Corin Sworn, Talk & Performance, Max Mara Art Prize for Women, Whitechapel Gallery, London

Collezione Maramotti and Whitechapel Gallery announce a special evening of conversation, reading and performance with Corin Sworn, winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. The event forms part of the Glasgow-based artist’s showcase of work currently being created during the prize’s six-month Italian residency. An avid storyteller, Sworn uses drawing, video and installation to explore the assemblage of narrative through an infusion of collected and sometimes random stimulus.

Selected for her proposal inspired by Italian cinema and 16th century Commedia dell’Arte travelling theatre troupes, Sworn will present and perform fragments of her initial research material. Joined by celebrated poet Lisa Robertson, the talk and performance event will bring together personal writings, notes and preliminary ideas, as a means to involve the audience in a collaborative working method. The evening marks the midpoint of Sworn’s Max Mara residency award, and offers a moment to explore the issues inherent in discussing a work in progress – or a work that has not yet been made.

The Max Mara Art Prize for Women, established through a collaboration between Collezione Maramotti and Whitechapel Gallery, reflects Max Mara’s close relationship with the worlds of both women and art. Curated by Iwona Blazwick, Director of Whitechapel Gallery, the bi-annual prize aims to encourage and support emerging women artists who live and work in the UK, which today is one of the centres of the international art scene. The award offers the recipient an opportunity for further development through a commission of new work to be realised during a residency in Italy.

Sworn herself has completed three months in Rome and continues her residency at the recently restored Museo dell’Arte Contemporanea, located in a beautiful 19th century palazzo in Naples where the Commedia dell’Arte once flourished through forms of street theatre. Sworn will finalise her residency period at the Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice, before returning to the UK for the unveiling of the her completed artwork at the Whitechapel Gallery and later, at the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia.

Corin Sworn, Max Mara Art Prize for Women, Talk and Performance, 20 November, Whitechapel Gallery (Creative Studio), London, E1 7QX.

For further information, visit www.collezionemaramotti.org and www.whitechapelgallery.org.

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Credits
1. Corin Sworn, Temporal Arrangements (2010). Courtesy of Corin Sworn.