Talks & Conversations

Book Launch: Art & Histories

Our new series Art & signals a bold new vision for a more dynamic study of art. Join us for a discussion with contributing authors from its first volume, Art & Histories.

Each essay in this groundbreaking volume—the first in an exciting new series from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts—engages aesthetic and cultural debates that situate research on the arts at the intersection of various disciplines, including architecture, film, literature, curatorial and museum studies, and the arts of performance. Reflecting the series’ goal to engage with different cultural contexts and time periods, newly commissioned essays from emerging and established scholars address subjects ranging from medieval dance and ancient Assyrian reliefs to expressions of gender embodiment and the art of the Afro-Atlantic. First-person narratives ground theoretical considerations of the theme.

Reflecting a commitment to embracing the book form as a space for art itself, the book includes a detachable accordion-fold insert with a work from Miami-based artist Glexis Novoa. One of his signature horizon lines unites Washington, DC, and the artist’s native Havana. Meticulous drawings executed on travertine marble entangle the two cities and their monuments, symbolizing both violent and triumphant histories and their ideological reversals.

This event is co-organized with Politics and Prose and will take place at their Connecticut Avenue location in Washington, DC. It is free with first-come, first-served seating. View the event on their website.

Lisa Gail Collins

Lisa Gail Collins is professor of art on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair and director of the American studies program at Vassar College. She received her BA in art history from Dartmouth College and her PhD in American studies from University of Minnesota. Her latest book, Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee’s Bend Quilt—a meditation on suffering, creativity, resilience, and grace—was recently published by University of Washington Press.

Glexis Novoa

Glexis Novoa was a key participant in the vibrant art scene known as the renaissance of Cuban art in the 1980s. He was the founder of the Grupo Provisional, a pioneer of performance, political activism, and collectivist practices. Residing in Miami since 1995, Novoa is recognized for his site-specific wall drawings, which exist on the border between ephemeral art and architecture.

Kaira M. Cabañas

Collins and Novoa will be in conversation with Kaira M. Cabañas, associate dean for academic programs and publications at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (the Center) at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. She is the author of multiple volumes, including Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art (2021) and Learning from Madness: Brazilian Modernism and Global Contemporary Art (2018).

You may also like

The image shows a woman seated on a chair in a luxurious environment. She has fair skin, delicate features, and wavy light brown hair styled in a partial updo. She wears an elegant cream gown with a red overcoat lined in white fur. A maid holds a tray with a glass, a small loaf, and a gold pitcher, while the woman holds a silver platter. Next to the woman, there are ornate armor and weapons on the floor. A painting of a man in historical attire hangs on the wall. The room features wooden paneling and elegant furnishings.

virtual

Talks & Conversations:  The Art of Looking: Marguerite Gérard, Deserved Sorrows

–
Registration Required
Two angular, cream-white buildings flanking a central, stylized tree are surrounded by brown soil, small animals, and farmhouse objects like watering cans and buckets beneath a clear, azure-blue sky in this square landscape painting. We look straight onto the buildings and slightly down onto the earth in front of us. About a third of the way up the composition, the horizon is lined with trees and mountains in the deep distance. The long, spindly branches of the central tree nearly reach the top edge of the painting and abstracted, sickle-shaped leaves are silhouetted against the sky so no leaves overlap. The far edge of the whitewashed structure to our left is cropped. The façade is pierced by two small rectangular windows and an arched hatch at the top under a winch. The back end of a horse is visible through an open door at the bottom center. Horizontal bands in front of the building suggest furrows in plowed earth, and a single stalk of corn grows up into the scene, seeming close to us. A pen protected by netting stretches out in front of the second structure, to our right of center. That wood-frame building has a triangular peaked roof, and the left half is open, like a lean-to. A goat, rooster, birds, and several rabbits occupy the pen. Watering cans, buckets and pails, a hoe, newspaper, lizard, and snail are spaced around the buildings. A tiny stylized person, perhaps a baby, appears in the distance between the buildings near a well where a woman works. A covered wagon, a round mill, trees, and plants fill the rest of the space between the buildings. A disk-like moon hangs in the sky to the right of the tree. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, "Miro. 1921-22."

Talks & Conversations:  Finding Awe: Joan Miró’s The Farm 

–
Registration Required
Two angular, cream-white buildings flanking a central, stylized tree are surrounded by brown soil, small animals, and farmhouse objects like watering cans and buckets beneath a clear, azure-blue sky in this square landscape painting. We look straight onto the buildings and slightly down onto the earth in front of us. About a third of the way up the composition, the horizon is lined with trees and mountains in the deep distance. The long, spindly branches of the central tree nearly reach the top edge of the painting and abstracted, sickle-shaped leaves are silhouetted against the sky so no leaves overlap. The far edge of the whitewashed structure to our left is cropped. The façade is pierced by two small rectangular windows and an arched hatch at the top under a winch. The back end of a horse is visible through an open door at the bottom center. Horizontal bands in front of the building suggest furrows in plowed earth, and a single stalk of corn grows up into the scene, seeming close to us. A pen protected by netting stretches out in front of the second structure, to our right of center. That wood-frame building has a triangular peaked roof, and the left half is open, like a lean-to. A goat, rooster, birds, and several rabbits occupy the pen. Watering cans, buckets and pails, a hoe, newspaper, lizard, and snail are spaced around the buildings. A tiny stylized person, perhaps a baby, appears in the distance between the buildings near a well where a woman works. A covered wagon, a round mill, trees, and plants fill the rest of the space between the buildings. A disk-like moon hangs in the sky to the right of the tree. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, "Miro. 1921-22."

Talks & Conversations:  Finding Awe: Joan Miró’s The Farm 

–
Registration Required