Select Upcoming Art Talks, Symposiums in 2018 (February through April)

Bentonville, Arkansas
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Symposium 2018: Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

 Benny Andrews, Did the Bear Sit Under a Tree, 1969,
copyright Estate of Benny Andrews.

"The symposium features exhibition artists and curators who will provide an insightful round of conversation reflecting on art, politics, music, and community in the age of Black Power."  The symposium is sold out. However, you can view the livestream  on you device. Check back on February 3rd for the livestream link.

Date: Saturday, February 3, 2018
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Hutchins Center  for African  and African American Research
Black Portraiture[s] IV: The Color of Silence

Black Portraiture[s] IV: The Color of Silence takes place fifteen years after an initial colloquium was convened at Harvard University on African American art. This is "the eighth conference in a series of conversations about imaging the black body. Artists, activists, and scholars are invited to reflect on the visual expressions of national imaginaries and political ideologies that negate racial differences and render black subjects invisible."

Date: Thurs., March 22, 2018 | Fri., March 23, 2018 | Sat., March 24, 2018

Time: 6:00 p.m. | 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. | 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Location: Harvard Art Museums | TBA | Harvard Art Museums

Claremont, California
Pomona College Museum of Art
Talk with Curator Lisa Henry 

Mickalene Thomas, Le leçon d'amour, 2008, C-print, 47.5" x 59.
Copyright Mickalene Thomas. Courtesy the artist;
Lehamann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong; and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Independent curator Lisa Henry will discuss the power of social media to reimagine and recontextualize historic narratives. Henry will debut her Instagram photo essay of images of her mother, one of the first black models in the US. This talk is a related event accompanying the currrent exhibitions, MUSE: Mickalene Thomas Photographs and tête-à-tête which are on view January 25 through May 13, 2018. 

Date: Thursday, April 26, 2018

Time: 4:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

College Park, Maryland
David C. Driskell Center
Artist Talk: Amy Sherald

Amy Sherald

This event is presented at the David C. Driskell Center in collaboration with The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the University of Maryland's Department of Art. "Through her portraits, Amy Sherald explores the ways people construct and perform their identities in response to political, social, and cultural expectations, offering a critical view of African American cultural history and the representation of the African American body."

Date: Thursday, March 29, 2018

Time: 6:30 p.m.

College Park, Maryland
David C. Driskell Center
Seventeenth  Annual Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts
in Honor of David C. Driskell Series
Speaker: David R. Brigham, PhD.

David R. Brigham is President and CEO of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). "His talk addresses arts and education, training artists for the 21st century, strategies for impacting and diversifying the canon, changing the face of museums, and diversity's centrality to the mission of our nation's arts institutions."  

Date: April 5, 2018

Time: 6:00 p.m.

Columbus, Ohio
Columbus Museum of Art
Artist Talk: Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems, from Family Pictures and Stories, 1981-82.
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

This is a related program for the exhibition, Family Pictures, that is on view February 16 through May 20, 2018 at the Columbus Museum of Art.

Date: April 5, 2018

Time: 4:30 p.m.

Location: Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University

Columbus, Ohio
Columbus Museum of Art
Artist Talk: Deana Lawson 

Deana Lawson, Mohawk Correctional Facility: Jazmin and Family, 2013. Pigment Print.
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio: Museum Purchase with funds provided by
The Contemporaries.

This is a related program for the exhibition, Family Pictures, that is on view February 16 through May 20, 2018 at the Columbus Museum of Art.

Date: May 17, 2018

Time: 6:00 p.m.

Location: Columbus Museum of Art

Kalamazoo, Michigan
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA)
Artist Talk: James Van Der Zee's Harlem  

"Richard Koenig, Professor of Art at Kalamazoo College, will explore the work of James Van Der Zee, a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, who broke the barriers with his photographs of black New Yorkers. Koenig will discuss Van Der Zee in relation to photographer Dawoud Bey's work, currently on view in Harlem, USA and Harlem Redux, along with a selection of Van Der Zee's work. Harlem, USA and Harlem Redux will be on view at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts through April 11, 2018.  

Date: Thursday, February 22, 2018

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA)
Book Discussion: South of Pico: African American Artists
in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s

The discussion will be led by Jo Ann Mundi at the KIA Library. South of Pico "is an exploration into how the artists in Los Angeles' black communities during the 1960s and 1970s created a vibrant, productive, and engaged activist arts scene in the face of structural racism."  

When: Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Time: 2:00 p.m.

Location: KIA Library 

Los Angeles, California

University of Southern California (USC)

Fisher Museum of Art 

Senga Nengudi: Improvisational Gestures

Senga Nengudi, R.S.V.P., 1977, sculpture activated by Maren Hassinger,
dimensions variable. Photo Credit: Herman Outlaw.

Symposium
April 14, 2018 

USC Fisher Museum of Art will present a day-long symposium that was inspired by the exhibition Senga Nengudi: Improvisational Gestures, currently on view at the museum through April 14, 2018. This symposium is a collaboration between the USC Fisher Museum with the California African American Museum, USC Roski School of Art and Design, and USC Dornsife's Department of Art History."The symposium will offer both new and familiar audiences an opportunity to explore and experience the work of Senga Nengudi, as well as investigate its intersections in contemporary art and performance. Panels, screenings, and a performance will bring together artists, students, activists, curators, writers, and intellectuals for a day of dialogue and discovery."

