The New Social Environment#539

Guernica: The Survival of a Myth

Featuring Eddie Chambers, Pepe Karmel, José Lebrero Stals, Caroline Levitt, W.J.T. Mitchell, Phyllis Tuchman, Natalia Gierowska

 

1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

Art historians and curators Eddie Chambers, Pepe Karmel, José Lebrero Stals, Caroline Levitt, W.J.T. Mitchell, and Phyllis Tuchman join Rail contributor Natalia Gierowska for a conversation. We conclude with a poetry reading by Sarah Heady.

In this talk

This conversation is the continuation of a seminar hosted at the Museo Picasso Málaga on November 18 & 19, 2021.

You can read more details on the museum’s website →

Eddie Chambers

A portrait of art historian Eddie Chambers.
Art historian Eddie Chambers is the holder of the David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professorship in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught African Diaspora art history since 2010, teaching. He received a Fine Art (Honours) degree from Sunderland Polytechnic (1983) and in 1998 a Ph.D. in History of Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London, awarded for his thesis Black Visual Arts Activity in England Between 1981–1986: Press and Public Responses. Among numerous other publications, he most recently edited the Routledge Companion to African American Art History published in 2019. He is Editor-in-Chief of CAA’s Art Journal.

Pepe Karmel

Pepe Karmel
Art historian Pepe Karmel teaches in the Department of Art History, New York University. Karmel is the author of two books, Picasso and the Invention of Cubism (2003) and Abstract Art: A Global History (2020), and he has written widely on modern and contemporary art for museum catalogues, as well as the New York Times, Art in America, the Brooklyn Rail, and other publications. He has curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Robert Morris: Felt Works (Grey Art Gallery, New York, 1989), Jackson Pollock (MoMA, New York, 1998), and Dialogues with Picasso (Museo Picasso Málaga, 2020).

José Lebrero Stals

Photo of José Lebrero Stals
Born in Barcelona, José Lebrero Stals has been artistic director of Museo Picasso Málaga (Málaga, Spain) since October 2009. He was previously the director of Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville for six years, and served as Head Conservator at the Exhibition Department of Museu d’Art Contemporani in Barcelona from 1996 to 2002. In 2012 he was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, and in 2019 he was appointed Académico de Número de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes of San Telmo in Málago, Spain.

Caroline Levitt

Photo of Caroline Levitt
Scholar Caroline Levitt is currently Head of the History of Art department and a member of the teaching and research faculty. She specializes in 19th and 20th century French art and literature, and has a particular interest in relationships between text and image/object. Caroline’s main research is currently centered on books that have been drawn over by their artist-owners in an effort to annotate, illustrate, ornament, critique, obfuscate or even deface. Caroline is also a regular contributor to the Courtauld’s Public Programmes, including Summer School, Study Tours and the Showcasing Art History lecture series.

W. J. T. Mitchell

W.J.T. Mitchell
Scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature W. J. T. Mitchell is Senior Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Critical Inquiry, a quarterly devoted to critical theory in the arts and human sciences. Mitchell is associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology (the study of images across the media). He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Morey Prize in art history given by the College Art Association of America. In 2003, he received the University of Chicago’s prestigious Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching.

Phyllis Tuchman

Phyllis Tuchman
Critic and art historian Phyllis Tuchman teaches and writes about art, particularly sculpture. She has taught at Williams College, Hunter College, and the School of Visual Arts. She is an Editor-at-Large for the Brooklyn Rail.

Natalia Gierowska

Photo of Natalia Gierowska
Political scientist and art critic Natalia Gierowska has been published in several academic journals, including Springer, specialising in politics of the Middle East, Public Policy and Refugee Law. Gierowska is also the Europe Correspondant at The Brooklyn Rail, where she regularly contributes exhibition reviews. Together with her cousin, Łukasz Dybalski, she proudly represents the Stefan Gierowski Foundation.

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

Sarah Heady

Photo of Sarah Heady
Poet and essayist Sarah Heady is interested in place, history, and the built environment. She is the author of Comfort (Spuyten Duyvil, forthcoming 2022), Corduroy Road (dancing girl, 2021), and Niagara Transnational (Fourteen Hills, 2013). Sarah is also the librettist of Halcyon, a new opera about the death and life of a women’s college. She is the recipient of residencies from the Corporation of Yaddo, In Cahoots, Bethany Arts Community, and Art Farm. Raised in New York’s Hudson Valley, she lives in San Francisco, where she co-edits Drop Leaf Press, a small women-run poetry collective.

❤️ 🌈 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.