Central Saint Martins presents

Jannis Kounellis in conversation with Adrian Searle

Born in the Greek port of Piraeus, Jannis Kounellis has lived in Rome since 1956. Initially associated with the Arte Povera of the late 1960s, a movement that tried to free art from the conventions, structures and the market place restrictions of the day, and also (through the nature of the materials used) to make an art much closer to the everyday life of people, Kounellis is one of the world's leading contemporary artists with a career spanning more than forty years. He has exhibited all over the world, and is represented in major museum collections internationally.

His first exhibition, in Rome in 1960, was entitled Kounellis' Alphabet. Arising from a compositional relationship between living and inert materials, Kounellis' new artistic language was intended to provoke a critical attitude towards society and the creative process. He substituted canvas for steel, to which he applied his alphabet, comprised of fire, earth, coal, wool, plants, and living and dead animals.

Since his earliest works Kounellis has charged certain signs with metaphorical values and symbolic functions. Never restricting his 'paintings' to two dimensions, works are an integration of different artistic forms: painting, sculpture, music, theatre and poetry.

This Shaping Sculpture event with The Guardian's Chief Art Critic Adrian Searle welcomes a major new exhibition at the Ambika P3 Gallery, University of Westminster (23 April-30 May 2010). Presented by Sprovieri Gallery, it is Kounellis' first solo exhibition in a public London space since the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1982.

Monday 26th April @ 6:30 pm

Tickets: Free (max 2 per booking)

This event is now FULLY BOOKED.

Any uncollected tickets will be reallocated to a Returns Queue, which usually begins to form about 6:00pm on the day of the event.

Tickets must be collected on the day of the event by 6:15 pm at the latest. Any uncollected tickets may be reallocated to the Returns Queue.