Brooklyn Rail Critics Forum https://brooklynrail.org/events#past, with Rex Butler, Todd Cronan, Joe Fyfe, W. J. T. Mitchell, Joseph North, Saul Ostrow, and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, with G.E. Schwartz.

The painting is Dragueurs, 2023, oil on linen, 60x65cm, by Kate McCrickard (Art First) around whose brilliant work I based my contribution.

Short Bio

I’m an inter/cross/un/disciplinary artist and writer based in West Cornwall, UK. My books, articles and papers are fundamentally concerned with the forms and processes of thinking and their intersection with what we call art and media. I write poems and make digital poetry, films and mixed installations, all from the uncomfortable viewpoint of a feminist materialist who struggles with “isms.” It all depends on how things come into my awareness.

I’m a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists (NSA) and have performed readings in various galleries and conferences in the UK and internationally, the most visible of which include LA MoCA, Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

Working in Universities has been mixed, since I don’t think of myself as an “academic” and I never really fit institutions. Appointments include: Head of Research Programmes at The Slade School of Fine Art (including leading the practice-based PhDs); inaugurating and running the first PhD programme at Falmouth University (also practice-based); and Chair of Humanities and Design Sciences at Art Center, Pasadena, USA. 

Penny J.M. FLORENCE, BA (hons) PhD.
Professor Emerita, The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (UCL)

Some Highlights

Turner & Digital Writing, performance and discussion of my digital poetry translations of Mallarmé, created to draw out parallels with Turner’s aesthetic. Turner Galleries, Tate Britain, June 2013. Tate page here.

E and Eye, Tate Modern, 3 sell-out Digital Poetry performance events 2006, 2008

The View from Here. BBC World Service. An integrated, interart drama, spanning the world and linking eight international writers, visual and sound artists, broadcast 28-29 February 2009. Exhibition of the collected piece (4 videos, sound & drama) at the Slade Research Centre, Woburn Square. BBC Producer and Drama Director: Marion Nancarrow.

The World as Yet Unseen: Women Artists in Conversation with Partou Zia. Falmouth Art Gallery. Co-curator and exhibitor. 6 April- 15 June 2019. Artists all with a connection with Cornwall, including: Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Rose Hilton, Eileen Cooper, Tacita Dean, Naomi Frears, Lucy Stein, Barbara Hepworth, Veronica Ryan, Lubaina Himid, Bridget Riley, Sandra Blow. Catalogue here.

Vision is Out There. Panel Organiser & Chair, Tate Modern, March 14th 2017.

Exhibitions

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All the following three were installations including digital poetry either on screen or projected. This is in addition to performances at several events at academic and digital literature conferences in the Europe, the UK and the USA.

On View NSA (Newlyn Society of Artists) 8 -30 September 2018. Tremenheere Gallery.
Ex Libris NSA (Newlyn Society of Artists) 3 April-29 May 2019. Tremenheere Gallery. Multi- media installation.
Drawing Down the Feminine. Group show at the Newlyn Art Gallery, The Plough Arts Centre Devon (2016) & Bridport Arts Centre (2017)

I haven’t kept accurate records of earlier exhibited work, mostly feminist pop-ups or interventions. The first was Women at the Well, York Women Artists’ group exhibition in 1984. I showed about 6 paintings and 2 prints. 3 of these were also shown at Tate Liverpool, I think in the 90s, as part of an anti-war show, but I can’t track the records down.

Film and video production

Currently working on a series of films on contemporary UK women artists. The first two are almost complete: Figuring Rose (on Rose Hilton, who died just before completion) and The Tree of Thought (on Kate Walters). Watch this space.

1983 - 1991 Professional filmmaker primarily directing and editing, but also teaching. Served on British Film Institute (BFI) and Regional Arts Board committees.
Chair, final plenary at the 1990 BFI/Arts Council National Strategy Conference.
Nominee of BFI as Member of Council of Yorks Arts Association. Film Panel Member for Yorkshire and for SWArts. Advisor (for Yorkshire Arts Board) to Hall Place Studios, Leeds. Reports included those for South West Arts, the IFVPA (Independent Film,Video and Photographer's Association) and Channel 4/WFTVN (Women’s Film, Video & TV Network).

