Date: 28 May 2012
Aleksandra Mir presents a 45-minute lecture on the connection between two people with an unlikely but beautiful connection: the legendary rock star Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) and Czech sculptor Irena Sedlecká (b.1928).
As a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Sedlecká was awarded the State Prize for excellence and thereafter created many Socialist Realist large scale commissions before fleeing the Communist regime for England in 1966. It was in London, after Freddie’s death from AIDS in 1991, that she received the commission from the band Queen to create a larger-than-life bronze memorial statue of the rock star.
The lecture will be followed by a two hour drawing class where students are free to explore and to draw from Irena Sedlecká’s scale models and studies of Freddie Mercury which she produced in preparation for making the statue. All drawings produced during the class will be exhibited as a collective exhibition. Open to people with all levels of drawing ability, as well as fans of rock music and classical art. This class welcomes your unique perspective on all of the above.
Lecture by Polish artist Aleksandra Mir
11 and 12 June, 10am
Hayward Gallery Project Space,
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX
Tickets: £10
Book online link