General Public

Opening Program, Human and Animal Art Worlds

Join us for a lecture on a “post-human” framework for aesthetic philosophy, color, beauty, and evolution, delivered by Richard O. Prum, the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, and Curator of Ornithology and Head Curator of Vertebrate Zoology, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. The lecture is followed by a conversation between Prum and James Prosek, B.A. 1997, artist, writer, and naturalist. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition James Prosek: Art, Artifact, Artifice.

REVERSING EXTINCTION: WHY CLIMATE JUSTICE NEEDS ANIMAL RIGHTS

Wayne Hsiung focuses his activism on exposing cruelty and rescuing animals in factory farms, leading to a “domestic terrorism” investigation by the FBI. He currently faces 16 felony charges in 4 criminal cases and will go on trial in mid 2020. His work has been featured in WIRED, The New York Times, and The Intercept.

Pounding Mochi Party -Lunar New Year Celebrations

We would be making mochi from scratch! Pounding mochi in Asian culture (especially in Japanese and Chinese culture) has been a long-lasting tradition of the Lunar New Year celebrations, we would like to share joy, asian culture and delicious food with you!
Contact:yaletangoclub@gmail.com

CANCELED: Lecture, Margaret Ann Crutchfield: A Cherokee-Moravian Weaver of Worlds

Tiya Miles, Professor of History at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, explores the intersections of African American, Native American, and women’s histories. The exhibition Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art includes early-19th century baskets made by Peggy Scott Vann (Margaret Ann Crutchfield), a Cherokee woman who enslaved hundreds of Black people on her plantation and was outspoken against the forced removal of Cherokee people from their territory.

CANCELED: Gallery Talk, Indigenizing the Gallery, Indigenizing Yale: Perspectives on Place, Nations, Generations, Beings

Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), Professor of History and American Studies, addresses the curatorial insights in the exhibition Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art. Space is limited.

CANCELED: Gallery Talk, Blankets as Native Art and Medium

Blankets play important roles in Native communities. They serve as protection from the elements, are used in ceremonies, and are recognized as works of art in their own right. In this talk, Isabella Robbins, Ph.D. student in the History of Art, explores the present and past functions of blankets in the exhibition Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art. Space is limited.

CANCELED: Lecture, Savage Splendor: The Life and Bodily Intervention of Féral Benga

Join James Smalls, Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, as he recounts the history of the life of Senegalese dancer, model, and gay icon François Féral Benga (1906–1957). Connecting West Africa, North America, and Europe, images of Benga’s body in motion and at rest has influenced the works of European and American artists and writers such as Richmond Barthé, Geoffrey Gorer, André Lévinson, George Platt Lynes, and Carl Van Vechten.

CANCELED: Gallery Talk, The Incident in Context

Bix Archer, B.A. 2019, Education and Public Programs Fellow at the Brooklyn Museum, explores the historical, artistic, and biographical significance of John Wilson’s 1952 mural, The Incident. Inspired by the work of radical Mexican muralists, Wilson painted what he termed “an exorcism”—a vision of the violence that haunted African American life, a reality at odds with the Cold War rhetoric of American freedom and progress. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Reckoning with “The Incident”: John Wilson’s Studies for a Lynching Mural. Space is limited.

Gallery Talk, Beaded Bags and Miniature Canoes: Indigenous Artists and Souvenir Markets

Manon Gaudet, Ph.D. student in the History of Art, discusses the multiple meanings embedded in works made for the tourist market by numerous Indigenous peoples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Once forsaken as “inauthentic,” these works have since been reclaimed by communities, artists, and curators for their crucial role in maintaining cultural and economic systems threatened by colonial structures, and for the enduring aesthetic legacies to which they attest.

Gallery Talk, Viewing “The Incident”: Teaching with John Wilson’s Studies for a Lynching Mural

Crystal Feimster, Associate Professor of African American Studies, History, and American Studies, and Johanna Obenda, the Cullman-Payson Fellow in Academic Affairs and Outreach, engage with John Wilson’s studies for the The Incident, Wilson’s mural on a racial-terror lynching. They discuss methods and challenges of teaching with these studies and explore the role of the witness from the perspective of the artist, the subjects, and the contemporary viewer. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Reckoning with “The Incident”: John Wilson’s Studies for a Lynching Mural.