Image of the Black in Western Art, Part IV

November 2014 - Panel discussion includes David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London; Adrienne L. Childs, associate, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University; Kobena Mercer, professor, history of art and African American studies, Yale University; Steven Nelson, associate professor of African and African American art history, University of California, Los Angeles, and Cohen Fellow, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University (2014–2015); and Sharmila Sen, executive editor-at-large, Harvard University Press. Moderated by Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art. In the 1960s, art collector and philanthropist Dominique de Menil began a research project and photo archive called The Image of the Black in Western Art. Through the collaboration of Harvard University Press and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, the project reaches its completion. The last two volumes in the series mark the 20th-century transition from the depiction of people of African descent by others to their self-representation by artists in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. This fourth panel discussion hosted by the National Gallery of Art to celebrate this series focuses on the second part of the final volume, The Rise of Black Artists. Panelists highlight topics ranging from the Great Migration to globalization, to Négritude and cultural hybridity, to the modern black artist's relationship with European aesthetic traditions and experimentation with new technologies and media, to the post-black art world.