October 17

ACP LECTURE SERIES: DEBORAH WILLIS. PH.D. – REFRAMING “BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL” CONVERSATION WITH THE CURATOR

Posted by Layla on October 17, 2013 in LECTURES | Leave a comment

OCTOBER 17

SPELMAN COLLEGE MUSEUM OF FINE ART

7PM

Deborah Willis, Ph.D. is one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography and curators of African American culture. She is currently the Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and has an affiliated appointment as a University Professor with the College of Arts and Sciences, Africana Studies. She was a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fletcher Fellow, and a MacArthur Fellow. Dr. Willis is also a prolific author.

The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is the first institution in the southeast to present Dr. Willis’ nationally touring exhibition Posing Beauty in African American Culture (September 5 – December 7, 2013). This exhibition explores the ways in which our contemporary understanding of beauty has been informed by photographers and artists working from 1890 to the present

For this event, Dr. Willis leads a conversation examining and challenging conventional perspectives on identity, beauty, cosmopolitanism, and community in Africa and the African Diaspora. She will also examine the relationship between beauty and politics and how such topics have shaped a new understanding of reading black culture from the antebellum period to the present.

This program is organized in partnership with the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and is part of the Spelman College Ida B. Wells-Barnett Distinguished Lecture Series.

PHOTOS: