special_programs
Department of Art and Art History
 

Art History    .    Design  .    Studio Art    .    Visual Art Studies + Art Education

Lectures on Art of the Black Diaspora: Locating the “Universal” in the “Specific”?

This series is an outreach effort that promotes intellectual interest in and scholarship surrounding art produced in the African Diaspora. It explores the notions of diaspora and cultural and ethnic dispersal. The program not only emphasizes the growing importance of diasporic studies and of Africa and the African Diaspora in contemporary art but also underscores the increasing significance of these fields at the University of Texas at Austin.

The topic of the lecture series changes yearly.

In 2005, the British artist-filmmaker Isaac Julien and critic-historian Eddie Chambers visited, as did the public artists Josh Sarantitis and Will Wilson.

In 2006, the focus was on Conceptual art: the artist and philosopher Adrian Piper, the artist Charles Gaines, and the art historian Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw visited, giving public presentations, seminars, and conducting critiques with M.F.A. graduate students.

In 2007, artist-activists were spotlighted. Rick Lowe (the founder of Project Row Houses in Houston) and Carla Williams (the photographer and historian of African American photography) visited, giving public lectures and engaging students in seminars and studio visits. That same year, visits with Maceo Montoya (the young artist-advocate of migrant workers, Mexican immigrants, and Chicanos) and the lesbian Chicana artist Alma Lopez were co-sponsored with the Center for Mexican American Studies.*

In 2008, the British theorist and historian Kobena Mercer kicked off the lectures. In addition to providing a well-attended public presentation, he visited the studios of M.F.A. students and led a seminar at the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. Photographer Renee Cox and painter Beverly McIver also visited in the fall semester, providing public lectures and conducting studio visits with M.F.A. students.

In 2009-2010, we partnered with the Center for Asian American Studies to present a series of lectures focused on Asian American Art. Historian Gordon Chang lectured on 29 September 2009; artist Roger Shimomura lectured on 20 October 2009; and critic and curator lectured on 27 October 2009.

The series' emphasis will remain on exploring the art and idea of Diaspora through the insights provided by engaging and bright thinkers and practitioners.

The series was designed by and is coordinated by Michael Ray Charles and Cherise Smith.

*Maceo Montoya's visit was coordinated by Art History graduate student Tatiana Reinosa Perkins, and Alma Lopez's visit was coordinated by Art History graduate student Claudia Zapata.

2010 - 2011 Lecture Schedule

Thursday, October 7, 2010
Artist Panel with Edgar Arceneaux, Olga Koumoundouros, and Nery Gabriel Lemus
(Moderated by Dr. Cherise Smith, Assistant Professor, Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin)
Blanton Museum Auditorium
6:00 PM

This fall a close-knit group of Los Angeles-based artists — Edgar Arceneaux, Andrea Bowers, Olga Koumoundouros, Nery Gabriel Lemus, Rodney McMillian, and their mentor and colleague Charles Gaines — are creating works at Project Row Houses in Houston. While in Texas the group will travel to Austin for conversations at the Blanton Museum. On October 7, Arceneaux, Koumoundouros, and Lemus will engage in a dialogue moderated by Dr. Cherise Smith, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History, and on October 12, Bowers, Gaines, and McMillian will engage in a dialogue moderated by Aimee Chang, Manager of Public Programs, Blanton Museum of Art.

diaspora poster

Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Artist Panel with Andrea Bowers, Charles Gaines, and Rodney McMillian
(Moderated by Aimee Chang, Manager of Public Programs, Blanton Museum of Art)
Blanton Museum Auditorium
6:00 PM

Tuesday, October 19, 2010
After Jewish: From Identity to Politics via Polynesia
Lecture by Dr. Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
Art Building (ART), 1.120
5:00 PM

This lecture will explore the path from the difficulties of using identity as a method within art history to the politics of visuality, the key term for visual culture. Dr. Mirzoeff contrasts the displaced ‘Jewishness’ of nineteenth-century Caribbean-Danish artist Camille Pissarro with the performative identification as Jews (Hurai) made by Maori in Aotearoa New Zealand during the period of British colonization (1830–65). He will conclude by considering the legacy of the British colonizers fantasy — that New Zealand would be a new England free from the complexities of the Atlantic world — on the politics of modernity.

Saturday, February 26, 2011
Jewish Diaspora Symposium
Featuring scholars Laura Levitt, Director of Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of Religion, Temple University; Norman Kleeblatt, Susan and Elihu Rose Curator of Fine Arts, Jewish Museum; Dr. Rachel Garfield, Artist and Lecturer in Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London; Laura Wexler, Professor of American Studies, Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Yale University; and Tara Kohn, Ph.D. Candidate, Art History, University of Texas at Austin.
Harry Ransom Center
Time TBA

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Curating in Africa: Towards a Polycentric Artworld
Lecture by Bisi Silva, Independent Curator and Founder/Director, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos
Art Building (ART), 1.120
5:00 PM

In this lecture Olabisi Silva, founder and director of the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos, Nigeria, will discuss the kinds of curatorial models possible in environments with significant infrastructural—physical and critical—deficits. Her talk will introduce audiences to the cultural sector in Lagos as well as present the curatorial program at the CCA. Silva will also discuss several cultural initiatives across the African continent, such as the Luanda Triennale, Addis Ababa FotoFest, Lagos FotoFest, Doual’art, and Centre for Historical Reenactments.