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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.


Exhibition & Preview

The discussion is followed by a drinks reception and exhibition launch of Hamad Butt: Apprehensions curated by Dominic Johnson, and co-curated with Seán Kissane (IMMA) and Gilane Tawadros (Whitechapel Gallery), and is organised in cooperation with Jamal Butt. A publication accompanies the exhibition

Hamad Butt, Apprehensions
06 Dec 2024–05 May 2025 / Garden Galleries
IMMA presents the first retrospective exhibition of the work of ground-breaking artist Hamad Butt (1962-1994). It is the first time any of his works have been shown outside of England. Born in Pakistan, and raised in London, he was British South Asian, Muslim by upbringing, and queer. A contemporary of the Young British Artists, critics described him as epitomizing the new ‘hazardism’ in art.

The exhibition will travel to the Whitechapel Gallery, London, from 11 June – 7 September 2025. Further details here


About Speakers

Dominic Johnson
Dominic Johnson is Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London. He has programmed and curated events and exhibitions at venues including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Courtauld Institute of Art and Whitechapel Gallery. He is the author of four books including Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (2019) and the editor of five books including Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013). His research has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Fulbright US-UK Commission, Leverhulme Trust, Terra Foundation for American Art, Arts Council England and Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art. His writings have appeared in Art Journal, Art History, Burlington Contemporary and Frieze and he is a regular contributor to Art Monthly. More details here

Gilane Tawadros
Gilane Tawadros is the Director of the Whitechapel Gallery. She was formerly Chief Executive of DACS and Co-Director of the Art360 Foundation. She was the founding Director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) in London, chaired by Professor Stuart Hall, which, over a decade, achieved an international reputation as a ground-breaking cultural agency at the leading edge of artistic and cultural debates nationally and internationally. She has written extensively on contemporary art and curated a number of international exhibitions.

She has worked with and advised a number of leading international cultural organisations including Tate, Hayward Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, International Foundation Manifesta, Venice Biennial and Forum for African Arts. She is Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation, Trustee of the Stuart Croft Foundation and Member of the Advisory Committee for the Yale Center for British Art. Her anthology The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference was published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
More details here

Seán Kissane
Seán Kissane is Curator of Exhibitions at IMMA. His ‘Modern Masters Series’ aims to bypass the art market, radicalise the canon of modernism, encourage a critical historiography and propose a porous relationship with history and includes curated retrospectives for Leonora Carrington (2013), Derek Jarman (2019) and Mary Swanzy (2018). Contemporary projects include Alice Maher and Isaac Julien and project exhibitions with Shahzia Sikander, Romuald Hazoumè and Alan Phelan. In 2021, he curated the major group show Queer Embodiment, as part of IMMA’s 30th anniversary; and he was lead curator of Self-Determination: A Global Perspective (2023–24). His writing has been published by IMMA, DAP, Charta, Thames & Hudson, Irish Arts Review and other publications.


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