Home
Talks
Bridget Riley: The Art of Perception
Bridget Riley: The Art of Perception
Discover the origins and evolution of Bridget Riley's spectacular practice with Dr Cliff Lauson, Senior Curator at the Hayward Gallery, London.
Lauson charts Riley's oeuvre from her accomplished early sketches rendering the figure, to the painterly lessons she learned from the works of pointillist Georges Seurat, to her seismic break with representation into dazzling abstraction. Lauson also gives insight into the artist's working methods, exploring how Riley hones the patterns of her compositions to give precise optical effect, for ultimately 'perception itself is the medium that she's working through'.
Time Period:
Various
Themes:
Dr Cliff Lauson is Senior Curator at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London. Since arriving as Curator at the Hayward in 2009, he has organised major exhibitions of work by Bridget Riley, Martin Creed, Ernesto Neto, Tracey Emin, and David Shrigley and the critically-acclaimed group exhibitions Light Show and Space Shifters. In addition, he has curated numerous exhibitions of artists in the HENI Project Space, including Dineo Seshee Bopape, Emmanuelle Lainé, Kate Cooper, and Adapt to Survive: Notes from the Future.
Cliff was a 2015-6 Fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme, and undertook the secondment component of his fellowship at Industrial Light & Magic, London. He was previously Assistant Curator at Tate Modern, working on exhibitions such as Frida Kahlo, Mark Rothko, Per Kirkeby, and World as a Stage. Prior to moving to London in 2004, Cliff was Education and Public Programmes Coordinator at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Cliff currently serves on the British Council Collection Acquisitions Advisory Committee, is a trustee of Film and Video Umbrella, and a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. He is also a trained life and executive coach.
Watch More
Watch More
10:22
Dazzled! How a British artist transformed the seas of WWI
Dr James Fox tells us how artist Norman Wilkinson came up with a dazzling solution to protect Britain’s navy from the enemy in WWI.
11:45
David Batchelor: The Fear of Colour
Are you a chromophobe? Artist David Batchelor discusses the fear of colour which lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought.
14:06
The Great East Window: Brian Clarke
A history and personal reflection of the stained glass Great East Window of York Minster.
10:22
Dazzled! How a British artist transformed the seas of WWI
Dr James Fox tells us how artist Norman Wilkinson came up with a dazzling solution to protect Britain’s navy from the enemy in WWI.
11:45
David Batchelor: The Fear of Colour
Are you a chromophobe? Artist David Batchelor discusses the fear of colour which lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought.
14:06
The Great East Window: Brian Clarke
A history and personal reflection of the stained glass Great East Window of York Minster.
4:23
What is: Abstract Expressionism?
What does an Abstract Expressionist painting look like? Eleanor Nairne unpacks some of the aspects of this divergent movement.
15:04
Paul McCarthy: ‘All for the Gut’
Can you stomach Paul McCarthy’s art? Critic Robert Storr makes the case that McCarthy is the ‘critical grotesque’ heir of much canonical satire, drawing comparisons to François Rabelais and James Gillray’s provocations.
12:20
William Morris: Useful Beauty in the Home
Discover the radical politics of interior design in the Arts & Crafts movement.