My inability to express myself is astounding.

(Mary Ruefle, ‘Lullaby’)

On the occasion of the opening of her exhibition Sampler, join us for an in conversation between artist Aleana Egan and writer and arts educator, Vivian Sky Rehberg.

The in conversation will take place in conjunction with the Preview of Sampler on 4 February. The talk between Aleana and Vivian begins the evening, and starts at 5.30pm. The Preview ends at 8pm.

 

Speaker biographies

Vivian Sky Rehberg is an art writer, researcher and art educator living in Brussels. She is Senior Research Lecturer at the Willem de Kooning Academy-Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and an associate of RASL (Rotterdam Arts and Sciences Lab). Vivian’s primary areas of focus have been shaped by lifelong encounters with artists and creative practitioners alongside the interdisciplinary study of modern and contemporary art. Vivian has published widely on modern and contemporary art and was a contributing editor and freelance correspondent for frieze magazine for over a decade.

Vivian’s current research interests include the psychology of aesthetics and aesthetic experience, aesthetic emotions and emotional labor, and how emotions are normalized, socialized, shared, inhibited, or communicated within communities of practice and among viewers-receivers-participants.

Vivian is on the advisory board of Yellow Brick, an artist-run space in Athens, and she also participates in the Word and Image Research Group at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. She has been a frequent assessor, juror, external examiner, mentor, and advisor for art academies, residencies, cultural initiatives and venues. Vivian continues to explore writing as a practice, and is an avid cook, gardener, and walker

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Aleana Egan uses a variety of materials to create sculptural gestures and installations which can take the form of slender, fluid works and a more densely concentrated constellation of forms. Often, the sculptures are expressive whilst using a language of materials and artistic technique that is sparing.

These materials, such as various metals, cardboard, concrete, wood, pigment and fabric, are incorporated into a practice which comes from an intuitive as well as an intellectual place and which plays with the materials’ qualities; how they curve, hang or sag. More recently works are made up of constituent parts, each forming a social relationship with the other.