Our 48th "Pilk"
Our 48th "Pilk"
Our 48th "Pilk"
Our 48th "Pilk"
The Pilkington Lecture and Dinner is one of the annual highlights of the Friends of the Whitworth Calendar, and this year was no exception. In the past the Friends have played host to a variety of artists and writers, including Grayson Perry, Edmund de Waal, Melvyn Bragg, Andrew Graham Dixon and Tim Marlow, to name only a few. This year it was the turn of the curator, as we invited Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern, to step up to the Pilkington rostrum.
Frances has been instrumental in developing the Tate Modern into the internationally acclaimed institution which we know today, working in a variety of curatorial roles, prior to her appointment as the Museum’s first woman Director in 2016. She was amongst those who broke with the traditional sequential hang, and introduced a thematic approach, which raised new and interesting questions about works in the gallery’s collection. She has also curated landmark exhibitions, many of which were large-scale international collaborations, including three major retrospectives of women artists including Louise Bourgeois in 2007, Yayoi Kusama in 2012, and Agnes Martin in 2015.
Frances’ lecture lived up to all our expectations. Taking as her theme “Safe spaces for Unsafe Ideas” she traced, through her own career, and the history of curatorial practice, the many ways in which the art gallery has opened itself up over the years so that “the keeper” of the past (this was Frances’ first job title!) has become the enabler of today. She described for us her encounter with Dora Maar, muse to Picasso, and shared her terror, when as a young curator, she was sent off to interview Louise Bourgeois who, many years later, was to become the first artist commissioned to make a work for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Lots of food for thought-and, as usual, the Modern Caterer matched this level of excellence in The Whitworth’s Cafe in the Park.
Onward to the 49th "Pilk"!
The Pilkington Lecture and Dinner is one of the annual highlights of the Friends of the Whitworth Calendar, and this year was no exception. In the past the Friends have played host to a variety of artists and writers, including Grayson Perry, Edmund de Waal, Melvyn Bragg, Andrew Graham Dixon and Tim Marlow, to name only a few. This year it was the turn of the curator, as we invited Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern, to step up to the Pilkington rostrum.
Frances has been instrumental in developing the Tate Modern into the internationally acclaimed institution which we know today, working in a variety of curatorial roles, prior to her appointment as the Museum’s first woman Director in 2016. She was amongst those who broke with the traditional sequential hang, and introduced a thematic approach, which raised new and interesting questions about works in the gallery’s collection. She has also curated landmark exhibitions, many of which were large-scale international collaborations, including three major retrospectives of women artists including Louise Bourgeois in 2007, Yayoi Kusama in 2012, and Agnes Martin in 2015.
Frances’ lecture lived up to all our expectations. Taking as her theme “Safe spaces for Unsafe Ideas” she traced, through her own career, and the history of curatorial practice, the many ways in which the art gallery has opened itself up over the years so that “the keeper” of the past (this was Frances’ first job title!) has become the enabler of today. She described for us her encounter with Dora Maar, muse to Picasso, and shared her terror, when as a young curator, she was sent off to interview Louise Bourgeois who, many years later, was to become the first artist commissioned to make a work for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Lots of food for thought-and, as usual, the Modern Caterer matched this level of excellence in The Whitworth’s Cafe in the Park.
Onward to the 49th "Pilk"!
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