Black Portraiture[s] IX: Shifting Paradigms
Date: Apr. 20th – 21st 2024 (Saturday – Sunday)
Location: Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, Venice, Italy
The 14th iteration of Black Portraitures (BP) will take place over two days during the vernissage of the 60th Anniversary of the Venice Biennale. This year’s theme, Shifting Paradigms, will center thought leaders from Africa and the African Diaspora who are creating new models for the education, cultivation, exhibition, dissemination, and collection of art and images. The aim of the conference aligns well with the Venice Biennale’s theme, Foreigner’s Everywhere. Panelists will include a transnational list of artists, curators, art historians, writers, educators, collectors, gallerists, architects, and designers who use the experience of Blackness to facilitate new systems of knowledge within the field of art and storytelling. This version of BP will break new ground in numerous fields such as exhibition making, visual studies, art history, cultural criticism, the art market, urban planning, and Africana Studies.
Sponsors:
NXTHVN, Terra Foundation for American Art, Institute of Emerging Media Photography & Imaging NYU Tisch, Hawthornden Foundation, Syracuse University, NYU Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation, Columbia University Mellon Arts Project, Spelman College, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research Harvard University, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia University African American and African Diaspora Studies Department, The Getty Research Institute, Center for Black Visual Culture At the Institute of African American Affairs NYU, Gordon Parks Foundation, University of Southern California, American Academy in Rome, NYU Abu Dhabi, Tufts University, NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, Universita degli Studi di Palermo, The Ohio State University.
Panels (Saturday, April 20th) –
Radical Curricula
9:45 am
Panelists:
Titus Kaphar, Romi Crawford, Justin Randolph Thompson, Jonathan Nelson
Moderator(s):
Cherise Smith
Politics of Return
11:15 am
Panelists:
Patrick Quarm, Thabang Monoa, Lyle Ashton Harris, Esther Armah
Moderator(s):
Michael Dinwiddie
Black Subjectivities in Texts Across History and Experience
1:30 pm
Panelists:
Maaza Mengiste, Ben Okri, John Murillo, Fatin Abbas
Moderator(s):
Deborah Paredez
Africa and the Mediterranean World
3:00 pm
Panelists:
Maïmouna Gueressi, Avinoam Shalem, Alessandra Dimaio
Moderator(s):
Tumelo Mosaka
Panels (Sunday, April 21st) –
Archives, Collections, and Curating
9:00 am
Panelists:
Paul Ninson, LeRonn Brooks & Steven Booth, Alberta Whittle, Monica DiMiranda
Moderator(s):
Liz Andrews
Black Realities through Digital Media
10:30 am
Panelists:
Carrie Mae Weems, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Hank Willis Thomas
Moderator(s):
Anna Arabindon Kesson
Arts Ecosystems
1:00 pm
Panelists:
Colleen Ndemeh (Kukily Colectivo), Freda Isingoma, Samira Ibrahim
Moderator(s):
Dejha Carrington
Making Space (Black Spatial Design)
2:30 pm
Panelist:
Mabel O. Wilson, Marsha Pearce, Mae-ling Lokko
Moderator(s):
Kellie Jones
BOOK PRESENTATION African Venice
4:00 pm
Panelist:
Shaul Bassi, Paul Kaplan, Luca Cosentino, Maaza Mengiste