the Roberts Institute of Art

Osman Yousefzada’s poem, 'Untitled (for Prem)', is written in response to Prem Sahib’s 'User_01' (2016), a panel of black aluminium covered with drops of resin that look like sweat and moisture, smudged in one part as if by a hand. The work’s eroticism, inspired by the sweaty walls of clubs, is framed by Yousefzada’s evocation of memory, longing and sensuality.

Marina Warner’s 'Pentimento' is written in response to Paula Rego’s drawing in pencil and conte, 'St Mary of Egypt' (2011) and tells the story of the little-known saint from fragments of reports of those who knew and remembered her. Knowing Rego’s love of storytelling and character studies, Warner has written a fictional account of a professor who has discovered Rego’s drawing and has pieced together memories of the saint gathered from a fictional fourth-century palimpsest she is researching from the city of Fustat (old Cairo).

Heather Phillipson’s 'The Creeps' is written in response to Emma Talbot’s 'How the Web was Woven' (2009), an acrylic on canvas work with a variety of vignettes, spider webs, texts and mysterious figures. Reflecting the haunting, unsettling atmosphere in Talbot’s painting, Phillipson considers how an artwork can never be fully understood or described, but is something we can continually think with and learn from.

Julie Ezelle Patton’s 'Three Phases of Eva, 1965' is written in response to Eva Hesse’s 'Three' (1965), a triptych of gouache and oil on paper collage. Patton takes Hesse’s triptych and title to structure the poem in three, imaginatively exploring Hesse's name, work and life, from Patton's first memory of hearing the artist’s name to once assisting Hesse’s partner, artist Tom Doyle. For Patton, the encounter with this work becomes a point of departure to play with language just as Hesse experimented with materials, and to reflect on acts of violence, from Hesse’s experience of fleeing from Nazi Germany in her childhood, to current events today.

Imani Mason Jordan’s '1:1' is written in response to Ellen Gallagher’s 'Untitled' (2005). Gallagher’s intimate work shows two silhouetted figures etched onto a gold leaf background. The figures, posed as if in conversation, recall nineteenth-century portraits of authors found in narratives of slave emancipation. Jordan’s couplets of words and sounds, pulsing and intimate, fragmentary and accumulative, reflects Gallagher’s own process of gathering, erasing, cutting and collaging materials.

Renee Gladman’s 'All These Not-Places for Wandering' is written in response to Ayan Farah’s 'Stardust' (2011), a work dyed and bleached by UV light and painted with acrylic paint. Gladman approaches the work and the project of writing about it questioningly. Taking the encounter with the work as one of ‘wandering’ through it, Gladman follows the different lines of thought that Farah's atmospheric work prompts, reflecting on the relationship between thinking, seeing and sensing.

In this podcast, we invited Liliane Lijn, whose work is featured in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection to choose a piece from the collection as a starting point for a conversation. Liliane describes her early encounters with Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work and its impact on her practice. The conversation explores her own fascination with industrial structures, the role of fantasy and imagination in design and how she has experimented with light in her work.

In this podcast, artist Valerie Asiimwe Amani discusses her first live performance 'To dismantle a house' which was jointly commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and South London Gallery and presented in June 2022.

Dora García is an artist who often draws on interactivity and performance in her work. At our 2008 Evening of Performances, García performed 'The Game of Questions', a performance that blurred boundaries between spectator and performer.

In this edition of On Collections, she chose Ida Applebroog’s 'A Performance', (1977-1981) which sparks a discussion about reading and performance, marginality and collaboration.

DJ and producer, Nkisi, aka Melika Ngombe Kolongo, who was commissioned as part of the 2017 Evening of Performances, invited artist and choreographer Tiran Willemse, to chat about performance, their collaborations, and their most recent work (bb), which looks at the structures of support and maintenance from the theatre.