Ken Gonzales-Day, Untitled, 2010. Photograph.
(Antico [Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi], Bust of a Young Man, and Francis Harwood, Bust of a Man, J. Paul Getty Museum)
This program explores the role of artists as cultural curators, and how visual art, poetry, criticism, and other forms of cultural production have the power to confront the ideological and political systems that “define” communities, national borders, and social values, and yet are still rooted in systems of bias, injustice, and race. How are contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers reimagining the relationship between the idea of art canons and “belonging,” and the reality of historical exclusion? How might a strategy of “intervention” push the fields of art practice and art history to question established narratives, and set the tone for a broader and more engaged future?
In this conversation, Getty curator LeRonn Brooks brings together Claudia Rankine, Monica Youn, and Jess Row to discuss how their creative practices engage with the poetics of art and intervention.
Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist, playwright, the editor of several anthologies, and the founder of The Racial Imaginary Institute. Rankine teaches at New York University as a Professor of Creative Writing.
Monica Youn is the author of Blackacre, Ignatz, Barter, and the forthcoming From From. The daughter of Korean immigrants and a former constitutional lawyer, she is a professor at UC Irvine.
Jess Row is a novelist and essayist; his most recent book is White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination. He directs the undergraduate creative writing program in the Department of English at NYU.
LeRonn P. Brooks is associate curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute. He has recently published in BOMB Magazine, Callaloo, and International Review of African American Art, and on behalf of organizations such as the Studio Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, and Aperture Foundation.
This program is part of the Art History in the Making series, which brings artists, critics, curators, and scholars together to explore how both the creative practice of art-making and new discoveries in art history are provoking new questions and redefining the frontiers of the field.
The conversation will be available on the Getty Research Institute YouTube channel following the event.
The event will take place via webinar on November 17, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. PST / 2:00 p.m. ET. Advance sign-up required.