Live panel discussion: Chaired by Isabel de Vasconcellos in conversation with Curator James Putnam, Irving Finkel and The Sinistry
The Sinistry is a creative partnership between contemporary artists Bert Gilbert and Izzet Ers who explore the themes of ritual, myth and altered states of being. Blurring the boundaries between art and fashion, their works involve the use of finely crafted textiles and mixed media.
The Game of Life, their first UK exhibition, proposes that existence is a multi-dimensional game, one in which the rules have been long forgotten or misappropriated. Questioning the mind games we play on others and ourselves, the show references the ancient Egyptian/Indian board games Mehen and Snakes and Ladders.
THE SINISTRY: THE GAME OF LIFE The exhibition curated by James Putnam will be open to public 4 - 7 June from 11 am till 7 pm.
Free booking link here: https://bit.ly/33RzTCC
Sun, 6 June 2021, 17:00 – 19:00 BST
2 Sheep Lane, London E8 4QS
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Isabel de Vasconcellos
Isabel de Vasconcellos is an independent curator and cultural producer. She writes on sculpture, painting, conceptual art, photography and design, and is the author of Fourth Plinth: How London Created the Smallest Sculpture Park in the World.
www.idev-art.com
Irving Finkel
Irving Finkel is a British philologist and Assyriologist. He is currently the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages, and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum, where he specialises in cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia. Finkel studies the history of board games, and is on the Editorial Board of Board Game Studies. Among his breakthrough works is the determination of the rules of the Royal Game of Ur.
About the Curator
James Putnam is an independent curator and writer and Senior Research Fellow: Exhibitions at University of the Arts, London. He studied Art History at London University, was Visiting Scholar in Museum Studies at New York University, and Senior Lecturer in curating at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London (2004-2011). He founded and was curator of the British Museum‟s Contemporary Arts and Cultures Programme from 1999 to 2003. He also curates an ongoing series of critically acclaimed projects with contemporary artists at the Freud Museum, London. His book „Art and Artifact – The Museum as Medium‟ (Thames & Hudson, 2000/10) surveys the interaction between contemporary artists and the museum. Since 1994, he has organised a number of critically-acclaimed exhibitions for major museums, juxtaposing the work of contemporary artists with their collections. In the last decade, he has regularly curated projects for biennials, both in Asia and Venice.
About the Artists
Izzet Ers
Former Creative Director of Hockley (2003 – 2016), Izzet Ers is a graduate of Central St Martins. He has spent the past two decades working and collaborating with British designers such as Christopher Kane, Walid Al Damirji, Roksanda Ilincic, Erdem, Jonathan Saunders, Richard Nicoll, Luella Bartley, Stuart Vevers, Matthew Williamson, Giles Deacon, Clements Ribeiro, and British Heritage brands Purdey’s, Holland & Holland and Hackett.
Bert Gilbert
An award winning British contemporary artist, a first class graduate from Central St Martins (2003) where she formed a subversive art brand, Bert Industries. Gilbert has been prolific across the worlds of art, fashion, film and music as a creative consultant for many brands and bespoke art, design, print, product and installation commissions for private collectors and celebrity clients including : Cara Delevingne, Roisin Murphy, Depeche Mode, Joe Lycett, Dua Lipa, William Orbit, The Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Coco De Mer, Alexander McQueen,Terry De Havilland, Marissa Tomei, David Thewlis, Jet, Sting, Girls Aloud, Bob Geldof, Scissor Sisters, Mark Moore and Howard Marks.
She is an affiliate MAL at UCL and has for the past 7 years alongside her practice taught fine art and textile practice at UCL, UEL, Bedford to name but a few.
Recently supported by the Arts Council of England and The Peruvian Embassy she is producing an immersive sound sculpture using fieldwork made in collaboration with indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon using 3D sound and scanning, collaborating with and expert in psychoacoustics, a neuroscientist and analytical hypnotherapist to create AR healing portals exploring ancient understanding of the heart‟s capacity for sensory perception and cognition.
Gilbert sees the artist as the “sensor” that picks up shared information and feeds it back, via interactions and interventions, to the collective mind; making the invisible, visible.
Her work is currently on show in Shamanism at Galleria Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea, Milan, from 7 May - 2 July 2021.
bertgilbert.co.uk
