To celebrate the opening of Richard Hunt’s exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey, art historian, critic, and curator Mark Godfrey will join Richard Hunt's biographer, Jon Ott, in conversation from the gallery.
Together, they will discuss Richard Hunt’s exhibition, ‘Metamorphosis – A Retrospective’ and 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 was 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 Foundation Vincent van Gogh, Arles, Nicole Eisenman at Whitechapel Gallery, London, Pino Pascali at the Fondazione Prada, Milan, and Jacqueline Humphries at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. He is currently working on Kerry James Marshall: The Histories for the Royal Academy.
Jon Ott is the official biographer for 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, traveling to see art and visit friends. For the artist's monograph, Richard Hunt, Jon interviewed Hunt for over one hundred hours, producing a comprehensive illustrated chronology of the artist’s life.
Jon writes and speaks on Hunt's life and art, including appearances at the Chicago History Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM). Recently, he authored an essay, "Richard Hunt: Sculpting Freedom," for the ALPLM exhibition ‘Richard Hunt: Freedom in Form’, and was the exhibition advisor for ‘Richard Hunt: Early Masterworks’ at White Cube New York and ‘Richard Hunt: Metamorphosis – A Retrospective’ at White Cube Bermondsey in London. Jon 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. Jon is featured in the documentary film The Light of Truth: Richard Hunt’s Monument to Ida B. Wells 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.
