Image credit: Kerry James Marshall. Untitled (Policeman). 2015. Synthetic polymer paint on PVC panel with plexi frame. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mimi Haas in honor of Marie-Josée Kravis.© 2017 Kerry James Marshall.
Ludden Lecture 2017: Darby English
"The Right to Reflect"
Lecture Description:
This lecture considers a single object: a 2015 portrait of a black policeman by Kerry James Marshall (American, b. 1955). English examines Untitled (Policeman) as both a manifestation of and a response to the demand that certain art be ‘relevant,’ reflecting or analyzing ‘real’ conditions — a demand that increases precipitously in ‘crisis’ moments such as today's. If that demand also threatens the peculiar realness of art — for instance, its ability to question our most prestigious forms and significations by instituting new ones — what might it mean for a work of art to answer the demand successfully? If visual art is a tool for addressing the widely registered sense of backsliding in contemporary US political culture, how is that tool to be wielded?
Bio:
Darby English is the Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago. His publications include 1971: A Year in the Life of Color (University of Chicago Press, 2016), and How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (MIT Press, 2007). He is co-editor of Art History and Emergency (Yale University Press, 2016) and Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress (MIT Press, 2002 and Rizzoli, 2007). English’s short-form writing has appeared in Art Bulletin, Artforum, caa.reviews, The Guardian, The International Review of African-American Art and other venues.
Event Details and Registration:
Please note that this will take place on Feb. 28, 2017 at 5:30PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) in Wexner Center Film/Video Theater.
Reception to follow. This event is free and open to the public.
