Yale Norfolk School of Art Lecture Series
May 23-June 20, 2019
For further information please contact Dawn Whalen,
Executive Director, Norfolk Foundation, Inc., 860-542-7185
www.norfolkfoundation.net
This summer Yale Norfolk School of Art will offer a thematic program, made possible by Norfolk Foundation, Inc., called “The Ethics of Color” that will include a series of public lectures covering divergent topics such as the language of color theory coupled with human rights legislation, color as a material witness to disaster, new materialist conceptions of brown and the environment, W.E.B. Du Bois’s infographics utilizing color and data for analysis and activism, and an 80s art exhibition in Black and White. Yale Norfolk’s co-directors, Byron Kim and Lisa Sigal, will seek new ways to engage audiences with “The Ethics of Color” presenters. The roster of speakers will influence the students’ summer dialogue in a structured way, culminating in a digital archive of these interactions. Yale Norfolk seeks to engage with the Norfolk public but also with a broader public geographically to build a more diverse audience during the summer period. Receptions will follow each lecture to enhance this synergy.
Kim and Sigal chose the subject “The Ethics of Color” knowing full well it doesn’t make any sense. Color in itself has no meaning. What could color’s ethics be? Kim and Sigal wanted to assemble a lecture series with very diverse attitudes toward color and are hoping that their guests will ignore their premise and simply transmit their passions to us, especially to the Yale Norfolk students.
Each summer Yale Norfolk School of Art seeks to bring together a diverse group of students who have demonstrated a passion in art making to participate in a rigorous environment of artistic practice, learning, and growth. Participants come to Norfolk from all over the country. Yale Norfolk is a once in a lifetime experience for selected young artists. Open Studios will be scheduled at the end of June in order for the public to become more aware of the vitality of the school and the importance Yale Norfolk has on the lives of young artists.
The roster of speakers will include Aruna D’Souza, Tomashi Jackson, Silas Munro, Tavia Nyong’o and Susan Schuppli. Aruna D’Souza is a writer/critic and curator whose book Whitewalling has been well discussed in the art world since the 2017 Whitney Biennial and will talk about a show that the artist Lorraine O’Grady curated in the early 80s called The Black and White Show. Tomashi Jackson, an artist, has a unique perspective on Josef Albers’ color theory as it relates to societal perspectives. Silas Munro is a designer based in Los Angeles, his lecture on W.E.B. Du Bois’s “color line” diagrams will focus on these fascinating works as design, objects of activism and as drawings utilizing color. Tavia Nyongo will share his recent research on the posthumous writings on José Muñoz on the color brown. Susan Schuppli is an artist and scholar who operates in the field of forensic architecture and teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London.
