Mark Sladen, the ICA’s Director of Exhibitions, will give an introduction to the Peter Hujar Exhibition.

Free entry.

‘Liquid Modernity’ and consumerism are reshaping individual life? In response how might we create new kinds of ethical values and forms of pleasure.
Zygmunt Bauman, Jo Littler, Hari Kunzru, Tony Blackshaw (chair)

£15. Booking essential.

The brain is not a passive chronicler of events, but an active participant in their creation. The lecture will discuss various forms of art which give the brain the maximum opportunity to create many different interpretations of a single happening. Presented by Professor Semir Zeki FRS, Professor of Neurobiology at University College London.

£5. Book in advance.

The second of the ICA 60th Anniversary talks, organised in association with the London Consortium.

The postwar era fundamentally altered the way in which the public interacted with art. One of the most visible changes was the emergence of the artist from studio to exhibition space. Key exhibitions of the late 50s, such as This is Tomorrow (Whitechapel, 1956) and Parallel of Life and Art (ICA, 1953) saw artists and architects collaborating on exhibition stands and curatorial models.

Many questions remain unanswered: is there a fundamental difference of position between artist and curator? Do we need curators at all? Should the curator be considered an artist?

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

Curating Fictions invites artists, curators and writers to present a piece of fiction that has had a theoretical or practical influence on their work. In his talk Fictional Structures in Curating - Dogville and the Time-Image, Rene Zechlin, Curator for Contemporary Art, Glucksman Gallery, Cork discusses the impact on his thinking of Lars von Trier’s film Dogville and Cinema 2: The Time-Image by philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

£7/5 concessions and Whitechapel Members

Join Grayson Perry, renowned ceramicist and winner of the Turner Prize in 2003, as he talks about his personal responses to Parasol unit’s current exhibition Secret for Snow Leopard: Yutaka Sone. Expect some insightful and honest responses to the works on display, followed by some discussion in the gallery.

Booking is essential: Tickets £5/£3

In the light of the recent publication of Eye Rhymes, a book of largely unseen paintings and sketches by Sylvia Plath and new essays by Plath scholars, this evening revisits the great poet’s life and work, focusing on the relationship between the visual and verbal.

Poet Adam O’Riordan joins rapper and star of Michael Winterbottom’s documentary The Road to Guantanamo Rizwan Ahmed, National Theatre multimedia designer Mark Grimmer and award-winning playwright and actor Elisabeth Gray. Chair: Sally Bayley of Jesus College, Oxford.

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