Black American Portraits: A Symposium
A two-day symposium on March 2-3, 2023, centered around Black American Portraits on view at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, February 8 – June 30, 2023
The first Atlanta University Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective / Spelman College Museum of Fine Art collaborative symposium, the two-day “Black American Portraits” symposium will bring together a distinguished group of artists, including Amy Sherald, Calida Rawles and Bisa Butler as well as scholars such as Deborah Willis and Bridget Cooks, for panel discussions, performances, lectures and films that question the role of the portrait in African American art, history, culture, identity and social movements.
Spanning over two centuries from around 1800 to the present day, “Black American Portraits” chronicles the ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes. Remembering “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” curated by David C. Driskell at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1976, this exhibition reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters and spaces at a crucial time in our nation’s reckoning with the impact and legacy of visual representations on Black lives.
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