Previous Events

• Timothy Harte
• Kaysha Corinealdi, Ph.D.
• Jordanna Saggese
• Deniz Turker
• Bonnie Cheng
• Lynne Huffer
• Katherine Groo
• Emine Fetvaci
• Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez

Fall 2023

Suzanne Akbari
Kartik Nair
Jayna Brown
Brittany Webb
Pardis Dabashi
Jennifer Hirsh

Spring 2023

Tara Aisha Willis
Amber N. Wiley
Tom Kalin
Cassandra Good
Joseph Scheier-Dolberg
Martha Lucy
Ikem Stanley Okoye

Fall 2022

Bethany Collins
Paul Farber
Linda Kim
Mia Bagneris
Anthony Foy
Sonal Khular

Spring 2022

Pablo José López Oro
Ana Lucia Araujo
Paloma Checa-Gismero
Elia Alba
Kelli Morgan
Jason Nyugen
Lamia Balafrej
Genevieve Yue
Victor Roman Mendoza
Alicia Walker

Fall 2021

Jennifer Van Horn
Alexis Peskine
Risham Majeed
Mariola Alvarez
Amy Knight Powell
Amanda Philips
Monica Huerta

Spring 2021

Gystere
Dread Scott
Ellie Ga
Nia Love and Lila Aisha Jones
Deborah Jack and CC McKee
Julien Suaudeau
Patricia Banks

Fall 2020

Matthew Feliz
Carrie Anderson
Anthony Petro
Rachel Grace Newman
Micki McElya
C.C. McKee
Paul Pfeiffer

Spring 2020

Homay King
Delia Solomons
Hentyle Yapp

Fall 2019

Aranzazu Hopkins Barriga
Qinna Shen
Alfreda Murck
Erin Pauwels
Byron Wolfe
Danielle Widmann Abraham
Robert Dostal
Alessandro Giammei

Spring 2019

Felicia M. Else
Sophie Hochhäusl
Jonathan VanDyke
Matt Feliz
Susan Dackerman
Lourdes Bernard
David J. Roxburgh

Fall 2018

Matthew Francis Rarey
Natasha Bissonauth
Ken Lum
Chanchal Dadlani
Elizabeth Lee
Jie Shi

Spring 2018

Shiamin Kwa
Daniel A. Barber
Susanna McFadden
Wilhelm Neusser
Min Kyung Lee
Nicholas R. Jones
John J. Curley
Jason Sun

Fall 2017

Richard Torchia
Jordi Falgàs
Jo Anna Isaak
Gizem Saka
Sylvia Houghteling
Kwame Labi
Mark Franko
Amelia Rauser
Cecily Hilsdale

Spring 2017

Luke Dowd
Anna Blume
Sharon Hayes
Anthony Elms
Christina Knight
David Neumann
William L. Coleman
David Hartt

Fall 2016

Kris Graves
Mireille Lee
Deborah Hutton
Matthew Fisher
Rebecca Brown
Amy Golhany
Jessica Horton
Seth Koven

Spring 2016

Tanya Sheehan
Ruth Toulson
Derek Burdette
C. Brian Rose
Christiane Hertel
Hoang Nguyen
Mari Naomi Lake-Schaal
Stephanie Moser
Jennifer Josten

Fall 2015

Carol Symes
Monique Scott
Barbara Miller Lane
Erin Schoneveld
Paul Farber
Cordula Crewe
Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi
Anna Arabindan-Kesson
Sharonna Pearl

Spring 2015

Alberto Mira
David Young Kim
Tomothy Harte
Nicole Colosimo
Shannon Steiner
Homay King
Matthew Affron
Alexander Harper
Thomas Morton
Michele Monserrati

Fall 2014

David Cast
Susan Levine
H. Rosi Song
Benjamin Tiven
Elizabeth Bolman
Erica Levin
Melissa Ragona
Timothy McCall
Michelle Wang​

Spring 2014

John Kelly
Bethany Schneider
Mey-Yen Moriuchi
Eng-Beng Lim
Maeve Doyle
Carrie Robbins
Martha Ward
Brian Wallace
Andrew Uroskie
Karl Kirchwey

Fall 2013

Arnika Fuhrmann
Lisa Saltzman
Homay King
Alex Klein
Jonathan Flatley
Lynette Roth
Matthew Feliz
Johanna Gosse
Jennifer Stob
Gennifer Weisenfeld​

Spring 2013

Susan Talbott
Min Kyung Lee
Roya Rastegar
Marc Siegel
Mary Nooter Roberts
Amy Powell
Miriam Levin
Michaelle Ortiz
David Cast
Shari Frilot

Fall 2012

Mario M. Ruiz
Amanda Weidman
Rebecca DeRoo
Jae Rhim Lee
Roger Benjamin
Daniel J. Weiss
Adele Nelson
Michael W. Cothren​

Spring 2012

Alicia Walker
Elizabeth Kessler
Scott Bukatman
John Jasperse
Peter Decherney
Simon Leung
Jennifer Perlin
Alexander Galloway

Fall 2011

Homay King
Katherine Rowe
Ira Greenberg
Jose Esteban Munoz
Erica Cho
Elly Truitt
Judith Butler
Gus Stadler
Tsitsi Ella Jaji

Spring 2011

Meredith Monk
Andre Dombrowski
Laura Bass
Jonathan Katz
Caitlin Barrett
Trevor Young
Mercedes Volait

Fall 2010

Lisa Saltzman
Carol Solomon
Nora Alter
Kostis Kourelis
H. Rosi Song
Domietta Torlasco
Vasiliki Limberis
Spyridon Papapetros
Jean Evans
Lauren Shohet

Spring 2010

Timothy Corrigan
Yoruba Richen
Sarah Schenck
David Serlin
Joan Frosch
Dorothea Dietrich
Gina Velasco
Rebecca Sheehan
Bakirathi Mani

Fall 2009

Dale Kinney
Bob Rehak
Daniel Harkett
David Cast
Sharon Mizota
Hoang Nguyen
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Chris Cagle
Peter Feng

Spring 2009

Gianni Cicali
Judith Rohrer
Jean-Michel Rabaté
Robert Folkenflik
Katie Halper
Dorothea Dietrich
Diala Toure
Carol Solomon
Neil Christian Pages
Zoe Strauss

Fall 2008

Kimberly Bowes
Joshua Shannon
Jonathan Eburne
John Zarobell
Imke Meyer
Brigid Doherty
Larry Silver
Matthew Shoaf
Catherine Brown

Spring 2008

Sarah Rich
Matt Ruben
David Cast
Kimberly Bowes
Kathryn Morse
Paul Groth
Stephanie Schwartz
Terrence Smith

Fall 2007

Branden Joseph
Elaine Beretz
David Joselit
Amiram Amitai
Timothy McCall
Judith Rodenbeck
Martha Lucy
Priya Joshi
Martha Easton

Spring 2007

Andrew Douglas
Larry Nees
Jena Osman
Catherine Conybeare
Bryan Burns
Steven Shaviro
Richard Meyer
Oliver Gaycken
Howard Singerman
Ignacio Gallup-Diaz

Fall 2006

Lisa Saltzman
Marcia Brennan
Sangita Gopal
Catherine Zimmer
Joseph Rishel
Homay King
David Cast
Bethany Schneider
Alison Landsberg

Spring 2006

Christopher Pavsek
Jennifer Hirsh
Timothy Corrigan
Daniela Sandler
Imke Meyer
Anne Rorimer
Christiane Hertel
Toba Kerson
Michael Leja

Fall 2005

Lisa Saltzman
Madhavi Kale
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw
Nicholas Mirzoeff
Martha Easton
Robin Wagner-Pacifici
Robert Shandley
Patty White
Margaret Werth

Spring 2005

Dale Kinney
Homay King
Chris Pavsek
Mehmet-Ali Ataç
Heather Love
Rebecca Schneider
Michael Tratner
Robert Gregg
Karen Beckman
Youngmin Kim
Jeremy Braddock

Fall 2004

Lisa Saltzman
Heidi Schlipphacke
Jean-Francois Lejeune
Yiman Wang
Jonathan Kahana
Sharon Ullman
Aaron Levy
Azade Seyhan
Allison Levy
Jennifer Horne
Steven Z. Levine

Spring 2004

Daniela Holt Voith
David Cast
David Eng
Barbara Miller Lane
Imke Meyer
Sharon Burgmayer
K. Malcolm Richards
Ted Wong
Tim Harte
Jim Wright
James Shulman

Fall 2003

Lisa Saltzman
Homay King
Jeffrey Cohen
Michelle Francl
Lazaro Lima
Carola Hein
Marc Ross
Jane Hedley
H. Rosi Song
Nancy Dersofi
Susan Shifrin

Spring 2003

James Krippner-Martinez
Dana Leibsohn
Geoffrey F. Compton
Roger Benjamin
Shelley Stamp
Ann Chernow
Timothy Harte
Dominic Bryan
Christopher Pavsek
Daniela Holt Voith
Elizabeth Milroy
Kristen Frederickson

Fall 2002

David Cast
James Mills
Jane Caplan
Despina Stratigakos
Therese Dolan
Karl Kirchwey
Joseph Disponzio
Phyllis Lambert
Haidee Wasson
Michael Tratner
Kim Sajet

Spring 2002

Erika Esau
David Cast
Donald Sassoon
Paola Nogueras
Carol Bernstein
Gary McDonogh
Dale Kinney
Robert Folkenflik
Steven Levine
Elliott Shore
Arleen Zimmerle
Benjamin Binstock
Elizabeth Bolman
Alyce Jordan

2001 Fall

Mel McCombie
Hilarie Johnston
Susan Bell
Jessica Fishman
Susannna Thomas
Carola Hein
Anna McCarthy
Martha Easton
Teja Ganti
Harrison Eiteljorg, II
Derin Tanyol

