Common Ground
CUE Art Foundation
Featuring Ted Berger, Miatta Kawinzi, Corina Larkin, Kambui Olujimi, Lilly Wei, and Ann C. Collins in conversation
to
1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific
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CUE Executive Director Corina Larkin, Board Members Ted Berger and Lilly Wei, and artists Miatta Kawinzi and Kambui Olujimi join Rail contributor Ann C. Collins for a conversation. We conclude with a poetry reading by Miatta Kawinzi.
In this talk
Read Ann C. Collins’s profile on the CUE Art Foundation from the Rail’s ArTonic section »
Ted Berger
Arts Advocate Ted Berger is Executive Director Emeritus of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) where he began in 1973 as the country’s first statewide Artists-in-Schools Coordinator, becoming Executive Director in 1980 until retiring in 2005. Ted has helped to create many national and local initiatives, including ArtsConnection, Studio in a School, the NYC CETA Artists Project, the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, NYCreates, among others. Ted is a Trustee Emeritus of the Joan Mitchell Foundation where he also served as Treasurer and was involved in the development of the Joan Mitchell Center. He consults and serves on numerous boards and committees such as CUE Art Foundation, New Yorkers for Culture and Arts (NY4CA), among others.
Miatta Kawinzi
Kenyan-Liberian-American multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and educator Miatta Kawinzi (she/her/they/them) was raised in Nashville, TN and Louisville, KY and is based in NYC. Her work explores hybridity within the African Diaspora and the re-imagining of the self, identity, and culture through abstraction and poetics. She received an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College and a BA in Interdisciplinary Art & Cultural Theory from Hampshire College. Her work has been presented at CUE Art Foundation, the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PopRally, Red Bull Arts Detroit, BRIC, and the Museum of the Moving Image, among other spaces. Recent awards include the 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and the 2018 Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant administered by Queer|Art.
Corina Larkin
Visual artist and writer Corina Larkin is the Executive Director of the Cue Foundation, and prior to this position worked as Managing Editor at the Brooklyn Rail. She also worked as a management consultant for many years, focusing on new market entry strategies and organizational development. She holds degrees from Purchase College, Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania and SAIS/Johns Hopkins University. Prior to assuming the position of Executive Director, Ms. Larkin served on CUE’s board for eight years.
Kambui Olujimi
Artist Kambui Olujimi was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. He received his MFA from Columbia University and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work challenges established modes of thinking that commonly function as "inevitabilities." This pursuit takes shape through interdisciplinary bodies of work spanning sculpture, installation, photography, writing, video and performance. His works have premiered nationally and internationally at Sundance Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art, Mass MoCA, Museo Nacional Reina Sofia in Madrid, and Kunsthal Rotterdam among others. Olujimi has been awarded the 2020 Colene Brown Prize and residencies such at Black Rock Senegal, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and MacDowell.
Lilly Wei
New York-based independent curator, writer, journalist and critic Lilly Wei writes on global contemporary art and emerging art and artists, reporting frequently on international exhibitions and biennials. She has written for dozens of publications here and abroad and is a longtime contributor to Art in America and a contributing editor at ARTnews. She is the author of numerous artists’ catalogues and monographs and has curated exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Wei sits on the board of several non-profit art institutions and organizations including AICA/USA (the International Association of Art Critics), Bowery Arts & Sciences, and Art Omi International. She is a fellow and Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the CUE Foundation.
Ann C. Collins
Regular contributor to the Brooklyn Rail’s ArtSeen section, Ann C. Collins holds a BFA in Film and Television from NYU and an MFA in Art Criticism & Writing from the School of Visual Arts. Her work has also appeared in Degree Critical and Variables West. Her film editing projects include Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold; Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, and the Netflix series The Pharmacist. Her film work has screened at Sundance, Berlin, and New York film festivals. She lives in Brooklyn.
❤️ 🌈 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.