An in-depth exploration of abstract art over the last 100 years, unpacking the four themes of the exhibition Adventures of the Black Square: Utopia, Architectonics, Communication & the Everyday.

Charting a chronological path through abstraction, two days of presentations and conversations explore the concept’s beginnings in the work of Kazimir Malevich, its global dissemination through the technologies of photography and graphic design, its political implications and its unravelling across multiple geographies.

Day 1 serves to give an art historical introduction, discussing abstraction and its ideals, from 1915 through the post-war period. Speakers include: Tanya Barson, Curator, Tate; artist Tam Giles; Tom McDonough, Professor in Art History, Binghamton University, New York; and artist Hassan Sharif, among others.

Day 2 considers the evolution of abstraction after Modernism, exploring its relationship to performance, its shifting politics and the ways in which contemporary society can be understood as increasingly abstracted. Speakers include: artist Doug Ashford; artist David Batchelor; Adrienne Edwards, Associate Curator, Performa; Briony Fer, Professor of Art History, University College London; artist Peter Halley; Maria Lind, Director of Tensta Konsthall; Jiang Jiehong, Director of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts, Birmingham City University; and artist Melanie Smith, among others.

Organised in collaboration with Centre for the Study of Contemporary Art at UCL.

13-14 March