2001 Spring

Toba Kerson
Dale Kinney
Phyllis Bober
Elaine Beretz  
Sarah Wilburn
Jordanna Bailkin
Julia Gaisser
Prudence Jones
Jane E. Boyd
Maureen Pelta
Jonathan Kahana
Paul Grobstein
Ralph Kuncl

2000 Fall

Steven Z. Levine
Richard Hamilton
Marc Howard Ross
Sanford F. Schram
Edward O'Neill
Lisa Saltzman
Susan S. Levine
Gridley McKim-Smith
Carola Hein
Debra T. Cashion
Jane Hedley

2000 Spring

David Cast
Allison Levy
Cindy Wong
Gary McDonogh
Ian Lockhead
Maria Gonzalez
Tamara Johnston
Jennifer Hirsh
Karen Wolf
Leo Costello
Patricia Likos Ricci
Joanna Smith
Sabrina DeTurk
Gretchen Bender

1999

Steven Levine
Dale Kinney
Cassandra S. Gunkel
T. Corey Brennan
Catherine Lafarge
Jane Caplan
Barbara M. Lane
Marc H. Ross
Matthew Kerbel
Carol W. Campbell
Karen Wolf
William K. Randolph
Brunhilde S. Ridgway
James C. Wright
Michael Krausz
Grace M. Armstrong

The Video I: Reflexivity and Embodiment
Catherine Zimmer, Department of English, Pace University
Feb. 19, 8 p.m., Bryn Mawr College, College Hall 110
Sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture and the Film Studies Program.

An Evening with Author Caryl Phillips
March 6, 8 p.m., Bryn Mawr College, Goodhart Music Room ​
Sponsored by the Graduate Group, the Grunfeld Lecture Fund, the Program in Creative Writing, the Department of History and the Center for Visual Culture at Bryn Mawr College.

New Frontiers in Cartooning and Graphic Novels: Jessica Abel, Alison Bechdel, Gabrielle Bell, and Lauren Weinstein
Jessica Abel, La Perdida
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home 
Gabrielle Bell, "I Feel Nothing," MOME
Lauren Weinstein, Girl Stories​
Nov. 30, 8 p.m., Bryn Mawr College, Great Hall
Sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture and the Department of History.

The German Expressionist Artist Group 'Die Brücke' as a Political Issue in the Age of Extremes
Dr. Christian Saehrendt Humboldt-Universität, Berlin
Keynote lecture, Philadelphia Symposium in History of Art
Dec. 9, 4 p.m., College Hall 224
Sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture.

Jeff Wall's Encounter with Étant Donnés: Duchamp and the Directed Photograph after Conceptual Art
The Miriam Grunfeld Lecture
Michael Newman, Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
March 24, 4:30 p.m., Bryn Mawr College Carpenter Library
Sponsored by the Department of History of Art and the Center for Visual Culture.

Once Upon a Time is Now
Elizabeth Catanese
Oct. 22, 4:30-6:30 p.m., English House Basement
Sponsored by the Bryn Mawr College Art Club, Center for Science in Society, Center for Visual Culture, Feminist and Gender Studies Program, and the Department of Creative Writing.

"Brother to Brother" (2004) Screening and Q&A
Rodney Evans, Filmmaker
Oct. 28, 5 p.m., College Hall 110
Sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture.

The Guantanamobile Project: Screening and Discussion
Lisa Lynch
Media Studies, Catholic University of America
Elena Razlogova
Dept. of History, George Mason University
Oct. 29, 2:30 p.m., Carpenter Library 21
Sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture and the Center for Ethnicities, Communities, and Social Policy.

Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman and What Farocki Taught: Screening and Discussion
Jill Godmilow, Filmmaker
Nov. 22, 8 p.m., College Hall 110
Sponsored by the Program in Film Studies, the Center for Visual Culture and the Department of English.

A Retrospective, 1988-2003: Voith & Mactavish Architects
Daniela Holt Voith ’76, Cameron Mactavish
​Jan. 22-Feb. 22
The Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Whitehead Campus Center, Haverford College
Reception Jan. 30, 5-7 p.m.
Sponsored by Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges.

Desert Images: Visions of the Counter-Place in Israeli Culture
Yael Zerubavel, Chair of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University
Director of the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life
Jan. 26, 4:30 p.m., College Hall 224
Reception to follow, London Room.
Co-sponsored by Hebrew and Judaic Studies, Political Science, and the Center for Visual Culture.

Past Presence: A Public Art Project
A lecture and reception with contemporary artist Mark Dion and curator, Denise Markonish
Feb. 5, 4:30 p.m., Carpenter B21
​In conjunction with the Main Line Art Center's newest public art project Past Presence: Contemporary Reflections on the Main Line.

Picturing Women Symposium
Picturing Women explores how women are figured, fashioned, turned into portraits, and told about in words and pictorial narrative
March 19-21
Sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture.

Bilalian: Film Screening
Director: Aminah Abdul-Jabbaar
Awards: Visionary Award, Pan African Film Festival 2002 Best Director of a Documentary Feature, Dahlonega International Film Festival 2002
March 24, 7:30 p.m., College Hall 110

Steven Gontarski
Visiting Artist Lecture
March 29, 7 p.m., Carpenter B21
​​Sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture

Witnessing's End: Stealing Horror's Picture in the Warsaw Ghetto
Lecture Series in Visual Culture and the Holocaust
Eric Rosenberg, Chair, Department of Art and Art History, Tufts University
Oct. 2, 4:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., Carpenter Library 21
Sponsored by the Program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Co-sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture.

Head to Toe: (un)Covering the Human Body
Graduate Student Symposium
Oct. 10-11
Sponsored by the Graduate Group in Archaeology, Classics, and History of Art.

Walter Benjamin's Last Passage: Dani Karavan's Memorial at Port Bou Spain
Lecture Series in Visual Culture and the Holocaust
Michele Cone '51, Professor of Art History, School of Visual Arts, NYC
Nov. 6, 4:30 p.m., Carpenter Library 21 
Sponsored by the Program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Co-sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture

After 9/11: Aesthetics, Visuality and the Trade Center
Sasha Torres '86, Media Studies, University of Western Ontario
Nov. 13, 4:30 p.m., English House Lecture Hall
Sponsored by the Department of English and Center for Visual Culture.

Resisting Paradise (2003)
Lecture Series in Visual Culture and the Holocaust
Barbara Hammer, Filmmaker
Dec. 8, 4:30 p.m., Carpenter Library 21  
Sponsored by the Program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Co-sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture.

The Design Story of the Rhys Carpenter Library
Henry Myerberg, Architect, Rhys Carpenter Library
Dec. 11, noon, College Hall 110
Sponsored by the Growth and Structure of Cities Program and the Center for Visual Culture.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Feminism: New Light on an Old Question
The Barbara Miller Lane Lecture
Alice T. Friedman, Professor of Art, Co-Director, Architecture Program, Wellesley College
Feb. 3, 4 p.m., College Hall 110
With support from Voith & Mactavish Architects.

Youth, Sex and Film Series
Feb. 4-April 15, Taylor Hall "F"

"George Washington" (2000)
Director: David Gordon Green

"Paris is Burning" (1991)
Director: Jennie Livingston

"Nico and Dani" (2001)
Director: Cesc Gay

"Mi Vida Loca" (1994)
Director: Allison Anders

"Bully" (2001)
Director: Larry Clark

Space in Plastic Arts and Philosophy
Claudine Romeo, Agrégé de Philosophic, Sorbonne, Paris
March 17, College Hall 224
Co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy.

NYC: Just Like Pictured It
Truth Seekers
MadCat Women’s Film Festival
March 22, Philadelphia: Prince Theatre, Black Box
Womens’ Studies Department, Temple University
Center for Visual Culture, Bryn Mawr College
Film and Media Arts Department, Temple University

Roger Fry's Formalism
Michael Fried, Herbert Boone Chair in the Humanities, The Johns Hopkins University
Sept. 27, College Hall 224, Quita Woodward Room
Co-sponsored by the Department of History of Art.

Exhibition: Katherine Bradford '64, Artist 
An exhibition of paintings and drawings in the Canaday Library Gallery and the foyer of Erdman Hall
Oct. 25. Reception, 4 p.m. Gallery Talk, 5 p.m.

Facing West, Facing East: Orientalism and the Unmaking of the "Just" Warrior in Xena, Warior Princess
Kathleen Kennedy, Professor of History and Gender Studies, Western Washington University
Co-author of Athena's Daughters: Television's New Woman Warrior
Nov. 14, 4:15 p.m., Carpenter Library

The Realism of Love
Kaja Silverman '40, Professor of Rhetoric and Film, University of California at Berkeley
Nov. 19, 1 p.m., Carpenter Library

More Than Meets the Eye: Indian Calendar Art: The Circulation of Images and the Embodiment of Value
Kajri Jain, Ph.D., Getty Research Institute
Feb. 7, Carpenter Library 21

William Earle Williams: The Vicksburg Campaign: Photographs of The Civil War Battlefields
Exhibit Jan. 25-Feb. 22, the Canaday Library Gallery
Feb. 8: Artist's Reception, 5-7p.m.; Gallery Talk 5:30 p.m.

Fiction Film and the Holocaust
Lecture Series in Visual Culture and the Holocaust
Millicent Marcus, University of Pennsylvania 
Feb. 14, 4:30 p.m., Carpenter Library 21
Sponsored by the Program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Co-sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture.

Holocaust Memory Through the Camera's Eye
Lecture Series in Visual Culture and the Holocaust
Barbie Zelizer, Professor, Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania
Editor, Visual Culture and the Holocaust
Author, Remembering to Forget: Holocaust Memory Through the Camera's Eye 
March 7, 4:30 p.m., Carpenter Library 21
Sponsored by the Program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Co-sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture.

