British artist Thomas J. Price’s works All In, 2021 and Reaching Out, 2020, draw from Classical sculptural traditions and highlight the lack of people of colour represented in public monuments and statues while also empowering underrepresented voices and figures to be experienced through the scale and technical precision of his monumental sculptures. Thomas J. Price joins NGV Curator Amita Kirpalani in conversation to address the ways his work prompt audiences to contemplate their own socially-conditioned attitudes and perceptions.
About the speakers:
Thomas J Price has rapidly become one of the most important British contemporary artists of his generation. His multidisciplinary practice confronts preconceived attitudes towards representation and identity, foregrounding the intrinsic value of the individual and subverting structures of hierarchy. After studying at Chelsea College of Art, he completed his MA at the Royal College of Art, London. In 2021, Price was commissioned by Hackney Council in London to create the first permanent public sculptures to celebrate the contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants in the UK, unveiled in June 2022. Price’s solo presentation, ‘Witness’, at The Studio Museum, Harlem, New York was on view in Marcus Garvey Park from 2021–2022. In 2023, Price unveils new projects with the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and The National Portrait Gallery, London, alongside a new solo exhibition, Beyond Measure at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles.
Amita Kirpalani is Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria.