Hamad Butt: Art and Science in the 90's
A talk by Dominic Johnson
7pm - 10pm
With Dominic Johnson and Martin O'Brien
Join Dominic Johnson for talk drawing on his curation of the first major survey of Hamad Butt’s work—presented at IMMA, Dublin and Whitechapel Gallery, London in 2024-25. Working primarily in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before his death in 1994 at age 32, Butt created remarkable sculptural installations to explore themes of contagion, contamination, alchemy and death. Johnson will examine how Butt brought art and science into conversation in the context of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
One of the most innovative artists of his generation, Hamad Butt (b. 1962, Lahore, Pakistan; d. 1994, London, UK) was a pioneer of intermedia art, bringing art into conversation with science, whilst also referencing his Queer and diasporic experiences. He offered a nuanced artistic response to the AIDS crisis in the UK, taking a conceptual rather than activist approach.
Butt’s conceptually and technically ambitious works seamlessly interweave popular culture, science, alchemy, science fiction, and social and cultural concerns, as forms that are simultaneously poetic and provocative. They imagine sex and desire in a time of AIDS as seductive yet frightening, intimate yet isolating, compelling yet dangerous.
Dominic Johnson is a curator and art historian, and Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author or editor of numerous books including “Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s” and “Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey”.
Martin O’Brien is an artist and zombie. His performance and video art uses physical endurance, long durations, and pain based practices in order to examine what it means to be born with a life shortening disease. Martin has cystic fibrosis and all of his work and writing draws upon this experience. He is currently lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary University of London. He recently surpassed his life expectancy and is enjoying life as a zombie.