A central and inspirational figure, Anne Bean, born in Zambia, is intentionally a difficult artist to categorise. Since the early 70’s, this ‘uncatchability’ has been a purposefully created strategy to question style, consistency, career and categorisation itself. Morphing between numerous contexts, materials, media, collaborations, ideologies and manifestations she challenged herself to follow a trajectory that allowed for fluid, direct and dynamic response, resulting in a huge range of solo and collaborative projects as well as curatorial enterprises worldwide. This range is apparent just from work within the last year, including performances at Whitechapel Gallery, Unlimited Action, Cooper Gallery, Dundee, Of Other Spaces, Humber St Gallery, Hull, City of Culture, Tempting Failure Festival, 5 Duets with Strangers, London Shuffle Festival, Waking the Dead (with Richard Wilson), Green Culture, Montenegro and exhibiting in group shows in Photo London, Bank Space Gallery, London, Sidney Nolan Trust, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York, Foundacion Joan Miro, Barcelona, DZIALDOV, Berlin, light/sound installations in Auckland Festival and a solo exhibition and performance/lecture EMIT at Coleman Project Space, Bermondsey.
In Anne’s book Autobituary, the writer, Guy Brett captures this scope and reach:
“Reading Anne Bean’s CV is like following a continuous performance, a continuous response to the world… a ‘magicification’ of the world. The panoply of places she has worked, times of the day or night, interiors, exteriors, seasons, publics, materials, concepts, tools, is astonishing: all shifting but all attuned to unique situation.”
Since 2014, the ICA has collaborated with The Contemporary Art Research Centre at Kingston University, London to host the Stanley Picker Public Lectures on Art. The programme was established in 2007 by the artist Elizabeth Price to provide a platform for prominent contemporary artists and thinkers to present their ideas and work to a public audience.
The Stanley Picker Public Lectures are kindly supported by the Stanley Picker Trust.