To celebrate the opening of ‘Richard Hunt: Metamorphosis – A Retrospective’, an exhibition dedicated to the late American sculptor at White Cube Bermondsey, art historian and curator Mark Godfrey will join Hunt’s biographer, Jon Ott, in conversation.
Together, they will discuss the exhibition, which marks both the first posthumous retrospective and the first major European presentation of Hunt’s work, and reflect on his legacy as one of the foremost American sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Mark Godfrey is co-director of New Curators, a one-year curatorial training programme for international curators from lower socio-economic backgrounds. He served as Senior Curator, International Art at Tate Modern from 2007-2021. Since leaving Tate, he has curated exhibitions of Laura Owens and Vincent van Gogh at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh, Arles, France; Nicole Eisenman at Whitechapel Gallery, London, Pino Pascali at the Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy, and Jacqueline Humphries at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. He is currently working on the forthcoming survey exhibition ‘Kerry James Marshall: The Histories’ for the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Jon Ott is the official biographer of Richard Hunt and was a close friend of the artist. He is a founding board member of the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation and chair emeritus of the International Sculpture Center. Over the past several decades, Jon has spent countless hours with Hunt in his studios and on the road, travelling to see art and visit friends. For the artist's monograph, Richard Hunt, (Gregory Miller & Co., 2022), Ott conducted over one hundred hours of interviews with the artist, producing a comprehensive, illustrated chronology of his life.
Jon writes and speaks regularly on Hunt's life and art, with appearances at the Chicago History Museum, Illinois; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas; and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM), Springfield, Illinois. Recently, he authored the essay, ‘Richard Hunt: Sculpting Freedom’, for the ALPLM exhibition ‘Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt’ (2024–25), and served as exhibition advisor for ‘Richard Hunt: Early Masterworks’ at White Cube New York (2024) and ‘Richard Hunt: Metamorphosis – A Retrospective’ at White Cube Bermondsey in London (2025). He is currently writing for Richard Hunt: Synthesis, an exhibition catalogue by the Georgia Museum of Art, and 820 Ebony/Jet: Visions of an African American Icon, The Johnson Publishing Company. Ott is featured in the documentary film The Light of Truth: Richard Hunt’s Monument to Ida B. Wells (2024) and is an advising producer of the forthcoming documentary Richard Hunt: A Monumental Life.
The talk will start promptly at 5.30 pm and will be followed by an exhibition preview at 6.30 pm.
Please note that this event is now at capacity.
