HOUSTON – (Jan. 13, 2020) – Black culture, representation and history will be among the broader topics addressed by three well-known contemporary artists during talks this semester co-sponsored by Rice’s Visual and Dramatic Arts Department (VADA) and the Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS).
The Spring 2020 Visiting Artist Lecture Series will bring artists Hannah Black (Jan. 24), Michael Queenland (Jan. 31) and Malik Gaines (Feb. 7) to campus. From film, composition and dance to photography, performance and sculpture, each lecturer brings a unique perspective to share on contemporary art and its greater sociopolitical impact.
“Much of the most exciting and challenging work in the contemporary art field is being done by African American artists,” said VADA chair John Sparagana, who worked with VADA professors Lisa Lapinski and Natasha Bowdoin and CAAAS director Anthony Pinn on curating the lineup of speakers.
“We wanted to bring in artists working, thinking and writing on the cutting edge of contemporary art, driven to a significant extent from the perspective of African American experience,” Sparagana said. “We were successful in attracting high-profile artists doing really fascinating work in various disciplines for this collaborative series.”
Each Friday lecture will be free and open to the public, thanks to support from the School of Humanities Dean’s Office. They will begin at noon in the Rice Media Center cinema.
“The arts have tremendous reach,” Pinn said. “Artists speak to and about a world that has impact beyond any particular discipline. They reflect on our world, offering new ways of seeing and thinking that are of benefit regardless of one’s particular field of study or life circumstances.”
Black voices in art is a theme that winds across the Rice campus this semester following last year's launch of CAAAS.
Opening Jan. 24, the spring exhibition at the Moody Center for the Arts, “Radical Revisionists,” considers race, representation and the long-term effects of colonialization through the work of 10 contemporary African artists across three galleries.
And CAAAS, Pinn said, is hiring two new faculty — one of whom will specialize in African and African American art history.
Below are the speakers for the Spring 2020 Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
Hannah Black
Hannah Black is an artist and writer from the U.K. living and working in New York. Black’s works have been recently exhibited at Performance Space in New York, the Sharjah Biennial, Eden Eden in Berlin, Chisenhale Gallery in London, mumok in Vienna, New Museum in New York and Arcadia Missa in London. She has read and performed at the Centre d’art contemporain Geneva, Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA PS1 in New York. (Friday, Jan. 24 at noon)
Michael Queenland
Michael Queenland lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2016, Queenland received the Rome Prize and was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome from 2016-17. His work has been exhibited at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (now ICA-LA), LA><ART, the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art and the Massachusetts College of Art. Selected group exhibitions have been shown at the Hammer Museum, the 2008 Whitney Biennial and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Queenland was assistant professor of sculpture at the Yale School of Art from 2010-16. (Friday, Jan. 31 at noon)
Malik Gaines
Malik Gaines writes, composes and performs. His book, “Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left,” traces political ideas through performances of the 1960s and beyond. His next book project, supported by a Warhol Foundation grant, explores contemporary artworks and performances that act at the limits of national sovereignty. His writing about art and performance has appeared in Art Journal, Women & Performance, Artforum and many others, and he has written essays for numerous exhibition catalogues and artist’s books, most recently for artists including Lorraine O’Grady, Senga Nengudi, Pope.L and the Judson Dance Theater. He has performed and exhibited extensively with the group My Barbarian. Gaines is associate professor of performance studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. (Friday, Feb. 7 at noon)
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Related materials:
Hannah Black
High-resolution image for download: https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/news-network.rice.edu/dist/c/2/files/2020/01/HannahBlackImage.jpg
Michael Queenland
High-resolution image for download: https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/news-network.rice.edu/dist/c/2/files/2020/01/queenlandportrait.jpg
Malik Gaines
High-resolution image for download: https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/news-network.rice.edu/dist/c/2/files/2020/01/Malik-Gaines-headshot.jpg
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