The RIBA + Grimshaw Annual Art Lecture brings together the interdisciplinary worlds of art and architecture, celebrating artists from around the world and their relationship with the built environment.
Launched by RIBA in partnership with the Grimshaw Foundation, this annual series supports the aspirations of the two organisations, creating opportunities for young people from diverse backgrounds to access the world of art, design, and architecture, helping forge more inclusive creative futures.
The 2024 Annual Art Lecture will be given by Guyanese-British sculptor Hew Locke, followed by a conversation and questions with writer and curator, Ekow Eshun.
The event is open to RIBA members and the public, and actively encourages students and teachers from schools, colleges and community organisations to join the evening.
Hew Lock, Keynote
Locke was born in Edinburgh, UK, in 1959; lived from 1966 to 1980 in Georgetown, Guyana; and is currently based in London. Locke explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time. These explorations have led Locke to a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space in his deeply layered artworks.
Ekow Eshun, Chair
Ekow Eshun is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth, overseeing the foremost public art programme in the UK, and the former Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Described by Vogue as “the most inspired - and inspiring - curator in Britain”, his most recent museum exhibition is The Time Is Always Now, a landmark study of the Black figure and its representation in contemporary art, currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
