The Centre for American Art - Past Events

The Centre for American Art organises a variety of conferences, lectures and workshops throughout the year. Here you will find an archive of past events.

2023/24 Academic Year

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Centre for American Art, Research

Louise Nevelson’s Sculpture: Drag, Colour, Join Face

6:00pm, 14 Feb 2024 | Free, booking essential

Julia Bryan-Wilson in conversation with Jo Applin....

A painting depicting an angelic figure in pale green at the bottom of the page, with numbers and letters surrounding them. The sky is purple and black and they are set against a backdrop of volcanoes and mountains

Research

“Underground Before Earthworks: Robert Smithson’s Concealed Paintings” Lecture and Book Signing

6:00pm, 20 Oct 2023 | Free, booking essential

Join Art Historian Suzaan Boettger for the launch of her latest book 'Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert Smithson'...

Photograph showing the backs of the heads of two male figures sitting in the front two seats of an open top car

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Research

Hitler Asleep in the Mercedes

5:30pm, 25 Sep 2023 | Free, booking essential

Altair Brandon-Salmon will deliver a talk on Troy Brauntuch's practice in photography and the appropriation of imagery. ...

Painting depicting a steep gorge. On one side a train moves along a track on a steep cliff side and on the other side a figure can be seen painting

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Centre for American Art, Research

Belatedness and Historiographies of North American Art

Friday 16th June, 12:45 - 16:30 BST and Saturday 17th June 2023, 10:00 - 15:30 BST | Free, booking essential

Join us for a two day conference as part of the Belatedness and North American Art series. ...

Geometric image of four intersecting triangles. The bottom triangle is made up of lines of different colours and patterns, the left and right triangles are bright blue, and the top triangle is dark green with white flecks giving the impression of a night sky and stars.

Unsettling American Art History:
Perspectives from Native American & Indigenous Studies

Friday 9th June, 9.30am - 3.00pm BST and Saturday 10th June, 9.30am - 3.00pm BST | Free, booking essential

This symposium gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars, artists, and curators whose work both engages with 19th- and 20th-century Indigenous art/history and is framed by the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies. ...

Painting showing a calm cove with a sailing boat on the left hand side. In the distance is a rocky island and there are large white clouds in the sky.

Research

Words and Wordlessness in Fitz Henry Lane’s Gloucester

5:30pm, 4 May 2023 | Free, booking essential

Join Nicholas Robbins as he explores the peculiar intimacy between art and literature that has characterized scholarship on nineteenth-century U.S. painting through the work of Fitz Henry Lane. ...

Photograph showing a woman on top of a mechanical raised platform, adding paint to a painting which fills the entire wall of the room

Lyric, Mark, Mural: Matthew Holman in Conversation with Megan Rooney

6:30pm, 2 May 2023 | Free, booking essential

Dr Matthew Holman and Megan Rooney, in conversation, on the occasion of Rooney’s major solo exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris. ...

Watercolour painting depicting a lake surrounded by mountains. In the bottom left you can see a figure dragging a boat in to shore and there are more boats shown in the rest of the lake

Centre for American Art, Research

North American Impressionisms and Belatedness

6:00pm, 28 Apr 2023 | Free, booking essential

The third online event in the Belatedness and North American Art series. ...

Photograph showing abstract artworks by Jackson Pollock in black and white hung in a white box gallery with benches throughout the room

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Centre for American Art, Online, Research

Belatedness and U.S. Exhibitions in Transnational Contexts

6:00pm, 24 Feb 2023 | Free, booking essential

The second online event in the Belatedness and North American Art series. ...

Cover of a book by Gavin Parkinson titled 'Robert Rauschenberg and Surrealism'. The title and author's name are written across an abstract painting.

Centre for American Art, Research

The Bed Hurtles Along on its Rails of Blue Honey: Robert Rauschenberg, Surrealism, Leo Steinberg

5:00pm, 6 Feb 2023 | Free, booking essential

This talk by Professor Gavin Parkinson will consider the work of Robert Rauschenberg in the context of Surrealist art and exhibition. ...

Painting depicting the biblical story of Adam and Eve leaving the garden of Eden

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Textures of a New Eden

5:30pm, 5 Dec 2022 | Free, booking essential

Join Linda Freedman for this online talk about New Eden, mythology and redemption in nineteenth century America, and the reflection of these themes in art and literature. ...

Photograph showing a group of Black children and adults looking into a window and pointing. Behind the window are various photographs on display

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Centre for American Art, Research

Modern Enchantments, Anachronistic Space: The American Office of War Information Overseas Radiophoto Section in Central Africa and the British Raj, 1942-1945

5:30pm, 21 Nov 2022 | Free, booking essential

Jonathan Dentler delivers this online talk about the impact of the American Office of War Information's dissemination of news photography in colonial societies. ...

