IMMA is delighted to present this keynote lecture by renowned writer and curator Mark Godfrey in response to the IMMA exhibition – Wolfgang Tillmans, Rebuilding the Future. Godfrey surveys Tillmans’ distinctive approach to photography, connecting the forms of Tillmans’ work to his political concerns, relating Tillmans’ abstract photographs to his understanding of social and economic realities, and exploring his approach to exhibitions and publications.
Tracing the significance of Tillmans’ work within the wider history of contemporary art practice, Godfrey examines ideas that inform the artist’s worldview of community, sociability, empathy and vulnerability in dealing with some of the most pressing issues regarding our social life and the role of the artist. This lecture draws on Godfrey’s extensive research / writing on Tillmans’ work in relation to the major exhibition, 2017 at the Tate Modern.
Mark Godfrey is an art historian, art critic, and is currently Senior Curator (International Art) at Tate Modern. He has curated major exhibitions there including Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (2017), the Turbine Hall commission by Abraham Cruzvillegas, and retrospectives of Roni Horn, Francis Alys, Alighiero E Boetti, Richard Hamilton, Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke. He won the Absolut Prize for Art Criticism in 2015 and was a jury member in the Venice Biennial in 2017. He has contributed regularly to frieze, OCTOBER, Artforum and other publications.
Read more of Godfrey’s writing here.