My films were shown at university and Independent Film venues all over the UK, as well as in the Tyneside Film Festival, at the BFI, at Norwich Women’s Film Festival, Brixton Ritzy, and most recently at The Watershed, Bristol 2014.

Recent Catalogue essays and Short Writings on Contemporary Art

The Morphogenesis of Modernism: Stein and the Sexed Universal. (See Short Writings page). Essay accompanying Lucy Stein’s show Knockers, Gregor Stein Gallery, Zurich, March 3 - April 14 2018

3/4 time. Ekphrastic poem (commission) in response to paintings by Joost de Jonge, 2017.

Galleried Garden. Dramatic Monologue for Newlyn Society of Artists’ Critic’s Choice show, Tremenheere Gallery, September 23, 2017.

The Tree of Thought. Essay accompanying Kate Walters’ show Notes on the Garden,Tremenheere Gallery Sept-Oct 2019. (See Short Writings page)

A Quiet Ecstasy on Kate Walters’ show, for the Herrick Gallery, London, 16-28 October, 2017.

We Fall into the Humanimal, essay in book with Kate Walters.
The Art of the Animal, The Art of the Plant (Or, MS found in an Anthill). Catalogue essay for the Kate Walters show The Secret Worth a Thousand at Newlyn Art Gallery, 1 Dec 2013 - 8 Feb 2014.

Becoming Sanguine, June 30, 2009. Short Essay on Kate Walters’ work. Entering the Visionary Zone. Partou Zia, Tate St Ives Catalogue essay (2003).

Selected Academic Appointments & Activities

Professor Emerita, The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.

2017 - on: Seminar Leader, The Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Truro. (Devising & delivering seminars to trainee analysts on approaching psychoanalytic concepts through art) 2010-on.

June 2010-May 2012. Chair of Humanities and Design Sciences, Art Center College of Design, 1700 Lida St, Pasadena, 91103, USA.

September 2003- June 2010: Professor of Fine Art History and Theory, Head of Research Programmes, The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.

2001-2003: Professor of Contemporary Arts, Falmouth University.
1997 - 2001: Director of Research, Falmouth University.
1994-95 Co-Director, Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Exeter (0.5)

Supervised over 25 PhDs at Falmouth University and The Slade, most of them practice based. External Examiner at BA, MA and PhD levels.

Over 70 invited lectures & research papers at international conferences and universities. Since 2008 many have concerned digital poetry performances and/or lectures.

Publications

8 books (CUP, MUP, Ashgate G&B Arts International etc), plus one in the Press (Routledge): Thinking the Sculpture Garden. (featuring Tremenheere Sculpture Garden. Due out Jan 2020).
Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard by Stéphane Mallarmé on CD-Rom, Legenda - European Humanities Research Centre, University of Oxford, 2000. Interactive CD and essays.

Essays in 16 other books; plus refereed journal articles, guest editor, magazine articles etc.. More details below. Full CV on application (via form on this site).

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Short Bio

Penny Florence is Professor Emerita at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (UCL).  Her many publications on poetry, painting and theory (details in CV below) include the first monograph on Mallarmé and painting (Cambridge University Press, 1986/2010), writing on aesthetics, feminist theory (including for the Women's Philosophy Review), a version of‘Un coup de dés’ on CD-ROM (remember them?), digital poetry and poetics and, most recently, reviews for Hyperrhiz. She has supervised over 23 PhDs, mostly, but not all, practice related, and examined others.

From 1983 to 1991 she worked in film, primarily directing and editing independent films on 16mm, but also teaching. She served on British Film Institute (BFI) and Regional Arts Board committees. Committee work included, for example, serving on the BFI Regional Production Board, chairing the final plenary at the 1990 BFI/Arts Council National Strategy Conference, serving as a Film Panel Member for Yorkshire and for SWArts and as a Member of Council of Yorks Arts Association, as nominee of the BFI. She was also for two years Advisor (for Yorkshire Arts Board) to Hall Place Studios, Leeds. Reports included those for South West Arts, the IFVPA (Independent Film,Video and Photographer's Association) and Channel 4/WFTVN (Women's Film, Video and TV Network).

