Conversation #1: Un/making a Monument
With Kenseth Armstead, Olu Oguibe, Lava Thomas, and Kayla G. Coleman. Moderated by Desiree Gordon.
Un/making a Monument brings together artists Kenseth Armstead, Olu Oguibe, and Lava Thomas with public art administrator Kayla G. Coleman to share their challenges and successes devising public art projects on the global stage. How are communities invited into the process of developing projects? How do artists and administrators envision art objects living on the landscape in the future? How has the public responded to the work? In what ways has the public inscribed these objects with their own ideas? Moderated by Desirée Gordon.
Watch the recording here.
About the speaker:
Kenseth Armstead is a multimedia installation artist. He has created provocative conceptual art for three decades. His work has been included in pivotal explorations of history, American culture, ethnicity, and institution defining moments in exhibitions at, among other, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He has co-authored multimedia installations collaboratively with the art-band X-PRZ, which he co-founded with his mentor Tony Cokes. Armstead received a BFA from Corcoran College of Art & design in 1990. Upon completion of his degree, he moved to New York City to attend the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. He also holds an MS in Integrated Digital Media from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering. Armstead tirelessly works to explore difficult terrain, new histories, complex identities and nuances subjects with art. His work seeks to create beauty out of the connection to and honoring of the invisible and forgotten American Culture.
Olu Oguibe is an American artist and intellectual. He received a PhD in art history from the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London and is now a Professor of Art and African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Oguibe is a senior fellow of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, New York City, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. He is also an art historian, internationally working art curator, and leading contributor to post-colonial theory and new information technology studies whose critical and theoretical writings have appeared in several key volumes. His own art has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Oguibe was honored with the State of Connecticut Governor's Arts Award for excellence and lifetime achievement in 2013 and the Arnold Bode Prize in 2017.
Lava Thomas tackles issues of race, gender, representation and memorialization through a multidisciplinary practice that spans drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, and site-specific installations. Her work and voice have been at the center of the national debate around monuments, censorship, representation, and cultural equity in public art since her monument design to honor Dr. Maya Angelou was selected by a panel of arts professionals and subsequently rejected by San Francisco city officials last year. Since then, Thomas has led community-wide efforts to bring about systemic change in San Francisco's public art policies and processes to prioritize inclusion, equity, and antiracists aesthetics. Thomas is joined by seeblackwomxn collective, members of Bay Area arts community and artists and arts professionals around the country. Born in Los Angeles, CA, she studied at UCLA’s School of Art Practice and receive a BFA from California College of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in venues across the country including the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC and the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, CA, and is part of numerous permanent collections.
Kayla G. Coleman is an art historian, curator, educator, and writer who specializes in Modern and Contemporary art by Black artists in the United States and the Caribbean. Her work is rooted in topics that include access, post-colonialism, and the intersections of marginalization. Kayla received an AS in Gallery & Museum Studies and Photography from Queensborough Community College, a BA in Art History from Brooklyn College and is currently writing her thesis for a MA in Art History from the City College of New York. Since beginning her career, Kayla has held positions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York Historical Society, WhiteBox, and BronxArtSpace. She has regularly delivered lectures and panels and contributed writing and research for books, magazines, and catalogues including publications on Alma Thomas and Bettye Saar. Kayla is currently the Deputy Director of Percent for Art in New York City. Managed by the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Percent for Art program has commissioned hundreds of site-specific projects in a variety of media by artists whose sensibilities reflect the diversity of New York City.
Desiree Gordon is a cultural producer - music, curation, content - and cultural strategist specializing in strategic visioning and cultural interventions for innovation. Activating solutions at the intersections of creativity, tradition, justice, wellness, and sustainability began as a joy and is now also an expertise. She is currently the Director of Programs and Strategy at the Brooklyn Museum and Managing Editor of Public Programs for Small Axe Visualities, a digital journal for contemporary Caribbean art. Her songwriting and performance are explorations in sound healing, roots levity, and power.
Marking Absences – Shifting Narratives, organized by curator Niama Safia Sandy, takes place in multiple formats including a digital conversation series, an interactive installation, and more.
Leading up to the events: A People’s Manifesto
1014 and the Goethe-Institut New York asked New Yorkers how they believe monuments and public art should function. In October, their answers will be displayed on the Goethe-Institut’s storefront at 30 Irving Place. Visit bit.ly/publicartmanifesto to contribute.
Marking Absences – Shifting Narratives is presented by the Goethe-Institut New York and 1014 as part of Shaping the Past, a project of the Goethe-Institut, Monument Lab, and the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Shaping the Past connects memory workers across Canada, Mexico, the US, and Germany who have piloted new approaches to shape the past in their own local contexts. Visit www.goethe.de/shapingthepast for more information on the project and all related events.
Photo: Michael Nast “Olu Oguibe: Das Fremdlinge und Flüchtlinge Monument”