Clark/Williams College Museum of Art Artist Symposium: Artistic Crossings of the Black Atlantic: The Migratory Aesthetic in Contemporary Art
March 1, 2008
9:00 am
Purchase tickets online
Students and Williams faculty are free and should register by contacting events@clarkart.edu.
This symposium invites five acclaimed artists—multi-media artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, sculptor Willie Cole, British filmmaker Isaac Julien, photographer Hank Willis Thomas, and installation artist and MacArthur Fellow Fred Wilson—to discuss the Black Atlantic aesthetic. Through transatlantic connections among Africa, Britain, the Caribbean, and the United States, black intellectuals and literary figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Richard Wright fashioned a Black Atlantic culture that made a central contribution to the modernist aesthetic. Today this Black Atlantic aesthetic extends into the realm of the visual as international artists critically engage cross-Atlantic migration as a principal focus of their work.
9:00 am: Registration and Breakfast, Clark Café
10:00 am: Introductions by Symposium Conveners
Michael Ann Holly, Director, Research and Academic Program, the Clark
Lisa Corrin, Class of 1956 Director, Williams College Museum of Art
Peter Erickson, Visiting Professor of Humanities, Williams College
10:30 am: Isaac Julien
11:00 am: Discussion
Moderated by Kobena Mercer, cultural critic and Spring 2008 Clark Fellow
11:30 am: Coffee break
11:45 am: Fred Wilson
12:15 pm Discussion
Moderated by Francesca T. Royster, Associate Professor, DePaul University
12:45 pm: Lunch
2:00 pm: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
2:30 pm: Discussion
Moderated by C. Ondine Chavoya, Assistant Professor of Art, Williams College
3:00 pm: Willie Cole and Hank Willis Thomas
3:30 pm: Discussion
Moderated by Natasha Becker, Coordinator for Mellon Initiatives, the Clark, and Leslie Wingard, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Visual Culture, Williams College
4:00 pm: Coffee break
4:15 pm: Panel Discussion and Conclusion
Moderated by Lisa Corrin and Peter Erickson, Williams College
5:30 pm: Reception and Exhibition Viewing at Williams College Museum of Art:
Unchained Legacies and William Kentridge Prints
Organized by the Clark and the Williams College Museum of Art
$20, $10 for members; students free