Bocche Inutili: Incorporating Pisa in the Florentine Imaginary
Philadelphia Symposium on the History of Art
Keynote Address, Cristelle Baskins, Tufts University
March 22, 5 p.m., Carpenter Library 21
Co-sponsored by the Center for Visual Culture and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Memory, Counter-Memory and the End of the Monument
Lecture Series in Visual Culture and the Holocaust
James Young, Professor, Judaic and Near Eastern Studies
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Author, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning and At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture

30th-Year Celebration of Women Make Movies
Film Festival
April 4-6
Co-sponsored by the Dept. of English and Feminist and Gender Studies.

City of Cine, City of Signs: The Visual Culture of Cinema Advertisements in South India
Preminda Jacob, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
April 15, 7 p.m., Carpenter Library 25

Artemisia Gentileschi: Our Contemporary: The Self-Representations of a 17th-Century Woman
Graziella Magherini, Psychoanalyst, Firenze, Italy
April 18, 7:30 p.m., College Hall 224

Delhi Diary 2001
Ranjani Mazumdar, Filmmaker
April 29, 4 p.m., Carpenter Library 25

Why Not a Woman? M. Carey Thomas and the Issue of Woman Portrait Painter
Linda Nochlin, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor of Modern Art
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Sept. 21, 3 p.m., Goodhart Hall
Co-sponsored by Friends of the Library.

Amateur or Professional: Experts, Dabblers, Hirelings, and Hacks
Third Biennial Bryn Mawr College Graduate Student Symposium
Keynote Address: Irene Winter, Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University
Oct. 12-13, Carpenter Library
Co-Sponsored by the Departments of History of Art, Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, and Greek, Latin and Ancient History.

The Rebuilding of Japan's Bombed Cities—A Comparative Analysis
International Conference
Oct. 28-30
Co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation.

Michael Krausz: Exhibition of recent paintings
Reception and Q&A: Nov. 6, 4:15 p.m., Canaday Library

On Pornography
Susan Dwyer, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Maryland
Nov. 7, Guild Hall, Room 210
Co-Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy.

Miracles Happen: Benjamin, Rosenzweig, and the Limits of Enlightenment
Eric Santner, Harriet and Ulrich E. Meyer Professor of Modern Jewish History, Chair of the Dept. of Germanic Studies, University of Chicago
Nov. 8, 8 p.m., Ely Room, Wyndham
Co-Sponsored by the Committee on Judaic Studies and the Department of English.

The Emperor's Old Clothes: Gift Exchange between the Byzantines and Arabs
The Grunfeld Lecture
Anthony Cutler, Department of Art History, Pennsylvania State University
Nov. 15, 5 p.m., College Hall 224

Luminous Fragments: Art and Memory in Jewish and Chinese Public Spaces
Vera Schwarcz, Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University
Nov. 15, 8 p.m., Ely Room, Wyndham
Co-Sponsored by the Committee on Judaic Studies and the Department of English.

Roman Ceremonial Statuary
Brian Madigan, Wayne State University
Jan. 20, 7 p.m., College Hall 224

Art & Architecture in Medieval Cairo
Manar Darwish Munara
Feb. 14, 6 p.m., Carpenter B21

Aspects of Connoisseurship and Scholarship in Museums
William Wixom, Curator Emeritus of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art 
March 19, 4:30 p.m., Carpenter Library 21

Mark Rothko and the Second Pompeian Style
Vincent J. Bruno, University of Texas 
March 22, 4:30 p.m., College Hall 110
Co-sponsored by the Class of 1902 Lecture Fund and the Center for Visual Culture.

The Brandon Teena Archive
Judith Halberstam, University of California, San Diego
March 29, 4:15 p.m., College Hall 110

Luncheon seminar on African-American Aesthetics
Paul Gilroy, Yale University
April 3, noon, Haffner Hall, Dorothy Vernon Room

The Concept of Style and the Problem of Roman Art
The Grundman Lecture
Richard Brilliant, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
April 5, 4:30 pm, Carpenter Library 21, Reception in the Quita Woodward Room

Transforming Communities Through Art: Mural Painting as an Agent of Social Change
The Roberta Holder Gellert Lecture
Jane Golden, Director of the Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia
April 12, 8 p.m., Great Hall
Co-sponsored by the Center for Ethnicities, Communities, and Social Policy.

Student and Faculty Panel on the Role of Art in Past and Present Communities
Jane Golden Panel Discussion
April 13, 2 p.m., College Hall 110
Co-sponsored by the Center for Ethnicities, Communities, and Social Policy.

