Art History from Home:
Portable Landscapes

Online, via Zoom

"I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me," Joan Mitchell once said. What does it mean to say we carry landscapes with us, especially when they have otherwise been rendered remote? Inspired by works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Joan Mitchell, Ruth Asawa, and Janiva Ellis in the Whitney's permanent collection, this session considers how art renders nature portable—by preserving, translating, and transporting it.

Grant Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of art history at the University of Southern California and a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney. His dissertation, Sheila Hicks: Weaving to the World, traces the first critical history of the prolific American artist, weaver, and pioneer of global contemporary art. An active curator, critic, and writer, he has published work in Artforum, Frieze, The Brooklyn Rail, Garage, and Performa Magazine, where he was a writer-in-residence from 2012 to 2014.