Stanford, California

Stanford University

Cantor Arts Center, Auditorium

Art Practice Talk Series: Jonathan Calm

Jonathan Calm

The upcoming speaker in the Art Talk Practice Series, Jonathan Calm, is a visual artist and assistant professor in Photography at the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University. Calm's "interests include urban architecture and housing and he is currently developing new work around the representation of African-American automobility, featuring performance, reenactment and portraiture to evoke the tension between moving and still images and bodies.

This lecture, African-American Automobility: The Dangerous Freedom of the Open Road, shares the same title as the exhibition that Calm has on view at the Stanford Art Gallery through March 18, 2018. 

When: Thursday, March 8, 2018
Time: 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Cantor Arts Center, Auditorium 

Syracuse, New York

Everson Museum of Art

Film Screening /Talk: AfriCOBRA: Art for the People

Everson Museum of Art features a film screening of AfriCOBRA: Art for the People and a talk with AfriCOBRA artist Napoleon  Jones-Henderson. "This poignant documentary  features rare interviews and the dynamic work of Chicago's AfriCOBRA artists and founder Jeff Donaldson. There will be a conversation with AfriCOBRA artist and scholar Napoleon Jones-Henderson as he discusses  the contributions of AfriCOBRA to the 1960s Black Arts Movement." The talk will follow the film screening.

Date; February 22, 2018

Time: 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Location: Homer Auditorium

Washington, D.C.

National Gallery of Art

Public Symposia: Boundary Trouble: 

The Self-Taught Artist and American Avant-Gardes

     Horace Pippin, Interior, 1944, oil on canvas overall: 24 1/8" x 30 3/16"x 1/16 " 

framed: 32" x 38 1/2" x 2 5/8" 

National Gallery of Art, Washington. 

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Meyer P. Potamkin, 

in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art

This program is held on the occasion of the exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard Art. Papers will explore subjects including religion, gender, and cross-disciplinary art practices, which are central to the intersection of American mainstream art with the work of an eclectic range of self-taught artists."  View the program.

Date: February 16, 2018  | February 17, 2018 

Time: 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. | 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Location: East Building Auditorium

West Palm Beach, Florida

Norton Museum of Art

Curator's Talk: Cheryl Brutvan

Jean-Michel Basquiat: Drawing into Painting

Cheryl Brutvan discusses Basquiat and his emphasis on drawing throughout his career as in the work on view at the Norton Museum of Art. Jean-Michel Basquiat: Drawing into Painting is on view

February 8 through March 18. 2018. 

Date: February 8, 2018

Time: 6:30 p.m. 

From the Archives: Black Enterprise (December 1980)

In gathering notes for another piece that I am working on, Gallery 62: National Urban League, I surreptitiously stumbled upon the following articles in Black Enterprise (December 1980) and because of their timeliness, decided to share them with BAP readers. The link to this issue of Black Enterprise was provided by Google Books. The following articles, relating to the visual arts, are highlighted: 

• Publisher's Page, Investing in Our Culture by Earl Graves (page 9). There is a strong focus on the visual arts within this issue. It serves as a celebration of the fine arts as it celebrates the visual artists, highlighting the challenges that these artists face in light of the rewards they offer viewers in general and the collector in particular; and the role of the corporate collector and the impact that they can have, as they are offered an opportunity to combine pleasure with business. Through their art, these artists have the capacity to express the struggle of Blacks for equality. In addition, there is an aesthetic reward in supporting Black artists. The following statement sums up Grave's sentiment, "an investment in art is also an investment in our culture."

• The Bullish Market for Black Art by Judith Wilson (pages 34-36, 39-40). The subtitle gives a clear indication to the content of this article: Companies and individuals have discovered patronage of the arts can help the bottom line. The article focuses on such companies as Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, Johnson Publishing Company and Johnson Products Company, Atlanta Life Insurance Company, Brooklyn Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, etc. 
• Where to See and Buy Black Art (page 41) This is a list of museums, galleries, college and corporate collections of Afro-American artists in the vanguard. Although it is now a bit dated because a number of the galleries have closed. However, knowing that they existed is a rich piece of history for one who continually digs to uncover any solid documentation relating to the history of Black art/artists. I am always looking, sometimes with success and sometimes not so successful, for catalogues, brochures, or any ephemera produced by galleries that were on the forefront of representing or showing the work of Black artists. Two of my biggest challenges, in terms of locating material, have been Brockman Gallery and the Barnett-Aden Collection. However, recently, I have had success with discovering approximately 12 catalogues from Gallery 62 (National Urban League). Also, I just stumbled upon a wonderful little gem from Just Above Midtown. With the list that appears in this issue, I will now expand my search strategy to include a few other galleries that I was formerly not familiar. Although a select gallery may be closed, there may just be some ephemera in the hands of a local secondhand book dealer.
• New Rituals, New Visions (pages 43-48, 51). This article features a mini-exhibition of works by Afro-American artists in the vanguard, including Clarence Morgan, David Hammons, Jacqui Holmes, Bill Traylor, Curtis Bunyan, Jules Allen, Clifton Webb, Randy Williams, John  Scott, Richard Powell, Ray Grist, Senga Nengudi, Margo Humphrey, and John Dowell. As I read this article, a number of questions came to mind. Where are these artists 35 years after the publication of this issue? What impact have they had on broadening and defining the perspective of American art? How well have these artists and their works been documented in newspapers, journals, exhibition catalogues, standard text, etc? Are their works more included in mainstream museums than artists 35 years ago? How well are these artists compensated for their works and how does that dollar amount compare in value to 1980 selling prices? etc., etc., etc.