Le Corbusier, the New Woman, and Domestic Reform
The Barbara Miller Lane Lectures
Mary McLeod, Columbia University 
April 27, 4:15 p.m., College Hall 110

Mass as Ornament from Siegfried Kracauer to Leni Riefenstahl
Joan Ockman, Columbia University
April 28, 10 a.m., College Hall 224

May 5, 2020

Dear Members of the Tri-Co Community, Students, Faculty, Alumnae/i, and Staff: 

Welcome to Virtual Visual Culture, the online presence that we are currently developing as a supplement to Visual Culture Colloquium during our time away from campus.  As we explore the digital platforms that have come to define the dimensions of our distributed campus community, I would like to invite us to think creatively about the ways in which Visual Culture might expand its mission of supporting a wide range of interdisciplinary inquiry into modern visual expression.  

Over the coming days, we will present virtual screenings by contemporary artists that engage with topics germane to the traditions in art history and archaeology here at Bryn Mawr.

The material will be made available for you to access at your own leisure by accessing the Virtual Visual Culture tab in the menu.  In order to view the videos please follow the links contained in each announcement. 

I hope that you enjoy the films and videos as well as the conversations that frame them. And in the spirit of collaborative, interdisciplinary dialogue that is a hallmark of Visual Culture Colloquium, I look forward to hearing your responses to this first step in an experiment that is very much still an embryonic work in progress. Please share your feedback, insight, advice and recommendations for content with me as we continue to think creatively about the project.   

(Special thanks to Robin Parks and Melissa Scott of the Bryn Mawr College Office of College Communications, and the Center for Visual Culture's Lisa Kolonay, for their support.)

Matthew Feliz
Director
Center for Visual Culture
Bryn Mawr College
mfeliz@brynmawr.edu

The Center for Visual Culture is pleased to present a series of virtual screenings, interviews and talks by contemporary artists, curators, scholars and other professionals whose work mines the intersections art, archaeology, architecture, lensed media, literature and sound.

We begin this new experiment with a curated series of virtual screenings titled Excavation/Collaboration. The series features work by artists whose practices pursue historical and archaeological inquiry through the use of time based media. Each of the projects is collaborative in nature, developing out of the creative encounters between different approaches to historical research, analysis and representation.

Participants: Christine Rebet, Sebastien Rey, and Gabrielle Giattino

In our first installment—Excavation 1—we feature the work of Christine Rebet, an artist represented by Bureau, a contemporary art gallery approaching its 10-year anniversary this spring. The gallery was founded by Gabrielle Giattino, a graduate of Haverford College who majored in History of Art here at Bryn Mawr. Given Gabrielle’s connection to the Bryn Mawr community and to the History of Art Department, her participation in this inaugural episode is quite fitting and embodies the spirit of this experiment—to produce digital content that contributes to the enrichment of our shared mission beyond the confines of the physical campus. 

View the conversation with Rebet, Rey, and Giattino.

Rebet is currently collaborating with Dr. Sebastien Rey, Curator of ancient Mesopotamia at the British Museum and lead archaeologist of the British Museum’s Iraq Scheme, on a series of animated films and drawings that focus on the archeological excavation of a Sumerian temple located at Tello/ancient Girsu in southern Iraq where he is the site director. In the video that introduces the work, Rebet and Rey are joined by Giattino for an informal discussion about their collaboration on the animated film Thunderbird, which takes as its subject one of the key elements in the founding myth of the temple: the dream of Gudea. 

Rebet animates this sacred myth, which was found written into ancient terracotta cylinders, unlocking the narrative and spiritual potential within the clay. Thunderbird imagines a dialogue between King Gudea and Nanshe, Sumerian goddess of prophecy, whom Gudea summons to help interpret a dream. The animation comprises 2,500 hand-inked drawings, opening with thunder and rain clouds which blossom forth with flowering plants; the wet earth then churning with molten energy as the red sun rises over the landscape. Eventually we see hands mixing mud to make the bricks for building the sacred temple. 

Exhibition/Screening History: 
•    Time Levitation, Parasol Unit, London, 2020 
•    Collective Mythologies, Art Basel Film, Basel, 2019 
•    Despar Teatro Italia, Venice, 2019 
•    Nanterre-Amandiers, Nanterre, 2019 
•    Thunderbird, Bureau, New York, 2018 
•    Sursock Museum, Beirut, 2018 
•    Cinematheque Robert-Lynen, Paris, 2018 
•    Christine Rebet: Screening, Silencio, Paris, 2018 

View a Studio International interview with Christine Rebet.

Learn more about the British Museum's Iraq Scheme.

Christine Rebet is an artist who works across a wide range of media that includes drawing, installation, performance and animation. Her work has been exhibited and screened in a wide range of galleries and museums including Parasol Unit, London, England; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; and SITE, Santa Fe, NM. Her works are held in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; KADIST, Paris, France; San Franciso, CA; and the Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, France.

Sebastien Rey is Curator of ancient Mesopotamia at the British Museum and Lead archaeologist of the Iraq Scheme. He is the site director of Tello/ancient Girsu in southern Iraq. His most recent publications include a book on city-state formation in ancient Sumer (For the Gods of Girsu), and an essay written with Dr. Irving Finkel for the British Museum’s exhibit No Man’s Land. 