Painting depicting a male figure lying in a boat holding the antlers of a deer, while a dog swims towards him.

Winslow Homer's Freshwater Wilderness

5:00pm, 24 Oct 2022 | Free, booking essential

William R. Cross will discuss the work of Winslow Homer and his recently released 'Winslow Homer: American Passage'. ...

Photograph of an elaborately decorated building

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Centre for American Art, Research

Anachronisms in the art of North America

6:00pm, 21 Oct 2022 | Free, booking essential

This is the first online event in the series 'Belatedness and North American Art' ...

Photograph of lots of small pieces of paper with writing on them in a pile

Centre for American Art, Research

Howardena Pindell: New Perspectives

10:00am, 30 Sep 2022 | Free, booking essential

Join for a one day symposium at Kettle’s Yard. This day-long series of talks will explore the work of Howardena Pindell and her current exhibition A New Language. Speakers at the symposium will include Joan Kee, Helena Vilalta, Sarah Cowan, Naomi Bec...

Photograph of a woman suspended on a rope, swinging across a white room covered with black writing

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Centre for American Art, Research

Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics

9:45am, 9 Sep 2022 | Free, booking essential

Exploring her interdisciplinary approach, her engagement with and assessment of urgent political questions, her relationship to feminism, and her connections with wider artistic communities, this day-long symposium will consider Schneemann’s work and...

Photograph of the skyline of New York City, USA

Centre for American Art, Research

Approaching Downtown: Avant-Garde Cultural Production in New York City, 1970s-1990s - An Interdisciplinary Symposium

9:00am, 11 Jul 2022

Bringing together scholars from fields including art history, film and media studies, literary studies, performance studies, queer studies, and visual culture, this four-day workshop engaged with an expansive view of downtown avant-garde cultural pro...

Photograph of a black woman facing the camera, leaning on a wall with her elbow, hand on cheek

Centre for American Art, Research

Writing to Images: The Practice of Corresponding with Art

5:30pm, 17 Jun 2022 | Free, booking essential

In this keynote lecture, Tina M. Campt will expand upon her practice around writing as writing to, rather than about, images. ...

A photograph in black and white of people looking up at a building while surrounded by paper.

Centre for American Art, Research

Anachronism and assemblage: the unfinished image of Montreal

5:30pm, 9 Jun 2022 | Free, booking essential

Black and white photograph showing a naked woman sat on a chair facing to the right, head down.

Centre for American Art, Research

Like the Sea: Dancing with Mary Glass (1946-2021)

5:00pm, 10 May 2022 | Free, booking essential

A very visual lecture with images and film clips deliver by Carol Mavor. ...

Painted portrait of a figure in a white robe and black head covering sat at a desk writing, surrounded by books and christian symbols

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Centre for American Art, Research

Decolonizing Art History with Mexico’s “Tenth Muse,” Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

5:00pm, 11 May 2022 | Free, booking essential

What pictorial strategies did Cabrera employ in defense of the colonial muse? How do we today and how did the eighteenth-century viewer understand this portrait? This talk addresses these questions by reading colonial portraits of Sor Juana in dialog...

Photograph of a woman in an orange jacket with her arms raised above her head

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Centre for American Art, Research

Decals of Love, or, The One True Imposter, a Lyric Lecture With/Through Some Queer Love Poems

5:00pm, 12 May 2022 | Free, booking essential

This is a performative, lyrical lecture by Sophie Seita. ...

Photograph showing an installation view of an exhibition

Centre for American Art, Research

Reconsidering ‘Riffs and Relations’

5:00pm, 25 Apr 2022 | Free, booking essential

This presentation will chronicle the conception and planning of Riffs and Relations, taking a hard look at the triumphs and missteps.  ...

Oil painting depicting part of the Statue of Liberty, by Norman Rockwell

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Centre for American Art, Research

American Art and the Political Imagination

Friday 18th March, 2.00pm - 5.00pm GMT and Saturday 19th March, 1.45pm GMT - 6.15pm GMT | Free, booking essential

This conference originated from a single question: In what ways have art and visual culture contributed to the formulation of the American political imagination?...

Photograph of a folder label which reads 'Abstract Impressionism'

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Centre for American Art, Research

American Art Archives in Britain

3:00pm, 6 May 2022 | Free, booking essential

This two-day symposium will feature papers presenting case studies, roundtable discussion of the questions about archives the project raised, and a keynote talk by Professor Michael Leja. ...

