Join us for a Public Talk on Hamad Butt’s Life, Work, and Lasting Influence
Hamad Butt (1962-1994) was a ground breaking artist whose poignant installations continue to resonate with audiences today. His work is critically regarded as one of the most sophisticated responses in British art to HIV/AIDS.
Talk & Responses
IMMA Talks presents a timely discussion to coincide with the first retrospective exhibition, Hamad Butt: Apprehensions, organised by IMMA and Whitechapel Gallery, London. Leading scholars and curators reflect on Butt’s pioneering practice that span intermedia interventions in art and science, conceptual sculpture, installation, and queer diasporic art. His sculptures and installations address the AIDS epidemic with conceptual rigor and symbolism.
The event includes a keynote talk by guest curator Dominic Johnson, Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London. Gilane Tawadros, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Seán Kissane, Curator of Exhibitions at IMMA, will provide responses. Our special guests will discuss key works from the exhibition, explore Butt’s unrealised installations, and give in-depth consideration to the artist’s enduring relevance in the face of today’s ongoing struggles around health, identity, racial difference, and social justice.
Resisting singular categorisation as queer, Asian, or Islamic art, Butt’s compelling work offers a powerful lens on the intersections of art, identity, desire, and mortality. This talk and discussion will examine how Butt’s unique engagements with scientific knowledge, the supernatural, and the deeply personal set him apart from his Young British Artist peers and forged a new ‘hazardism’ in art. We share insight on the ways Butt’s work continues to challenge and expand the boundaries of contemporary British art in the 1980s and 1990s, and look at the factors that contributed to his lack of recognition until recently.