Bureau is a contemporary art gallery approaching its 10-year anniversary this spring. Gabrielle Giattino opened Bureau in 2010 following a curatorial partnership with Howie Chen called Dispatch. Bureau represents a close-knit group of artists from emerging to established, many of whom are featured in prominent international exhibitions, biennials and represented in numerous public collections. Many of these artists had previously worked with Dispatch, including Erica Baum, Tom Holmes, Lionel Maunz, and Ellie Ga. Upcoming projects include solo exhibitions at the gallery with Patricia Treib and Caleb Considine, as well as a solo presentation by Diane Severin Nguyen at Art Basel Statements later this year.

Participants: Brigit Rathsmann, Rick Karr, and Alejandro Almanza Pereda

The Center for Visual Culture presents an ongoing series of virtual screenings by contemporary artists engaged with topics in the traditions in art history and archaeology: excavation/collaboration.

In this second installment—Excavation 2—we feature an artist talk by Birgit Rasthmann and Rick Karr in which they introduce Malpaso, a collaborative project that they are developing with the artist Alejandro Almanza Pereda.

View the artist talk

In Malpaso, Rathsmann, Karr, and Pereda interrogate the historical geographical and political legacies of a river valley in Chiapas, Mexico, that now lies submerged beneath the waters of the Malpaso Reservoir created by the damming up of the Grijalva River. Through an approach that deploys digital animation, sculpture, photography painting and the strategies of investigative journalism, Rathsmann, Pereda and Karr explore the historical violence that has scarred this landscape as a consequence of colonialism, imperialism, economic and cultural progress.

Rick Karr makes art using heuristics, methods, and aesthetics drawn from a long career in public-broadcast journalism. His research-based work embraces and plays with the blurry boundaries between actuality and fiction, truth and falsehood, trust and skepticism. Ultraviolet (2017), a multimedia performance created in collaboration with Birgit Rathsmann, explores the evolutionary forces driving cultural polarization by way of the 19th century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace’s sojourn in Indonesia’s Spice Islands. The Bad Passage (2019), another multimedia performance collaboration with Rathsmann, examines the tangled historical narratives of the Middle Grijalva River basin in Chiapas resulting from successive waves of colonial incursion by the ancient Olmec, Spanish conquistadores, and 20th-century Mormon archaeologists. A Brief History of Bullshit (2020) explores truth, falsehood, and philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s defining work on “bullshit” by way of the work of Mexican conceptual artist Octavio Abundez. The ongoing project Fear is a Man’s Best Friend (also a collaboration with Rathsmann) uses the landscape of the suburban Midwest to map the deep fears at the heart of the current American condition.

Birgit Rathsmann grew up in Germany and Indonesia. They are a filmmaker, animator, and artist connecting with audiences in galleries and cinemas. Malpaso, their recent collaborative exhibition exhuming the history of a river valley beneath a reservoir in Chiapas, Mexico, was presented at The Clemente in New York City. Room for Storms turned satellite footage of hurricanes into a public cinematic event at the East River Band Shell in New York City and a gallery exhibition at Alterna/Corriente in Mexico City. October 18, 1977, an exhibition at Gasser/ Grunert gallery in New York, integrated 22 artists’ responses to the prison deaths of the Baader Meinhof Group. Their documentary film about women martial arts heroes in films from Hong Kong played at film festivals and independent cinemas. Animations which they created in collaboration with a number of comedians including Lorelei Ramirez, Mary Houlihan, Tim Platt, and Ikechukwu Ufomado have been screened on Comedy Central and at film festivals. They organize a series of public conversations at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, most recently “Four dialogues about Artists, Audience and Community.”

Alejandro Almanza Pereda has a master’s degree in arts from Hunter College, New York. He has had solo exhibitions at institutions including San Francisco Art Institute; Museo El Eco, Mexico City; Art in General, New York; Stanley Rubin Center, El Paso, Texas; and College of Wooster Art Museum, Ohio. His work has been featured at the Istanbul Biennial, ASU Museum; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Dublin Contemporary 2011; 6a Bienal de Curitiba, Brazil; El Museo del Barrio, New York; and the Queens Museum. Alejandro has attended the Skowhegan and Bemis Art Residencies program. He is also a grant recipient of CIFO Grant Program, the Harpo Foundation, Sistema Nacional de Creadores, México, Harker Award for Interdisciplinary Studies at SFAI, Theodore Randall International Chair in Art and Design at Alfred University, and the Black Cube Artist Fellowship. His work was featured in Art 21 close up series. He is currently a member of LA RUBIA TE BESA an Art band project. He lives in Guadalajara Mexico. 

Participants: Ellie Ga and Gabrielle Giattino

Excavation 3: Ellie Ga, "Sayed" (video and sound, in Arabic with English subtitles, running time: 4 minutes)

• Click here to access Sayed. Password: alexandria.

