The Mall
London
SW1Y 5AH
In the context of the exhibition Keep Your Timber Limber (Works on Paper), artist Marlene McCarty presents her work, touching upon elements of identity politics, queer theory, evolution, feminism, anthropology, and exploring the inherent controversies and limitations of representing sex and sexuality.
Her talk is followed by a conversation with Catherine Grant, Lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths.
Marlene McCarty has worked across various media since the 1980s. She was a member of the AIDS activist collective Gran Fury and was the co-founder of the transdisciplinary design studio Bureau along with Donald Moffett. Using everyday materials such as graphite, ballpoint pen, and highlighter, McCarty probes issues ranging from sexual and social formation to parricide and infanticide. A major survey exhibition of her work, organized by Michael Cohen, was presented in 2010 at New York University’s 80WSE galley. Her work is in the collection of major institutions including MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum and MoCA Los Angles.
Catherine Grant is the co-editor of the book Girls! Girls! Girls! (2011) which looks at the representation of girlhood in contemporary art. She has also written about being a ‘Fan of Feminism’ in the Oxford Art Journal, and co-edited a special issue of Art History on ‘Creative Writing and Art History’. She is currently researching re-enactment as a mode of contemporary art that embraces political and personal histories in order to re-imagine them for the present.