Bridget Riley Symposium

To mark the occasion of Bridget Riley: Perceptual Abstraction, this one-day online symposium seeks to generate new scholarship by recontextualizing and interrogating the impact of transatlantic and international experiences and relationships on the artist’s practice. Riley has long advocated for the primacy of the subjective painting experience, recalling that the post-war interest in perception was international and dynamic with markedly similar works of art being produced on either side of the Atlantic. At the center were Riley’s paintings, privileging the sensorial act of viewing. 

Schedule:
Welcome, 9:45–10am
Courtney J. Martin, Paul Mellon Director of the Yale Center for British Art.

First panel session, 10am–12pm
Chair: Jemma Field, Associate Director of Research at the Yale Center for British Art.
Respondent: James Meyer (Yale BA 1984), Curator of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
10–10:20am: Laura Bruni, Assistant Curator, Tate Liverpool, “The Flowering of Abstract Art and Bridget Riley’s Work in Dialogue with Abstract Italian Art.”
10:20–10:40am: Richard Johns, Senior Lecturer in History of Art, University of York, “Riley and the Masters.”
10:40–11am: Eva Díaz, Associate Professor, Department of the History of Art and Design, Pratt Institute, “The Moiré Effect and the Eye’s Mind.”
11–11:20am: Frances Follin, Independent Scholar, ”Creating a Sense of Ease and Movement: Bridget Riley’s Hospital Decorations.”
11:20–12pm: Q&A.

Second panel session, 1:30–3pm
Chair: Jemma Field
Respondent: James Meyer 
1:30–1:50pm: Rachel Stratton, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Yale Center for British Art, “Beyond Op: Bridget Riley in the USA.”
1:50–2:10pm: Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani, Lecturer in History of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, “Nature as Event.”
2:10–2:30pm: Pia Gottschaller, Senior Lecturer, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, “Bridget Riley and the Americas.”
2:30–3pm: Q&A.

Keynote conversation, 3:30–5pm
Anoka Faruqee (Yale BA 1994), Professor and Co-Director of Graduate Studies, Painting and Printmaking, Yale School of Art, and Pamela Lee (Yale BA 1988), Carnegie Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, Department of the History of Art, Yale University; moderated by Molleen Theodore, Associate Curator of Programs, Yale University Art Gallery.

Please visit our website for more information. If you have any questions, please contact the Research Department: ycba.research [​at​] yale.edu