Lenka Clayton will be giving an Artist Talk in conjuction with the Department of History of Art course, "The Task of the Curator," taught by Assistant Professor Kris Paulsen. The course investigates what it means to “curate” exhibitions, objects, and collections and consider the curator and her role historically. Students in the class produced a series of exhibitions, screenings, and interventions catalyzed by Open This End: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Blake Byrne, culminating a final, student-curated exhibition in Hopkins Hall Gallery, November 9, 2015 – December 2, 2015, in Hopkins Hall Gallery, The Ohio State University.
Lenka Clayton is a British conceptual artist whose work considers, exaggerates and alters the accepted rules of everyday life, extending the familiar into the realms of the poetic and absurd.
In previous works she has hand-numbered 7,000 stones; searched for all 613 people mentioned in a single edition of a German newspaper; filmed one person of each age from 1 to 100, and reconstituted a lost museum from a sketch on the back of an envelope. She and writer Michael Crowe are currently in the middle of writing a unique, personal letter to every household in the world. In 2012 Lenka founded An Artist Residency in Motherhood — a structured, fully-funded artist residency that takes place inside her own home and life as a mother of two young children. She is currently serving as the first Artist-in-Residence-in-Motherhood.
Her work has been exhibited widely including the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, FRAC Le Plateau in Paris, Kunsthalle St. Gallen in Switzerland, Anthology Film Archives in New York City, a Danish mediaeval tower, Tehran International Documentary Festival in Iran and just after the evening news on Channel 4 TV in the U.K., as well as in publications including Frieze, Art & Agenda, and Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology.
Lenka Clayton holds an MA in Documentary Direction from the National Film & Television School, UK and a BA in Fine Art from Central St. Martins, London. She has taught at institutions in the U.K., US and Sweden including three years at University of the Arts, London and a stint as Theodore Randall International Chair at Alfred University in New York. She was recently awarded a Creative Development Grant from the Pittsburgh Foundation and a Sustainable Arts Foundation award. She currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she was named Emerging Artist of the Year 2013. In 2014 she was awarded a Carol R. Brown Award for Creative Achievement.
