Art Talks: Four Generations | Christopher Bedford, Mary Schmidt Campbell, Thomas Lax, Sheena Wagstaff, Fred Wilson | An Art Book Series Event

FREE — Auditorium doors open to public at 5:30 p.m.

Filled with countless insights and treasures, the new book Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is a journey through one of the most exceptional collections of art in America, and through the momentous legacy of African and African Diasporan art from the last hundred years. In celebration of this timely publication, join Christopher Bedford, Mary Schmidt Campbell, Thomas Lax, and Fred Wilson, in a conversation moderated by Sheena Wagstaff. 

The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is widely recognized as one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary work by African and African Diasporan artists, and Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art draws upon the collection's unparalleled holdings to explore the critical contributions made by African Diasporan artists to the evolution of visual art in the 20th and 21st centuries. Extensively illustrated with hundreds of works in a variety of media, and featuring scholarly texts by leading artists, writers, and curators, Four Generations gives an essential overview of some of the most notable artists and movements of the last century, up to and including works being made today.

Copies of Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art (Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2016) are available for purchase and signing at the end of the event. 

Christopher Bedford is Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Previously, he was Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Among his exhibitions at the Rose were Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler (2015) and Mark Bradford: Sea Monsters (2014). He spearheaded major gifts to the institution, including works by modern and contemporary artists from the collections of Peter Norton and Stephen M. Salny. Prior to being named to that post, where he became one of the youngest museum directors in the country, Christopher Bedford was Chief Curator of Exhibitions at The Ohio State University’s Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. There, he organized the first traveling survey exhibition of the work of Mark Bradford. He has also held posts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. An active writer and critic, he has published in Frieze, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and other art journals and general-interest periodicals. Christopher Bedford holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and an M.A. from Case Western University.

Mary Schmidt Campbell is President of Spelman College, a leading women’s college dedicated to the education and global leadership of black women. Before coming to Spelman, she served for over two decades as Dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. An art historian and former curator, Dr. Campbell began her career in New York as Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the country’s first accredited black fine-arts museum and a linchpin in Harlem’s redevelopment. She served as Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs under two mayors, and, in 2009, Barack Obama appointed her Vice Chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. A graduate of Swarthmore College, Dr. Campbell received her Ph.D. from Syracuse University and has written and lectured widely about black artists, cultural policy, and arts education. Currently, Dr. Campbell is completing a biography of Romare Bearden for Oxford University Press.

Thomas J. Lax is Associate Curator in the Department of Media and Performance Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Previously, Lax spent seven years at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where he was an assistant curator. He has lectured widely and contributed to many artist monographs and to the publications Artforum, Art Journal, and Mousse. Lax is a faculty member at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and on the Advisory Board of Contemporary And. He received his A.B. from Brown University and his M.A. in modern art from Columbia University.

Sheena Wagstaff is Leonard A. Lauder Chair for Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She leads the program and collection of modern and contemporary art at the museum, including painting, sculpture, architecture, design, decorative arts, and multi-disciplinary installations. Before joining the Met, she was Chief Curator of Tate Modern, London, responsible for the exhibitions program, Turbine Hall commissions, and contributing to the conceptual framework of Collection displays. Over the course of her career, Sheena Wagstaff has worked for the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; the Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh; and Tate Britain, London. She has curated numerous exhibitions and written/edited catalogues.

Fred Wilson was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1954, and lives and works in New York. He received a BFA from Purchase College, State University of New York. His installations question (and force the viewer to question) how curators shape interpretations of historical truth, artistic value, and the language of display—and what kinds of biases our cultural institutions express. In his groundbreaking intervention, Mining the Museum (1992), he transformed the Maryland Historical Society’s collection to highlight the history of slavery in America. For the 2003 Venice Biennale, Fred Wilson created a mixed-media installation of many parts—focusing on Africans in Venice and issues and representations of blacks and whites—which included a suite of black glass sculptures; a black-and-white tiled room, with wall graffiti culled from texts of African-American slave narratives; and a video installation of Othello, screened backwards. He received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award (1999) and the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2003). He is the Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Object, Exhibition, and Knowledge at Skidmore College. Fred Wilson represented the United States at the Cairo Bienniale (1992) and Venice Biennale (2003).

In its ninth year the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world 
renowned artists, critics, curators, gallerists, historians and writers.

The event is free and advanced registration is recommended. 

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