National Gallery Of Art | Audio

Hal Foster, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. In the six-part lecture series Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period, Hal Foster explores the pervasive turn, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, to the brut and the brutalist, the animal and the creaturely, as these are manifest in the early work of five artists. In the fifth lecture, “Eduardo Paolozzi and His Hollow Gods,” held May 6, 2018, Foster discusses how Paolozzi found a path to postwar survival in industrial debris.

Hal Foster, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. In the six-part lecture series Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period, Hal Foster explores the pervasive turn, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, to the brut and the brutalist, the animal and the creaturely, as these are manifest in the early work of five artists. In the sixth and final lecture, “Claes Oldenburg and His Ray Guns,” held May 13, 2018, Foster examines how Oldenburg staked his hope for metamorphosis in the transformation of urban scrap.

Christine Laloue, chief curator of harpsichords and fine arts, and Jean-Philippe Echard, curator of bowed string instruments, Musée de la musique, Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris The harpsichord, standing at the center of baroque European culture, served not only as a musical instrument but also as a receptacle of painting. Collections in townhouses and mansions from Venice to London and Antwerp to Paris included, alongside traditional easel paintings, harpsichords bearing works by masters as renowned as Jan Brueghel, Annibale Carracci, Noël Coypel, Christophe Huet, or Sebastiano Ricci. The paintings on harpsichords’ soundboards featured flowers, birds, and insects, connecting these works to Flemish still-life paintings and the celebration of creation. Others presented allegorical, mythological, or vanitas scenes on their lids. In traditional paintings, the harpsichord functioned as a sign of the culture of the gentleman and life at the court, as well as a symbol of artistic inspiration. The harpsich

Doris J. Schattschneider, professor emerita of mathematics, Moravian College. Held in conjunction with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics annual meeting and the 120th anniversary of the birth of Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898–1972), this lecture considers how the imagery in Escher’s graphic works makes use of geometry and often provides visual metaphors for abstract mathematical concepts. Recorded at the National Gallery of Art on April 25, 2018, Doris J. Schattschneider examines these concepts implicit in several of Escher’s works, outlines some of the geometry that governs his interlocking figures, and reveals how this “math anxious” artist performed pioneering mathematical research in order to accomplish his artistic goals. Escher’s mathematical curiosity and insight have been the inspiration for many mathematicians, scientists, and contemporary artists who seek solutions to problems (both mathematical and artistic) first posed by Escher himself.

Estelle Lingo, Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art. The Tuscan sculptor Francesco Mochi (1580-1654) has long been viewed as an early innovator of the baroque style whose career was eclipsed by his brilliant younger contemporary Gianlorenzo Bernini. But for his 17th-century biographer, what distinguished Mochi’s sculpture was his determination to adhere to “the Florentine manner.” Estelle Lingo’s new book, Mochi’s Edge and Bernini’s Baroque, argues that the religious and political climate of the later 16th century posed specific challenges for the medium of sculpture, particularly as it had been practiced by Florentine sculptors, most famously Michelangelo. In this lecture held on April 29, 2018, Lingo explores how Mochi’s distinctive sculptural style emerged directly from his attempt to carry forward this 16th-century Florentine tradition and to adapt it to the exigencies of a new era. Mochi’s ambitious undertaking produced some of the century’s mo

Hal Foster, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. In the six-part lecture series Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period, Hal Foster explores the pervasive turn, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, to the brut and the brutalist, the animal and the creaturely, as these are manifest in the early work of Jean Dubuffet, Georges Bataille, Asger Jorn, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Claes Oldenburg. In the first lecture, “Walter Benjamin and His Barbarians,” held on April 8, 2018, Foster probes how modernist art “teaches us to survive civilization if need be.”

Hal Foster, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. In the six-part lecture series Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period, Hal Foster explores the pervasive turn, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, to the brut and the brutalist, the animal and the creaturely, as these are manifest in the early work of five artists. In the second lecture, “Jean Dubuffet and His Brutes,” held on April 15, 2018, Foster asks why Dubuffet invented the notion of art brut and how the artist could imagine an art “unscathed” by culture.

Hal Foster, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. In the six-part lecture series Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period, Hal Foster explores the pervasive turn, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, to the brut and the brutalist, the animal and the creaturely, as these are manifest in the early work of five artists. In the third lecture, “Georges Bataille and His Caves,” held on April 22, 2018, Foster asks what Bataille saw in the “enigma” of the cave paintings of Lascaux.

Hal Foster, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. In the six-part lecture series Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period, Hal Foster explores the pervasive turn, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, to the brut and the brutalist, the animal and the creaturely, as these are manifest in the early work of five artists. In the fourth lecture, “Asger Jorn and His Creatures,” held on April 29, 2018, Foster considers how Jorn saw the beastly figures of his CoBrA paintings as expressions of political crisis.

