A lecture by the great American art critic, art historian and poet whose latest book Why Photography Matters As Art As Never Before is out this autumn. On this occasion, Michael Fried will focus on the work of Douglas Gordon in an attempt to show that he belongs to an anti-theatrical tradition that Diderot was the first to theorise roughly 250 years ago. The larger implication of Fried’s argument is that the most interesting and important contemporary art bears a far more productive, if dialectical, relation to high modernism than is usually imagined to be the case.

£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

Analyses of contemporary terrorism are dominated on the one hand by instrumental theories of violence which understand violence as a tool, or by cultural and psychological analyses that approach violence as a pathology of modernity, religion, ‘identity’ or personality. This paper explores terror as both private experience and public relationship, and considers the extent to which contemporary forms of jihadi violence can be analysed in terms of emerging models of global movement, where we see the importance of global cultural forms such as conspiracy theory, technological mediations such as the Internet, the importance of horror and the extreme, the inexperiencable and the unimaginable that together may constitute a new ‘grammar of violence’. The paper considers the implications of such violence for the way we attempt to understand and respond to increasingly globalized forms of conflict.
Professor Kevin McDonald is Marie Curie International Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research centres on contemporary social movements in the context of globalization, his most recent book being Global Movements: Action and Culture (2006). His current research is entitled ‘Violence and subjectivity in a global movement: jihadi trajectories in Spain and the United Kingdom’, a two-year project exploring emerging forms of increasingly personalised violence charactering jihadi violence in Europe.

Free entry.

The first ever in-depth discussion between two quintessentially British pioneers of graphic novels: Raymond Briggs and Bryan Talbot. Tonight Briggs, whose work includes The Snowman, When The Wind Blows and Ethel & Ernest, and Talbot, author of Luther Arkwright and Alice in Sunderland, will discuss their work and mark new editions of Briggs’ Gentleman Jim and Talbot’s The Tale of One Bad Rat. Chaired by Rachel Cooke of The Observer.

£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

A series exploring the structures of lived experience and modes of human existence. What can be learned from other people’s experience of things we rarely think about? The seventh event in the series focuses on string: tying, knotting, measuring, adorning, playing. What are the origins of the modest string? Does an illlusionist use string the same way a musician does? Does a physicist think of string in similar terms to an artist?

Speakers include Cornelia Parker, visual artist; Mark Messenger, head of strings at the Royal Academy of Music; David S Berman, reader in theoretical physics at Queen Mary University. Chair: Martine Rouleau, London Consortium.

£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

The sound-world of a piece is a vital part of an artist’s vision for a new work, but how do choreographers choose their music and how do they use it in their work?
Join renowned choreographers Richard Alston and Charlotte Vincent as they reveal something of their very different working methods and give insights into their own individual relationships with music and movement. Facilitated by dance author and archivist Dick McCaw.

With performers from Richard Alston Dance Company and Vincent Dance Theatre.

£7 / Limited Concessions

Dr De Cataldo is a Criminal Court Judge in Rome and a well-known writer of crime fiction. He is the author of ‘Romanzo Criminale’ and co-screenwriter of Michele Placido’s internationally acclaimed film of the same name. This event will begin with a screening of the film followed by a discussion and drinks reception.

Entry is free, but numbers are limited - if you would like to attend please contact Leila Dajani: l.dajani@law.bbk.ac.uk

This symposium brings together a stellar cast of international speakers to explore Mark Rothko’s late work in the context of the 1960s, a time of historic turmoil when the practice of painting was under increasing attack. The speakers explore key issues such as series and seriality, and the existentialist endeavour of Rothko’s late paintings against the rise of Pop art, minimalism and Conceptual art, offering new ways of thinking about one of the most significant artists of the last century.

£20 (£15 concessions), booking recommended

During the first Fluxus event at the ICA, 1962’s Festival of Misfits, it is reported that artist Robin Page kicked his electric guitar off the stage and down the stairs of the Dover Street building and into the street. The July 1966 press release for The Destruction in Art Symposium (at the Africa Centre) announced that: “The main objective of DIAS was to focus attention on the element of destruction in Happenings and other art forms, and to relate this destruction in society.” In January 1964 the ICA was given over to the theme of Violence, while that November Cornelius Cardew warned that “Experimental music is the most DEADLY form of TOTAL ABSTRACTION ever devised… INSTANTLY you will see how to DESTROY ILLUSION AND DRAW ATTENTION TO THE FACTS.”

Can curators and artists draw attention to the ‘facts’ of an often violent world through extreme methods of curation? Is it possible through extreme methods and content to avoid mere spectacle within the gallery? Speakers: artists Stuart Brisley and Mark McGowan; Lauren Wright, curator Long Weekend, Tate Modern; Yasmin Canvin, curator AfterShock: Conflict, Violence and Resolution in Contemporary Art, Sainsbury Centre; artist and novelist Stuart Home. Chair: Dr Dorothée Brill, lecturer and curator.

£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

The internationally acclaimed critic, artist and novelist John Berger is here to talk about his new book, the Booker-longlisted From A To X: A Story in Letters, and about the connection between writing and political resistance. Berger will be in conversation with Geoff Dyer, critic and author of The Ongoing Moment and But Beautiful.

£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

The skeletons in the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition may be hundreds of years old but they have the power to stir living feelings in many of us. How does London feel about its dead bodies? Body-snatching in the 1800s had a huge influence on the development of modern medicine. But what rights does a dead body have today, and how do these rights change over time?

What’s the difference between a skeleton that is 99 years old and a skeleton that is 100 years old? Should we be using the dead at all? What limitations, rules and regulations are in place to mark our use? Join our speakers for a discussion of regulatory, philosophical and historical perspectives on death and dying in the capital.

Free entry (Booking required).