The New Social Environment#119

Rico Gatson with Tom McGlynn

 

1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

Painter, sculptor, and video artist Rico Gatson will be in conversation with artist and Rail contributor Tom McGlynn. We’ll conclude with a poetry reading from Don Yorty.

In this talk

Rico Gatson

Untitled (Arcs, Lines, Waves, and an X), 2015
Untitled (Arcs, Lines, Waves, and an X), 2015
Over the course of almost two decades, Rico Gatson has become celebrated for his confrontational and politically opinionated artworks, often based on significant moments in black history. Images of riots, fires, and confinement pervade his works, which have touched on a range of subjects like the Watts Riots, the presidential election of Barack Obama, and the formation of the Black Panthers. As Gatson once said: “I’m always interested in seducing the viewer and then hitting them on the way out, allowing a delayed response to powerfully charged content.” Even though he uses painting, video, sculpture and installation, Gatson prefers not to be defined by any single medium, rather thinking of himself as an object maker inspired by Conceptualism and Performance Art.

Tom McGlynn

Portrait drawing of Tom McGlynn by Phong Bui
Portrait of Tom McGlynn by Phong Bui
An artist, writer, and independent curator based in the NYC area. His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum of the Smithsonian. He is the director of Beautiful Fields, an organization dedicated to socially-engaged curatorial projects, and is also currently a visiting lecturer at Parsons/the New School. Tom is a contributor to the Brooklyn Rail.

The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poetry reading, and we’re fortunate to have Don Yorty reading.

Don Yorty

Don Yorty
Don Yorty is a poet, educator, and garden activist. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, and is included in Out of This World, An Anthology of the Poetry of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, 1966– 1991. His collected early poems will be published in 2021.

❤️ 🌈 We'd like to thank the The Terra Foundation for American Art for making these daily conversations possible, and for their support of our growing archive.