Whitworth Studies aims to encourage and support a wide range of research projects between the Whitworth and Art History and Visual Studies (AHVS), artists, other parts of the University of Manchester, and visiting researchers from other universities. This research activity will result in exhibitions, conferences, lecture series, events, performances, and research on the Whitworth’s collections.
Internationally recognised researchers, from the University of Manchester and beyond, will give public lectures and presentations of many kinds, as well as artists talking about their work.
Whitworth Studies will also encourage experimental encounters with research and experimental forms of presenting research as a signature aspect of its public programme.
The Whitworth Studies programme is designed to appeal to the highly engaged Whitworth public; students with interests in visual culture; researchers at all levels who want to stage or present research on visual culture; and the wider art community of Manchester and the North West.
ART X MAGIC
30 March, 5.30pm. Free
Study evening including:
Lucy Stein: NEO-PAGAN BITCH-WITCH!
and Dr Charlie F.B. Miller: Mapping Magic in Contemporary Art
This study evening examines the turn to magic and occultism in twenty-first-century art. Artist, Lucy Stein will discuss the exhibition she co-curated in 2016, NEO-PAGAN BITCH-WITCH!, speaking to her own and other artists’ engagements with the politics and poetics of magic and witchcraft. Dr Charlie F.B. Miller of the University of Manchester will survey the magical turn in contemporary art, locating current trends in a genealogy of modern and postmodern practices.
Lucy Stein is an artist based in St Just, UK. In 2016 she co-curated, with France-Lise McGurn, NEO-PAGAN BITCH-WITCH, at the Evelyn Yard Gallery, London. In 2015 she completed a residency at Tate St Ives, UK, which culminated in a collaborative musical performance titled The Wise Wound. Recent solo exhibitions include On Heat at Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, Schwaz?/?Tirol, Austria; Moonblood/Bloodmoon at Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich, Switzerland; Big Farmer at Piper Keys, London, UK; and Retention (alongside Shana Moulton) at Gimpel Fils, London. Squirming the Worm, a radio show presented by Stein’s alter ego Coco de Moll and produced by artist Simon Bayliss, is broadcast fortnightly on NTS.
Dr Charlie F.B. Miller is Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the University of Manchester. He is the author of numerous essays and articles about the history and theory of the historical and neo-avant-gardes. His book Radical Picasso: History, Theory, Avant-Garde, is forthcoming with University of California Press.
Image: NEO-PAGAN-BITCH-WITCH! Installation View ©Evelyn Yard, Photographed by Tom Carter
