Royal Academy Of Arts

This conversation with painter Timothy Hyman RA explores Green’s career from the 1960s to the present day, focusing on his new exhibition at the RA; the centrepiece of which is a never-before-shown painting telling the story of Green’s mother’s second marriage, seen through his eyes as a 13-year-old boy. The paintings of Anthony Green RA are immediately recognisable from their characteristically irregular shapes and the artist’s acutely personal choice of subject matter; his work has been a fixture in the Academy’s Summer Exhibition for the last 50 years.

In this exclusive joint appearance, leading stars of stage and screen Siân Phillips and Eileen Atkins read selected works of exceptional Russian literature. The readings conclude with a Q&A chaired by Pin Drop founder Simon Oldfield.

New York-based practice Hollwich Kushner / HWKN put people at the centre of their projects to create innovative social experiences, through the exploration of new functional programmes and building typologies. Their projects are rich in personality and responsive to local context – in 2012 the practice gained widespread international attention with an air-cleaning blue spiky installation called Wendy, with which they won the MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Programme. They are also the founders of Architizer, one of the world’s largest online platforms for architecture and design, revolutionising the dissemination of architecture. Recent built projects include a sculptural timber leisure pavilion at Fire Island Pines in New York, the historic centre of gay vacation culture, and the transformation of a 20th-century paint factory into an innovation centre at the University of Pennsylvania.

With the news that little-known Catalan studio RCR Arquitectes has won this year's Pritzker Prize, we revisit a 2010 talk given at the RA by one third of the trio, Carme Pigem. All three studied at the School of Architecture in Vallès, and then set up their practice in their home town of Olot, Catalonia, in 1988. The studio has tackled everything from athletics track to library and winery to kindergarten. In this talk, Pigem discusses her career and the studio's thoughtful work so far.

Think of postwar Modernism and images of monumental buildings inevitably come to mind. However, there were also figures working to introduce architectural modernity on a more approachable scale: the artists who illustrated Ladybird books, for instance, and the designers who created the first chain pubs. By expanding our focus to incorporate these minor modernisms we can develop a more holistic understanding of the period and move beyond the canonisation of certain buildings as icons to picture a more vibrant, living modernity. Speakers: John Grindrod – Writer and author of 'Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain' Ben Highmore – Writer, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, and author of 'Culture (Key Ideas in Media and Cultural Studies)' and 'The Great Indoors: At Home in the Modern British House' Penny Sparke – Pro Vice-Chancellor and Director, Modern Interiors Research Centre, Kingston University Joe Kerr (chair) – Architectural historian, Co-editor of 'London:

The Vietnamese practice Vo Trong Nghia aims to create a green architecture for today's world. They boast a series of award-winning projects with an innovative capacity to integrate inexpensive, local materials with contemporary aesthetics and a high level of social and ecological awareness. Vo Trong Nghia has become a leading proponent of using bamboo as a building material, proclaiming it will “…become the ‘green steel’ of the 21st century.”

Listen to legendary photographer and filmmaker David Bailey in conversation with the RA’s Artistic Director Tim Marlow, discussing his influential work and innovative portrait photographs from the last 60 years. With a career spanning over half a century, David Bailey is one of the world’s most celebrated photographers. Discarding the rigid rules of a previous generation of portrait and fashion photographers, his work defined a new era and shaped the future of photography. In 1971, Bailey’s photos appeared in the landmark exhibition SNAP! at the National Portrait Gallery, a show of modern portraiture that also featured painted portraits by David Hockney RA. Bailey has since produced some of the most famous portrait photographs that have featured in major exhibitions and publications worldwide.

How have Britain’s post-war housing estates become a battleground of differing political and architectural ideologies? As increasing numbers of estates are threatened with redevelopment, this discussion considers the ideals that created them and the legacies they have today, as both places to live and as repositories of meaning and memory. Speakers: Jessie Brennan – Artist; author of Regeneration! Conversations, Drawings, Archives & Photographs from Robin Hood Gardens (2015) Mark Crinson – Professor of Architectural History, Birkbeck, University of London Kate Macintosh – Architect, formerly of the London Boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth, and East Sussex and Hampshire County Councils; designer of Dawson’s Heights, East Dulwich (1964–72) Dr Paul Watt – Reader in Urban Studies, Birkbeck, University of London Owen Hopkins – Architecture Programme Curator, Royal Academy (chair) You can also watch a video of this talk on YouTube at roy.ac/estates Listen to a related talk about the future of Britain's estates:

Following a previous debate exploring the changing status of Britain’s post-war housing estates, this discussion looks at estate regeneration and the range of alternatives that exist to the growing threat of demolition. Speakers: Geraldine Dening – Architect and founder, Architects for Social Housing Adam Khan – Founder, Adam Khan Architects John Lewis – Executive Director Thamesmead, Peabody Sarah Wigglesworth – Architect, director of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects Oliver Wainwright – Architecture critic, The Guardian (chair) Listen to a related talk about Britain's forgotten housing estates: roy.ac/forgotten

Painter and writer Timothy Hyman RA and curator Roger Malbert discuss the artists who have chosen to pursue figurative painting over the last century. With the arrival of abstraction and movements such as Abstract Expressionism in the 20th century, people began to see figurative painting as outdated and at odds with the very concept of modern art. Discussing Hyman's new book 'The World New Made: Figurative Painting in the Twentieth Century', Hyman and Malbert highlight a range of Modernists who, despite their awareness of abstraction, chose to work in narrative and confessional modes. Works by often-marginalised artists such as Max Beckmann and Stanley Spencer, Marsden Hartley and Alice Neel, Charlotte Salomon and Henry Darger, express the possibility of a new kind of figuration, as well as a foundation for our questioning of formalist readings of 20th-century art.

