Passages and surroundings: Rosemary Mayer rewrites art history

This talk looks at two artist-made books by the American artist Rosemary Mayer (1943-2014) created after her first and only trip to Europe in 1975. Entitled 'Passages' (1976) and 'Surroundings' (1977), these works reference paintings in the National Gallery’s collection, which she encountered while visiting London. These artist-books are part of Mayer’s broader interests in the perception of time and the construction of history. While in her sculpture and paintings Mayer often responded to the forms of earlier Baroque and Mannerist religious art, in these artist-books she aimed to explore cycles of time: both our immediate daily cycles and longer-term ideas of presence and loss over an entire lifetime. The talk proposes that we might see these works as interventions in how art’s history should be understood and written.

The seminar will conclude with a one hour drinks reception.