Art Talks at Hudson River Museum

In connection with their exhibit The Chemistry of Color (February 5 – May 8, 2011), the Hudson River Museum is organizing 3 art talks to discuss the work and the social implications of the exhibit.

The Chemistry of Color is organized by PAFA, and is based on the Sorgenti Collection of Contemporary African-American Art.  A very good online introduction to the collection is available on the Hudson River Museum website.  You can find it by clicking on the left hand graphic, or visiting the following URL:

http://www.hrm.org/exhibits/Chemistry/chemistry.html

Benny Andrews Oasis, 1989

Wednesday, February 16 6:30 pm
Art Talks: Julien Robson on the Sorgenti Collection of Contemporary African–American Art

As the oldest museum and school of the Fine Arts in the United States, PAFA (the Pennsyvlania Academy of Fine Arts has a long history of supporting African American Artists. One of the first institutions to train African Americans in the fine arts, and counting important artists from Henry O. Tanner to Barkley L. Hendricks amongst its alumni, PAFA is also the first museum in the US to have exhibited African American artists.

While it augments this history, the Sorgenti Collection forms a significant gift to PAFA in that it gives depth to the museum’s holdings of works by modern and contemporary African American artists.

William T. Williams
Blue Monk, 1991

Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at PAFA, will discuss the nature of the Sorgenti Collection and how it supports and engages the growth and direction of the museum’s collection, including recent acquisitions of a number of works by significant young African American artists. He will also discuss how private collectors with focused interests, like the Sorgentis, can help museums address issues of underrepresentation and assist the fulfillment of their mission

Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), Julien Robson relocated to Philadelphia in 2008 after eight years in Louisville, Kentucky where he was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Art Museum and Adjunct Professor at the University of Louisville. A native of Scotland, Robson initially trained as an artist at Bath Academy of Art, and the Slade School of Fine Art in London before taking up curatorial positions at the University of Sussex and, subsequently, the University of Southampton, England. During the 1990s Robson lived in Austria, working in the commercial gallery sector in Vienna, and in 1998 he spent six months as Guest
Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Howardena Pindell  Art/East, 1986–89

 Thursday, March 24 6:30 pm
Art Talks:Howardena Pindell, An African-American Artist and Her Creative Process


Howardena Pindell, artist, curator and professor, discusses her creative process and work. Pindell’s work, which is deeply personal, reflects the struggles she experienced as an African American woman artist searching for her place in a highly discriminatory and divided society. Originally a figurative painter, Pindell moved towards abstraction in the late 1960’s. She began embracing autobiographical themes following a 1979 car accident in which she suffered a concussion and memory loss. Some of Pindell’s work is highly political and addresses issues of racism, feminism, violence, slavery and exploitation.

Wednesday, April 27 6:30 pm
Art Talks: Alona Wilson: Interpreting and Preserving African-American Arts

Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier  The Milestone Dance, 2003

 The Amistad Center for Art & Culture owns a vital collection of 7,000 items including art, artifacts and popular culture objects that document the experience, expressions and history of people of African American heritage. Curator and Assistant Director Alona Wilson discusses the importance and challenges of collecting and preserving from these objects many of which, like newspapers, postcards and broadsides, were not meant to last.