Over five years, Zoe Leonard worked on the project that has become the artwork Al río / To the River. In this talk, Briony Fer explores the idea of the ‘project’ for the artist in relation to this ambitious new installation and in relation to her previous work, much of which has also developed over long periods of time. The final work, consisting of 550 photographs, tracks a long river – with all the fraught political, geographical, social and ecological issues that converge along the Rio Grande – as well as the long work process that went into it. Fer will discuss the artistic and political stakes of Leonard’s approach to her subject and the significance of temporal flows and connexions as they are made manifest in the iteration of the work on show at Mudam.

Briony Fer is an art historian who has written extensively on modern and contemporary art. Her research interests have consistently moved between the history of the avant-gardes and the work of contemporary artists, including Zoe Leonard, Gabriel Orozco, Roni Horn, Vija Celmins and Tacita Dean. Her books include On Abstract Art (1997), The Infinite Line (2004), Eva Hesse: Studiowork (2009) and Gabriel Orozco: thinking in circles (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 2013). She co-curated the Anni Albers retrospective with Maria Müller-Schareck and Ann Coxon at Tate Modern and K20 Dusseldorf in 2018. She is Professor of History of Art at University College London and a Fellow of the British Academy.