Her research and making now focuses on the potential of digital poetics in translation and inter-media (word-image) as well as critique and ekphrasis. With her occasional and long-term collaborator, John Cayley, she is developing ‘inextrinsic reading’ as a form of art practice-based research, about which they have given several presentations. Public events bringing fine art and digital poetry together include four at Tate Modern in London and one at Tate Britain, plus others at regional art galleries in the UK.

She is currently working on bringing inextrinsix into relation with film poetry, and with her painting and printmaking, exploring how tropes in different forms resonate with each other. This work includes a new series of films on contemporary UK women artists.

LIST OF MOST RECENT APPOINTMENTS

 November 2010 – on Professor Emerita, The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London

June 2010-May 2012 - Chair of Humanities and Design Sciences, Art Center College of Design,  Pasadena, 91103, USA.

September 2003- June 2010: Professor of Fine Art History and Theory, Head of Research Programmes, The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. (Leading PhD Programme, PhD supervision).

March 2001-2003: Professor of Contemporary Arts, Falmouth University.

September 1997 - 2001: Director of Research, Falmouth University.

1995-1997 : Reader, Fine Art Histories, Falmouth University.

1994 - 1995 Co-Director of Women's Studies, University of Exeter.

Earlier appointments were mostly in Literature (English or French).

INVITED TALKS

Numerous national and international talks and papers since1984 at British, European, Australian and North American Universities and at conferences and art galleries. Topics include: visual and cultural theory, art historical critique, French poetry and painting, critical theory, digital poetry, film, and others, including Word-Image. Several presentations at digital poetry festival and conferences, such as ELMCIP, e-poetry andthe ELO (Electronic Literature Organization), one in Porto, Portugal, in July 2017. Full details available.

SELECTED PUBLICATION DETAILS.

1. Books, CD-Rom, Online

Mallarmé, Manet and Redon. Visual and Aural Signs and the Generation of Meaning, Cambridge Studies in French, Cambridge University Press, 1986, 167pp. and 78 illustrations. Reissued 2010.

Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard by Stéphane Mallarmé on CD-Rom, edited, translated and introduced by Penny Florence. Concept and Design by PF, programming and design by Jason Whittaker. With accompanying essays by Florence, one with Whittaker. Legenda - European Humanities Research Centre, University of Oxford, 2000. Interactive CD and essays 75 pp.

Sexed Universals in Contemporary Art Allworth Press/School of Visual Arts, New York, 2004, 189pp., 56 illustrations.

Feminist Subjects, Multi-Media. Cultural Methodologies. (Eds. Penny Florence & Dee Reynolds), Manchester University Press,1995 (Essays on literature, painting, photography & film. Contributors include: Elizabeth Grosz, Griselda Pollock, Annette Kuhn, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger) 218 pp., illustrated.

Differential Aesthetics, Ashgate Press, 2000. Collection of essays co-edited with Nicola Foster, 360pp, 45pp.of editorial comment, 35 b/w illustrations and 8 colour, Artists' Statements. (Contributors include: Robyn Ferrell, Jeremy Gilbert- Rolfe, Sean Cubitt, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger)

Looking Back to the Future. Essays on Art, Life and Death. Volume in ‘Critical Voices’ series. Essays by Griselda Pollock, Editorial Introduction and Commentary Essay by myself. G&B Arts International, 2001, pp.1-11, 391-419, 419 pp. in total. Illustrated.

*e and eye: art and poetry between the electronic and the visual. Tate Modern Gallery events and Web Publication, 2006. e and eye blog at http://web.mac.com/shadoof/iWeb/eandeye/ At the time of writing, details available at http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/talksdiscussions/6703.htm

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/talksdiscussions/14694.htm

Turner and Digital Writing: performance, installation, discussion. Tate Britain, Clore Gallery. June 2013 Turner & Digital Writing

Series Editor

Tate St Ives/FCA Research Series, volume 1. Everyone was Working: Writers and Artists in Postwar St Ives by Alison Oldham. Tate Publications 2002, 80pp.

Guest Editor with Nicola Foster ‘Aesthetics’, Special Issue, Women’s Philosophy Review. (General Editors: Christine Battersby and Margaret Whitford). SI No 25, December 2000, 120pp. approx.

Other publications include over 22 refereed articles or chapters in academic books, plus various articles, reviews and online publications and, most recently, her own original poetry.

Full details of talks, articles and other publications available via the contact form on this site.