Clark Conference Explores Art and Diasporas
WILLIAMSTOWN — The Clark Conference "Art History and Diaspora: Genealogies, Theories, Practices" will bring together artists, curators, and art historians to investigate the impact of the field of diasporic studies on art historical scholarship.The conference will be held 9 to 6 on Friday and Saturday, April 25 and 26, at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
Tickets are $30 ($20 for members and students). Admission is free for Williams faculty and students (register at events@clarkart.edu). For more information and tickets, visit www.clarkart.edu or call 413-458-0460.
A primary focus of the conference will be on defining how diaspora — with its connotations of forced migration because of political expulsion, enslavement, shifting belief systems, war, and other forms of nationalist conflict — has shaped both art-making and art historical scholarship in the late 20th and early 21st century.
The conference will focus on how issues of national identity, migration, cultural hybridity and increasing globalization, and concepts such as mestizaje and creolization (largely emerging from the field of postcolonial studies) have transformed art historical scholarship (including policies governing teaching and curriculum design issues).
The conference is co-convened by Mora Beauchamp-Byrd, Natasha Becker, and C. Ondine Chavoya. Speakers will include:
* Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne
* May Joseph, New York University
* Simon Njami, independent lecturer and art critic
* Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, artist
* Yong Soon Min, University of California at Irvine
* John P. Bowles, Indiana University
* Pamela R. Franco, Tulane University
* Jerry Philogene, Dickinson University
* Kobena Mercer, spring 2008 Clark Fellow
* Vesela Sretenovic, Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Brown University
* Richard Powell, Duke University
* Lisa Bloom, University of California at San Diego
* Judy Ramgolam, Central University of Technology, South Africa
* E. Carmen Ramos, Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton
* Barnor Hesse, Northwestern University
* Allan de Souza, San Francisco Art Institute
The conference kicks off on Thursday, April 24 at 6 p.m. with a lecture by the internationally acclaimed artist Julie Mehretu at the Williams College Museum of Art, where her exhibition "Julie Mehretu: City Sitings" is on view from April 19 through July 27.
Mehretu's monumental paintings are significant to the themes of the conference as they register the impact of time, space, and place on the formation of personal and communal identity in contemporary life.
The conference is organized by the Clark Art Institute with additional support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Clark is located at 225 South St. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 to 5. Admission is free through May. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu
