Art History from Home: / Collective Memory in Contemporary Black Art Tues, July 13, 2021, 6 pm

Art History from Home:
Collective Memory in Contemporary Black Art

Tues, July 13, 2021
6 pm

Monochrome artwork of a room with a figure surrounded by floating portraits and names of musicians, with the phrase "We Mourn Our Loss."
Monochrome artwork of a room with a figure surrounded by floating portraits and names of musicians, with the phrase "We Mourn Our Loss."

Kerry James Marshall, Souvenir IV, 1998. Acrylic, glitter, and screenprint on paper on tarpaulin, with metal grommets, overall: 107 5/8 × 157 1/2 in. (273.4 × 400.1 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee 98.56. © Kerry James Marshall; courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Become a member today!

Join now to enjoy early access to exhibitions and events, unlimited free admission, guest privileges, and more.

Join now

View all Art History From Home events

This event will have automated closed captions through Zoom. Live captioning is available for public programs and events upon request with seven business days advance notice. We will make every effort to provide accommodation for requests made outside of that window of time. To place a request, please contact us at accessfeedback@whitney.org or (646) 666-5574 (voice). Relay and voice calls welcome.

Learn more about access services and programs.

Online, via Zoom

This series of online talks by the Whitney’s Joan Tisch Teaching Fellows highlights works in the Museum’s collection and current exhibitions to illuminate critical topics in American art from 1900 to the present. During each thirty-minute session, participants are invited to comment and ask questions through a moderated chat for a fifteen-minute Q&A following the talk. Sessions are available live only, Tuesdays at 6 pm and Thursdays at 12 pm, but topics and speakers do periodically repeat. Check back here for more sessions added regularly.

This session looks at the ways contemporary Black artists draw on collective memory to play with, challenge, and transform notions of identity. We will consider works by Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, and Kerry James Marshall to explore how these artists subvert the canon of American art and culture.

Ayanna Dozier is an artist, lecturer, curator, and scholar. She recently completed her Ph.D. in art history and communication studies at McGill University. She is the author of the 33 ⅓ book on Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope. She is currently a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney and a lecturer in the department of communication and media studies at Fordham University. 

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.