In our third Excavation, Gabrielle Giattino returns for a conversation with Ellie Ga, an artist that she represents and whose video series, Gyres, was produced for the 2019 Whitney Biennial, a work that Holland Cotter writing in the New York Times described as “a truly extraordinary video triptych, [that] weaves together archaeology, oceanography and social justice by recording the recovery of ancient remains from the Aegean, the tidal drift of Japanese tsunami debris to the Greek islands and the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees to those same islands.” Click here to read the article. 

View the conversation with Ga and Giattino.

Ga was scheduled to screen the work here at Bryn Mawr in April 2020 for its Philadelphia premier. Despite the cancellation we are exploring ways in which to engage with Ga in the year to come! In anticipation, we present her video Sayed.

Sayed is a part of Ga's Square, Octagon, Circle project which focuses on the historical and archaeological site of the lighthouse of Alexandria. Throughout a wide range of artistic interventions that include research-based multimedia lecture-performances, videos, works on paper and a slideshow, Ga explores the limits of our ability to know the past—whether it persists in submerged ruins, remnants of texts or fragments of memories. 

Exhibition History

• Ellie Ga: Pharos, M - Museum Leuven, Leuven, 2014-2015
• You cannot step twice into the same river, Pump House Gallery, London, 2014
• It Was Restored Again, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 2014
• Ellie Ga: Square, Octagon, Circle, Grand Arts, Kansas City, 2013 

Literature

• Lauren O'Neill-Butler, Square, Octagon, Circle, Grand Arts, Kansas City, Summer 2013
• Jennifer Kabat, In Focus: Ellie Ga, Frieze, 174, October 2015.

Ellie Ga is a New York-born, Stockholm-based, artist whose immersive, wide-ranging investigations include the classification of stains on city sidewalks to the charting of the quotidian in the frozen reaches of the Arctic Ocean. In performances and video installations, Ga’s braided narratives intertwine extensive research with first-hand experiences that often follow uncertain leads and take unexpected turns. She has exhibited and performed internationally at the New Museum, The Kitchen, and the Guggenheim Museum (New York), M-Museum (Leuven), and Le Grand Café (Saint-Nazaire), among many others.

Ga is the author of Square Octagon Circle (Siglio Press, New York) and Three Arctic Booklets (Ugly Duckling Presse). Ga was a recent recipient of a three-year Swedish Research Council artistic research grant. Her video series Gyres was produced by the Whitney Museum of American Art for the 2019 Whitney Biennial in New York.

Her work is in the public collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York City) the Albright-Knox Museum (Buffalo), FRAC Franche-Comté (Besançon), Fondation Galeries Lafayette (Paris); Hannebauer Collection (Berlin), the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College (New York), and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ga is a co-founder of the publishing press Ugly Duckling Presse in Brooklyn.

Gabrielle Giattino graduated from Haverford College with a degree in the history of art. She opened Bureau, a contemporary art gallery, in New York City in 2010 following a curatorial partnership with Howie Chen called Dispatch. Bureau represents a close-knit group of artists from emerging to established, many of whom are featured in prominent international exhibitions, biennials and represented in numerous public collections. Many of these artists had previously worked with Dispatch, including Erica Baum, Tom Holmes, Lionel Maunz, and Ellie Ga. Upcoming projects include solo exhibitions at the gallery with Patricia Treib and Caleb Considine, as well as a solo presentation by Diane Severin Nguyen at Art Basel Statements later this year.

The Center for Visual Culture is pleased to introduce a series of digital presentations and talks by curators, scholars and other professionals that explore the ways in which scholarship, curatorial projects, and other related work might extend beyond the material spaces of the museum or college setting. 

For the inaugural session in our themed series Museum Beyond Walls, Allison Levy, Renaissance scholar, Digital Scholarship Editor at Brown University, and alumna of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences here at Bryn Mawr, returns to Visual Culture to discuss her newest book, House of Secrets: The Many Lives of a Florentine Palazzo.

Learn about Levy's book in this video.

In this informative, intellectually compelling and emotionally engaging talk, Allison shares some of the little known history of one of the masterpieces of Renaissance architecture, the Palazzo Rucellai.  Along the way, she reflects on the development of the project, her time living in the Palace and the ways in which the experience has shaped her own approach to doing art history. 

Web Resources

• Learn more about Allison Levy
• Learn more about Brown University's Center for Digital Scholarship

Allison Levy, M.A. ’97, Ph.D. ’00, is Digital Scholarship Editor at Brown University. An art historian educated at Bryn Mawr College, she has held teaching appointments at University College London, Wheaton College, and Tulane University. Allison has published widely on early modern Italy and Europe and serves as general editor of the Amsterdam University Press book series Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700. Her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the Getty Research Institute, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and the Bogliasco Foundation, among others.  Allison currently serves on Bryn Mawr College's Alumnae Association Executive Board as representative for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.