Nancy Anderson, curator and head, department of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art. When the National Gallery of Art opened in 1941, only ten American paintings were on view. Almost all were portraits. Of these, only one was of a woman—the regal Catherine Brass Yates by Gilbert Stuart. Elegantly dressed in white silk, Mrs. Yates represents the essence of elite society in America following the Revolution. Seventy-five years later, another portrait of a woman in white has joined the collection. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Nancy Anderson shares how Archibald John Motley Jr.’s moving portrait of his grandmother, Emily Sims Motley, a former slave, speaks to a very different American story. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

David C. Driskell, artist, curator, and Distinguished University Professor of Art, Emeritus, University of Maryland at College Park. Archibald Motley Jr.’s paintings of African American subjects underwent drastic changes in style and reception during the artist’s long lifetime. After including Motley’s paintings in his Two Centuries of Black American Art exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1976, David Driskell visited Motley at his home in 1979 and 1980. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, David Driskell presents his recollections of those conversations as well as other impressions of Motley’s work formed during Driskell’s career as an art historian and curator. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Sarah Cash, associate curator, department of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art. Sarah Cash presents a brief history of Hiram Powers’s marble sculpture The Greek Slave at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art. In particular, Cash considers the work’s changing display and reception, both public and private, in Washington, DC from 1848 onward. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

R. Tess Korobkin, PhD candidate, history of art, Yale University, and Ellen Holtzman Fellow, Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art, 2017–2018. The fact that Frederick Douglass, a former slave and an outspoken proponent of abolitionism, owned a statuette of Hiram Powers’s The Greek Slave raises difficult questions. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Tess Korobkin highlights other examples of reproductions of the sculpture in a range of media to more fully explore the layered and sometimes contradictory political materialities of Powers’s work. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Karen Lemmey, curator of sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Karen Lemmey draws together the two replicas of The Greek Slave commissioned by William Humble Ward: one completed in 1846 and preserved in the Corcoran Collection at the National Gallery of Art, the other completed in 1848 and lost since the early 20th century. Sculptor Hiram Powers cleverly satisfied Lord Ward’s insistent demands for a unique version of the famed composition, revealing his ability to simultaneously entice and manage his patron’s desires. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Charles Brock, associate curator, department of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art When Both Members of This Club by George Bellows was placed on view at the National Gallery of Art in January 1945 at the behest of Gallery benefactor Chester Dale, it became the first significant work by an American modernist painter to be featured in the permanent collection. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Charles Brock discusses how this unsettling depiction of a violent interracial boxing match was acquired when there was little American or modern painting of any kind at the Gallery and established an important precedent for later efforts to better represent the diverse achievements of American modernism. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

John Fagg, lecturer, department of English literature, University of Birmingham. Robert Henri was referring to a cadaver he and his brother had just dissected when he confessed in an 1886 diary entry: “You put your self in his place.” Over the next two decades Henri developed and taught an approach to painting the body that emphasized breathing, feeling, and moving with one’s subject in reciprocal exchange. George Bellows, one of his students, embodied Henri’s theories in his fleshy, intuitive art, drawing on the experience of his own athletic body to picture the raw physicality of street kids, workers, and boxers. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, John Fagg explores the possibilities and limits of Bellows’s painting as a way to know and represent the bodies and lives of others. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Holly Bass, artistic director, Holly Bass|360. At the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, local artist Holly Bass discusses the importance of audience engagement as it relates to her current practice and the larger national conversation on equity, diversity, and inclusion. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Judith Brodie, curator and head, department of modern prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art. Recent additions to the Gallery’s collection have sparked new discussions and new ways of thinking about “fine” art. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Judith Brodie looks at some examples, including works by Winsor McCay, Saul Steinberg, and the Guerrilla Girls, and considers how they both challenge and conform to established thinking and in what way they reshape the conversation. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Anne Whiston Spirn, author, photographer, landscape architect, and Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Many of Dorothea Lange’s photographs from the recent, important gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser appear in her books An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion (1939) and The American Country Woman (1967), in which she paired photographs to expand meaning. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Anne Whiston Spirn looks at a selection of images from this collection in the context of the pair to which they belong and the captions that Lange wrote for them. “I used to think in terms of single photographs. The Bull’s-eye technique. No more. A photographic statement is what I now reach for. Therefore these pairs, like a statement of 2 words.” By the time she wrote this in 1958 Lange had been experimenting with pairing, sequencing, and c

Terence Washington, program assistant, department of academic programs, National Gallery of Art. In the poem “Joy,” Poet Laureate of the United States Tracy K. Smith describes the body alternately as memory, as appetite, and as this question: “What do you believe in?” Using works from the Gallery’s collection as examples, Terence Washington, at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art held on March 23, 2018 at the National Gallery of Art, considers different ways the body has been framed in American art. How have the nation’s artists articulated responses to the body’s question? What is at stake in the presentation of those answers here, in the nation’s gallery? The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.