Edward Woodman: The Documentation of Contemporary Art in Transition
18 January 2019, Southampton City Art Gallery in partnership with John Hansard Gallery
Event documentation © Benjamin Grace, City Eye
Edward Woodman: The Documentation of Contemporary British Art in Transition was a day symposium at Southampton City Art Gallery, organised collaboratively between Art360 Foundation and John Hansard Gallery.
The symposium explored themes of visibility, ephemerality and cultural memory present in Edward Woodman’s photographs, which document the art and artists of a key era in British art. Our expert speakers will investigate shifting approaches to art documentation from 1979 to1999, and the ways in which photographic records have shaped perceptions of history and the art of the present.
The symposium coincided with the first retrospective of Edward Woodman’s seminal photographs at John Hansard Gallery, ‘Space, Light and Time: Edward Woodman, A Retrospective’, and the publication of ‘Edward Woodman: The Artist’s Eye’. The monograph was produced in collaboration between Art360 Foundation, John Hansard Gallery and Art/Books, and was made possible through the Paul Mellon Centre, Arts Council funding and individual donors.
Edward Woodman is one of the most significant photographers in the history of contemporary art in Britain. Throughout the 80s’ and 90s’ Woodman was the go-to person for art documentation by renowned artists including Damien Hirst, Cornelia Parker and Anya Gallaccio. In our recent documentary of Edward Woodman, produced by David Bickerstaff, Richard Wilson and other key British artists attest to Woodman’s technical finesse and exceptional sensitivity to documenting complex works of art. Watch the documentary, nominated for the 2018 AHRC Research in Film Awards, here.
Event Documentation
Dr. Jo Melvin, Director of the Estate of Barry Flanagan, and Professor of Fine Art & Feminisms, Chelsea College of Art
Key note speech: Why curators need documentation
Artists, Imogen Stidworthy and David Ward
The image and the artwork
Hugo Glendinning, Photographer
Why artists need documentation
Artists, Keith Piper, Erika Tan, and Lois Keidan, Formerly Director of Lada
The value of the archive and the organisation of visibility
Samantha Ismail Epps, Researcher and Lecturer in Art History, Norwich University of the Arts
The image, the gallery and artist books
Jo Bushnell, Director, Aspex Gallery
Woodrow Kernohan, Director, John Hansard Gallery
Guy Moreton, Associate Professor of Photography and Visual Arts, Solent University, Southampton
Documentation, archives and institutional memory