at home: Artists in Conversation | Michael Kenna and Kunié Sugiura on Bill Brandt
A conversation with photographer Michael Kenna and artist Kunié Sugiura. Moderated by Martina Droth, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Yale Center for British Art; Yasufumi Nakamori, Senior Curator, International Art (Photography), Tate Britain; and Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art, Tate Britain.
About this program
Photographer Michael Kenna and artist Kunié Sugiura will discuss the art of Bill Brandt and their own photographic and artistic practice. This program is held in conjunction with Bill Brandt | Henry Moore, on view at the Yale Center for British Art until February 26, 2023, and Bill Brandt: Inside the Mirror, on view at Tate Britain until January 15, 2023. Moderated by Martina Droth, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Yale Center for British Art; Yasufumi Nakamori, Senior Curator, International Art (Photography), Tate Britain; and Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art, Tate Britain.
About Michael Kenna
Born in 1953 in Widnes, Lancashire, England, Kenna is a photographer best known for his mysterious black-and-white photographs that focus on the interaction between the natural landscape and human-made structures. Kenna is both a diurnal and nocturnal photographer, fascinated by light when it is most pliant. His long time exposures often record details that the human eye is not able to perceive. Particularly well known for the intimate scale of his photography and his meticulous printing style, Kenna continues to work in the traditional, non-digital, silver photographic medium, crafting exquisite black-and-white prints in his own darkroom.
Kenna’s work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide and can be found in permanent collections throughout the world. His work is widely published. In 2022, he was awarded the Order of Arts and Letters in France. He lives and works in Seattle, Washington.
About Kunié Sugiura
Born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, Sugiura is a photographer, painter, and multimedia artist. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After moving to New York, she began to explore chromogenic photographic montages and to combine photography with acrylic paint on canvas. In the 1980s, she began creating photograms using objects from everyday life, leading to her renowned Artist and Scientist series. Through her works, Sugiura harnesses the tension between the concrete and the abstract while exploring the abstraction of photographic materiality. She captures light, time, and the transience of nature and its memory.
Sugiura’s work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world and can be found in private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Tate Modern, London; the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She lives and works in New York City.
