Tuesday Talks at The Whitworth Art Gallery 11.00am 12.

.30pm, free, no booking necessary The Tuesday Talks series invites leading artists, thinkers and curators to explore the driving forces, influences and sources of inspiration within contemporary art. The series is programmed by Professor Pavel Bchler and is a collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University. 30 October Swetlana Heger Swetlana Heger was born in the Czech Republic and is currently based in Berlin. Stuart Comer has described her work as treading the porous boundaries between art, commerce and corporate patronage, teasing out the double bind that exists between these systems. She has documented the fate of public sculptures in Berlin, melted down and remodelled according to the changing political climate, and collaborated with well-known brands such as Herms and Adidas to create a series of self-portraits. 6 November Rasmus Nielsen SUPERFLEX is an artists' group founded in 1993 by Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjrnstjerne Christiansen. SUPERFLEX describe their projects as Tools. A tool is a model or proposal that can actively be used and further utilized and modified by the user. Recent projects include an urban park project in Copenhagen in which people from the area was asked to nominate specific city objects such as benches, bins, trees, playgrounds, manhole covers and signage from other countries, which were either produced in a 1:1 copy or bought and transported to the site. Other projects include Flooded McDonalds, a film of a McDonald's interior gradually flooding with water, Power Toilets, recreations of toilets from the UN or European Union buildings and Free Beer, the recipe and branding elements of a beer that anyone can use to brew and sell. SUPERFLEX are also included in this years Liverpool Biennial. 13 November Brian Griffiths Since graduating from Goldsmiths College in the late 1990s Brian Griffiths has been making sculpture and installations of over blown theatricality and pathos. His work has been exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. He has had solo shows at Camden Arts Centre, Arnolfini, A Foundation, Vilma Gold, Galeria Luisa Strina and internationally has shown work at numerous museums including Tate Britain, The Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, The Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh, CAPC museum in Bordeaux, Mostra DArte Contemporanea in Milan and Belm Museum of Modern Art, Brazil. He was shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth commission in 2011 and was included in the British Art Show 7 and a first monograph is was published by Koenig in 2011. Griffiths is presently working on a curated show 'Bill Murray'. 20 November Rob Tufnell Rob Tufnell runs a commercial gallery in central London and also works as a freelance curator and writer. Exhibitions he has curated include 'Altogether Elsewhere' which explored notions of psychedelia in contemporary art practice, The Writing on Your Wall which looked at printmaking as a socially concerned, democratic media designed to disseminate radical ideas, and he also cocurated Savage Messiah which took the eponymous 1972 film by Ken Russel as starting point to explore how Vorticism might remain a dynamic force in the art of the present. He has previously been the Curator of Turner Contemporary, Margate and has also worked at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge and at Dundee Contemporary Arts. He has also worked as a Director of Ancient & Modern and Modern Art, London and at the Modern Institute, Glasgow. 27 November

Jane and Louise Wilson Acclaimed British artists Jane and Louise Wilson are currently exhibiting a series of works inspired by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster at the Whitworth. The exhibition includes the new work, The Toxic Camera, which is inspired by the film Chernobyl: A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks made by Ukrainian filmmaker Vladimir Shevchenko in the days immediately following the accident. Upon processing the film, Shevchenko noticed portions of it were heavily pockmarked and affected by static interference, coinciding with the sound of measuring radiation from the Geiger counter, thus realising that radiation was effectively 'visible' on the film material itself. Jane and Louise Wilson began working together in 1989. They have exhibited at major galleries throughout the world and were nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999. AND.. In a collaborative Thursday Late, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester Metropolitan University and Off With Their Heads present the artist and musician Martin Creed. Thursday 8th November 2012. From the high profile Cultural Olympiad bell ringing commission to his recent album release, Martin Creed has always maintained a diverse body of work tempered by the early promise of a Turner Prize. We have invited him to Manchester Art Gallery to talk about his work in the context of an increasing emphasis on musical output and works influenced by compositional techniques, including a recent tour with The Cribs. For Creed there is no difference between making music and making art. Early Evening In conversation with Steven Gartside from Manchester Metropolitan University. The talk will be at Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, M2 3JL. Beginning at 7.00pm. Places are free, but limited. They can be reserved here... http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4717067877 Later Martin Creed and his band will be performing a live set at local arts venue Islington Mill, a deceptive blend of simple lyrics and angular guitar pop should make for a great end to the evening. Islington Mill, James Street, Salford M3 5HW. Beginning at 8.30pm. Tickets are 6 in advance/ 8 on the door and are available from Skiddle.com here http://www.skiddle.com/e/11742526