught on the Royal College of Art’s curating contemporary art MA. Hrair Sarkissian is a photographer who was brought up in Damascus and who now lives and works in London. His practice explores his own personal memories and histories and the relationship between visibility and invisibility. In this podcast, our guests discuss Sarkissian's formative years working in his father’s studio in Damascus, the notion of home and identity and the aesthetic and political capacities of photography, especially in relation to trauma and personal and social histories. This is the second in a new series of talks for the Roberts Institute of Art podcasts, where artists, cultural practitioners and other thinkers are invited to discuss a theme connected to our programmes and contemporary culture. MORE INFO We recommend you take a look at Sarkissian’s website where you can look closely at the photographic series discussed: ‘Home Sick’, ‘Unexposed', ‘Sarkissian’s Photo Centre & my father & I', and ‘Last Scene’, for example. Michaela Crimmin works as an independent curator and is co-director of Culture+Conflict, a not-for-profit agency profiling and supporting artists whose work relates to international conflict. For over 15 years she taught on the Royal College of Art’s curating contemporary art MA, and most recently led a major EU-funded research programme that included a residency with Delfina Foundation by Noor Abuarafeh, an artist from Palestine; a forthcoming film commission that opens at Gasworks in October this year by Adam Khalil & Bayley Sweitzer; and a symposium with The Showroom and Tate co-programmed with Elvira Dyangani Ose asking to what extent can art affect change when addressing issues of migration, displacement, and access. Previously she was Head of Arts at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), a role that included initiating and directing the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre; and coordinating the first works of art on the Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square. Hrair Sarkissian is a photographer. Born and raised in Damascus, he earned his foundational training at his father’s photographic studio, where he spent all his childhood vacations and where he worked full-time for twelve years after high school. In 2010 he completed a BFA in Photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. He lives and works in London since 2011. He will be showing in the British Art Show 9 (2021) and his first mid-career survey, Hrair Sarkissian: The Other Side of Silence, curated by Dr Omar Kholief, will be shown at the Sharjah Art Foundation, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm and the Bonnefanten, Maastricht (2021-2022). Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Matthew Spellberg is a scholar whose topic of study is the comparative history of dreaming—how dreams are experienced, shared, and made use of in different cultures. Originally trained as an architect, Professor Richard Sommer is interested in where politics and design meet. He writes on monument making, urbanism and time-based architecture. The pair sit down to discuss dream sharing and the important role psychic spaces play in how we live and work together, mutual interests that have brought them to collaborate on exhibitions and events. This is the first in a new series of talks on the podcast, where artists, cultural practitioners and other thinkers are invited to discuss a theme connected to our programme, with the duo reflecting on how that influences contemporary culture. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter! MORE INFO Glossary: Circadian rhythms: physical, mental, and behavioural changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. Spelunking: cave diving. Ongees: one of the last hunter-gatherer cultures in the Bay of Bengal. Dialectic: a discussion between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned argumentation. Agoraphobia: fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult or that help wouldn't be available if things go wrong. Commonly thought of as fear of open spaces. Useful links: Richard: New Circadia Matthew: On Dream Sharing and Its Purpose

Gander chose Study of a Coloured Tile Path With Red, Black and White Tiles, 1988 due to seeing a shared interest in time and collecting places in moments. It is a meticulous recreation of a randomly chosen area of the earth's surface in resin, fibreglass and mixed media, perhaps representing a front garden path in London. Ryan Gander's work takes many different forms, from sculpture, film, writing, graphic design and performance. He joins Ned McConnell from his Suffolk studio for a conversation about working with your kids, fables and fantasy and the gaps between reality and history. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

Emma Talbot selected What is Love (2013) by Huma Bhabha when asked to pick a work from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection to discuss in relation to her own practice. Bhabha’s painted sculpture, which could just as easily be an alien from the future or symbol of an ancient past, forms the basis of a discussion about time travel and the way both artists imbued their works with with feeling and tie the personal up with events in the wider world. What is Love (2013) is a totemic representation of a body, at a towering 2 meters high and 30 centimeters deep. It is carved from cork from the torso down and the head and shoulders are made from small squares of Styrofoam that have a greenish hue. Emma Talbot lives and works in London and works primarily in drawing, painting and installation. She studied at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design and the Royal College of Art, where she is now also a painting Tutor. In March 2020 she won the eighth Max Mara Art Prize for Women, which will result in a solo exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery in London and Collezione Maramotti in Italy, both in 2022. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what DRAF does? Reach us via davidrobertsartfoundation.com, @draf_art and subscribe to our newsletter!

Both having keen interests in the animal world, art history and mythology, Caroline Achaintre quickly gravitated to Berlinde De Brucykere when asked to choose a work from the David Roberts Collection other than her own to discuss. De Bruyckere's Lost II (2007) is a large sculpture made from epoxy, horse skin metal and wood, where what looks like a spineless horse carcass is draped over a domestic table. Achaintre describes being drawn in by the combination of repulsion and attraction to what remains a beautifully crafted object and evocative animal. It is the starting point for a conversation about processes and influences, which for Achaintre range from 'uncanny valley' robotics, to Japanese figurines from B films, and German Expressionist painters. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what DRAF does? Reach us via davidrobertsartfoundation.com, @draf_art and subscribe to our newsletter! Image of Caroline Achaintre by Jenna Barberot.

An artist he has long loved and admired, artist Jonathan Baldock quickly gravitated towards Niki de Saint Phalle when asked to choose a work to discuss from the David Roberts Collection. Topic of deliberation is her small sculpture Nana Danseuse made around 1972. He is interested in both the joyous celebration of female figures and the (at times overlooked) politicized, feminist activism and trauma that is also present in de Saint Phalle's practice. There are formal crossovers in Baldock and de Saint Phalle's practices too, both being rich with references, sparking conversation about her Tarot Garden in Italy and the act of collecting "mundane things" as a child including stamps, coins, and even bird sightings. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what DRAF does? Reach us via davidrobertsartfoundation.com, @draf_art and subscribe to our newsletter! Image of Jonathan Baldock by Damian Griffiths.

Glasgow-based artist France-Lise McGurn has chosen to talk about Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka’s drawing Sur La Plage, made circa 1926. This drawing from the David Roberts Collection becomes the basis for a conversation that touches on the female nude, Madonna videos and cigarette packets. This is a new series of conversations as part of Broadcasts: Podcast, which will open up the David Roberts Collection through artists' encounters with works in the collection. Artists featured in the collection have been invited to choose a work other than their own as the starting point of a conversation about when they first came across the artist and their work, how this has been an influence on their practice, and the impact collecting has on them. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what DRAF does? Reach us via davidrobertsartfoundation.com, @draf_art and subscribe to our newsletter! Photo of France-Lise McGurn by Matthew Arthur Williams