Centre for American Art, Research

Louise Bourgeois: Woven Yarns

6:00pm, 10 Feb 2022 | Free, booking essential

This talk will explore the role of weaving as material and metaphor in Bourgeois’s practice, and her psychic identifications with woven textiles....

Black and white photograph showing dancer Josephine Baker standing to the left of a jungle set design.

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Centre for American Art, Research

African Diasporic Modernism: The Far-Reaching Tropicality of Black Geographies

5:00pm, 13 Dec 2021 | Free, booking essential

Tropical Aesthetics of Black Modernism examines the creative manifestations of black modernism, and explicates how tropicality functioned as a key unifying element in African Diasporic art....

Photograph showing a figure with a ponytail, moustache and sideburns holding a lit cigarette.

Centre for American Art, Research

Around Valentine’s Day, 1980: Kathy Acker and Cookie Mueller’s Lovesick Letter-pieces

5:00pm, 9 Dec 2021 | Free, booking essential

On the evening of February 14, 1980, the writer and actress Cookie Mueller posed as the ex-boyfriend of the poet and playwright, Gary Indiana, for a performance he was doing alongside another of his friends, Kathy Acker, at the Mudd Club in New York....

Photograph of a piece of yellowed paper with writing on

Centre for American Art, Research

Workshop :“How close can I get to someone? Will we become each other”: Epistolary Subjects, Objects, and Methods in Feminist Art, Art Writing, and Art History

10:00am, 9 Dec 2021 | Free, very limited space, booking essential

In this participatory workshop involving writing experiments and collective discussions, we will revisit, handle again, the letters we have discovered in the archives of the artists and subjects we study, considering our roles as interlocutors across...

Cover of a book showing a photograph of Harold Rosenberg

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Centre for American Art, Research

Harold Rosenberg and “The American Action Painters”

5:00pm, 22 Nov 2021 | Free, booking essential

Harold Rosenberg (1906-1978) is still primarily known by a single essay, “The American Action Painters,” which was published in ARTnews in 1952. When the piece appeared in the December issue, the response was phenomenal. Not only did it galvanize a...

Geometric image made up of rectangles of white, black and green

Centre for American Art, Research

Not / Making / Marks: On Lygia Clark’s Organic Line

6:00pm, 18 Nov 2021 | Free, booking essential

This talk concerns the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s concept of the “organic” line: an interval of space that appears between a painting and its frame, a door and its lintel, or tiles on the floor....

Photograph showing group of people sitting next to a road under a sign reading 'Whittier Boulevard'. They are wearing masks and there are images of skeletons placed by them.

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Centre for American Art, Research

Guerrilla Art and the Politics of Punitive Literacy

5:00pm, 15 Nov 2021 | Free, booking essential

In this talk, Faye Glessier aims to provide an alternative historical narrative for guerrilla art in the U.S. that emerged in the late 1960s and gained legibility throughout the 1970s. ...

Photograph of the interior of the Guggenheim in New York, with a long banner hanging down showing an image of a person

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Centre for American Art, Research

‘Temporary Fabulous Zones’: Che Gossett and Wu Tsang in conversation

5:00pm, 11 Nov 2021 | Free, booking essential

This event brings Tsang and Gossett together in a critical discussion of art, visibility, black and trans poetics, collaboration, and more. ...

Line drawing of a person, wearing glasses, sitting at a typewriter

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Centre for American Art, Research

'"What do you say about homosexuals?" Gene Swenson’s "Other" Tradition'

5:00pm, 8 Nov 2021 | Free, booking essential

This talk begins with the question “What do you say about homosexuals?,” which critic Gene Swenson posed on tape to Andy Warhol in 1963 (in an unknown recording I uncovered during my research). ...

Oil painting depicting a man on a damaged boat in the middle of shark infested waters

Centre for American Art, Research

Forgetting and Remembering the Sea with Winslow Homer

5:00pm, 25 Oct 2021 | Free, booking essential

This lecture interrogates Homer’s marines anew by focusing on the unique epistemology and materiality of the ocean. The late photographer and theorist Allan Sekula has called the oceans a “forgotten space.” Indeed, art historians tend to look out to ...

Painting showing a central figure with bagpipes and two figures in Scottish clothing dancing

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Centre for American Art, Research

Gatecrashers and the Promise of American Art

5:00pm, 18 Oct 2021 | Free, booking essential

Nearly one hundred years ago, artists without formal training “crashed the gates” of the elite art world, as their paintings of American life and fantastical scenes derived from their imaginations began appearing in major museums. This talk draws upo...