Exhibitions

Curatorial Activism

| Dana

http://www.artnews.com/2017/11/07/what-is-curatorial-activism/

The following is adapted from Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating, by Maura Reilly (to be published April 2018 by Thames & Hudson). ©2018 Maura Reilly. Reprinted by permission of Thames & Hudson Inc.

“Curatorial Activism” is a term I use to designate the practice of organizing art exhibitions with the principle aim of ensuring that certain constituencies of artists are no longer ghettoized or excluded from the master narratives of art. It is a practice that commits itself to counter-hegemonic initiatives that give voice to those who have been historically silenced or omitted altogether—and, as such, focuses almost exclusively on work produced by women, artists of color, non-Euro-Americans, and/or queer artists. The thesis of my forthcoming book, Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating, takes as its operative assumption that the art system—its history, institutions, market, press, and so forth—is an hegemony that privileges white male creativity to the exclusion of all Other artists. It also insists that this white Western male viewpoint, which has been unconsciously accepted as the prevailing viewpoint, “may––and does––prove to be inadequate not merely on moral and ethical grounds, or because it is elitist, but on purely intellectual ones.”

Symposium on Creating, Curating, and Studying Black Art

| Dana

https://artsinitiative.osu.edu/events/department-african-american-and-african-studies-symposium-creating-curating-and-studying

All events are free and open to the public
Register here.

In celebration of the exhibition of Start at Home: Art from the Frank W. Hale, Jr. Black Cultural Center Collection, this symposium brings together artists, museum professionals, and scholars of Black art. The two-day event includes artist talks by Alison Saar and Fahamu Pecou; a keynote lecture on museums in the era of Black Power by Dr. Susan Cahan (Temple University); and a talk about “Black Art Futures” by Dr. LeRonn Brooks (Lehman College). Symposium panels will address the history of Black Art in Ohio and beyond, past and current practices of curating and exhibiting Black art, and the practice of Black art as resistance.

Thursday, October 19
All events at the Hale Black Cultural Center, unless otherwise noted

Nicole Fleetwood graduate student workshop
in University Hall Room 386
11:30 AM-1:30 PM

Making Black Art Now
Opening keynote with artist Alison Saar
Introduction by Lawrence Williamson, Jr. Director of the Hale Black Cultural Center
at Urban Arts Space
5 PM-6:30 PM

Friday, October 20
All events at the Hale Black Cultural Center, unless otherwise noted

Continental Breakfast & Chair’s Welcome
8:30 AM-9 AM

Curating and Exhibiting Black Art: Past and Present
with Lawrence Williamson, Jr., Director of Hale Black Cultural Center and curator of the Hale Black Cultural Center art collection, Deidre Hamlar (independent curator), and Lucy Mensah from Detroit Institute of Arts
9 AM-10:30 AM

Black Art in Ohio in the 1960s and 70s
Panel led by Dr. Horace Newsum (H. Ike Okafor-Newsum), Emeritus Professor, The Ohio State University
Panelists: Queen Brooks, April Sunami, Bettye Stull, Willis “Bing” Davis, Shirley Bowen
10:30 AM-12 PM

Lunch + talk by Dr. Susan Cahan (Temple University) on “The Museum in the Age of Black Power” (talk starts at 12:30 PM)
12 PM-1:30 PM

Art as Resistance
with Melissa Crum, independent Scholar & entrepreneur; Simone Drake, The Ohio State University; Nicole Fleetwood, Rutgers University
1:30 PM-3:00 PM

Artist Talk: Fahamu Pecou, visual/performing artist and scholar
3 PM-4 PM

Closing Keynote: LeRonn Brooks (Lehman College) on Black Art Futures
at King Arts Complex
5:30 PM

This symposium is presented by the Frank W. Hale, Jr. Black Cultural Center, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, The Ohio State University; The Arts Initiative; Urban Arts Space; the Department of African American and African Studies; the Department of History of Art; the Arts and Humanities Discovery Themes; and King Arts Complex.

 

Gender Fluid Artists Come Out

| Dana

“Transgender and gender nonconforming expressions have been around forever,” said Erin Christovale, the co-curator of the roving film program “Black Radical Imagination” who recently started work at the Hammer Museum. “What’s new is that people are claiming these terms very proudly and these terms are starting to be valued.”

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/arts/design/gender-fluid-artists-new-museum-transgender.html?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Walker Art Center’s Reckoning

| Dana

“Ms. Viso’s history with “Scaffold” goes back years. She recalled first seeing it on exhibition in Europe and proposed the work to the Walker; the board signed off on the $450,000 purchase in 2014, according to minutes from the Walker board’s acquisition committee. Walker curators were aware that other work by Mr. Durant dealt with the Dakota war, and the museum has acknowledged that it should have engaged in a meaningful way with Native American leaders before mounting “Scaffold.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/arts/design/walker-art-center-scaffold.html?emc=edit_th_20170914&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=20820503&_r=0

Art Once Shunned; Now Celebrated

| Dana

Art Once Shunned, Now Celebrated in ‘Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction’

“The museum has a history it can be proud of, a radical one. From the start, it championed an outcast art and stood boldly, unfashionably, by it. Now it is complicating its earlier aesthetic direction without compromising its social mission, which is a tough act to pull off. Whether the museum is, or will continue to be, as advertised, the only art institution of its kind doesn’t matter. It’s a museum that both stretches “gay” and resists “normal,” and for that it’s invaluable.”