Charles Holland and Elly Ward of Ordinary Architecture discuss the ideas that informed the 'Origins' project at the RA, and reflect on its implications for the ways architecture is typically created and understood. The distinguished architectural writer Joseph Rykwert and artist Kieren Reed both respond, before a panel discussion and questions from the audience. 'Origins' is a series of interventions which form an intriguing contemporary counterpoint to various ‘origin myths’ of architecture that have arisen over history. Realised through a number of techniques and materials, the interventions are grouped according to particular themes, which together pose a new set of origin myths for how architecture is both created and experienced.

Herwig Todts, Conservator of Modern Art at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, examines the eclectic nature of James Ensor's work and his creative process. The work of Ensor is so extremely varied that his oeuvre has been viewed by some as verging on incoherent. Ensor wrote many satirical texts, and through close analysis of these texts an explanation begins to emerge for this inconsistency: Ensor did it on purpose. He developed each of his artistic projects from a different starting point. Whether he was solving a stylistic problem or following a specific technique, the different artworks he produced as a result were impressively diverse.

Yinka Shonibare MBE RA and David Shrigley discuss new work, as well as their experiences of being commissioned to create pieces for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square with art critic and lecturer Gilda Williams. Both influential artists share a particular perspective on British humour and reflect on the impact on their respective practices of being commissioned to create art for the Fourth Plinth.

Academicians Basil Beattie, Mali Morris, Paul Huxley and Christopher Le Brun PRA discuss their personal responses to Abstract Expressionism and how the new approaches to composition, colour and scale influenced and impacted on the visual arts both then and now. Examining how artists and the arts world internationally responded to Abstract Expressionism, they consider the significance of this influential movement of the 20th century and why its impact still resounds today.

Christ & Gantenbein, designers of the recently opened Kunstmuseum in Basel and the extension to the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, come to the RA to discuss their acclaimed work.

Artists Vanessa Jackson RA and Clare Price, along with curator Gwen Chanzit from the Denver Art Museum, discuss the important female figures of Abstract Expressionism, and explore the relationship between artists and the gendered practice of abstract painting. Although their work has often been overlooked in favour of their male contemporaries, artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler were major players in the Abstract Expressionist movement. Gallerists Peggy Guggenheim and Betty Parsons also played an instrumental role in promoting Abstract Expressionism and establishing its position in the international art market.

What will be the implications of Brexit on London’s development and status as a global city over the next few decades? Can London remain a global city outside of the EU? Should it, if London’s success comes at the expense of the rest of the UK? Will London become less attractive to investment and if so, what will the effects be on development, especially with regard to housing? What opportunities does Brexit offer for remaking the relationship between London and the rest of the UK for the better? Our panel offers some answers. Panel includes: Iwona Blazwick – Director, Whitechapel Gallery Stella Creasy – Member of Parliament for Walthamstow Paul Finch – Programme Director, World Architecture Festival; columnist, Architects’ Journal Carol Patterson – Director, UK, OMA Tom Copley AM – Deputy Chair of the London Assembly Housing Committee; Member of the Planning and Transport Committees Ben Rogers – Director, Centre for London (chair)

Luc Tuymans discusses his distinguished career as a contemporary painter, as well as his curation of the James Ensor exhibition, with Senior Curator Adrian Locke. Since the late 1970s, Tuymans’s easily-recognisable, sparsely-coloured figurative canvases have redefined the traditional genres of the everyday and history painting. Drawing in part on influences which range from Flemish Old Master painting to the contemporary mass media, his works are almost always painted from pre-existing imagery and produced in distinct, thematic series.

A discussion between legendary jazz saxophonist Evan Parker and artist and musician David Ryan, exploring the connections between free improvisation in jazz and the Abstract Expressionism movement. The British jazz saxophone revolutionary Evan Parker transformed the language and techniques of the instrument in the late 1960s and has since become one of the world’s most admired and influential saxophone improvisers. Described by Stewart Lee as “the greatest living exponent of free improvisation”, his solo concerts radiate an energetic atmosphere, creating an intensely personal soundscape that both absorbs and mesmerises his audiences.

Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee are among the leading figures in a new generation of Los Angeles architects. Ranging from the private houses for which they are best known, to cultural projects such as the ongoing Drawing Institute at the Menil Collection in Houston (a commission won against a star-studded field), Johnston Marklee‘s buildings stand apart for their calmness, distilling the complexity of brief or site into a coherent formal purity.