Tag Archives: Elizabeth Alexander

THE MONUMENTS PROJECT — EXPANDING THE AMERICAN STORY

Join Caroline Randall Williams, Elizabeth Alexander, Paul M. Farber, and Viet Thanh Nguyen in conversation. This second online Monuments Project discussion will address “provocative questions about the making of our commemorative spaces, including what a monument is, how myth-making has shaped the process of memorializing, and why new commemorations will expand the American Story.”*

See link below to register.

THE MONUMENTS PROJECT—EXPANDING THE AMERICAN STORY*

Wednesday, December 9.

2 pm on the West Coast; 5 pm East Coast.

See Caroline Randall Williams, “My Body is a Confederate Monument.”

From top: Caroline Randall Williams, courtesy of the author; image courtesy and © the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Paul M. Farber and Ken Lum, editors, Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia (2020), cover image courtesy and © Temple University Press; Viet Tranh Nguyen, courtesy and © Beowulf / Sheehan / Pen America / Zuma.

LIFT EVERY VOICE LAUNCH

Join Nikky Finney, Sonia Sanchez, Jericho Brown, Tyehimba Jess, Elizabeth Alexander, Mahershala Ali, and Kamasi Washington for the launch of LIFT EVERY VOICE, “a year-long nationwide public humanities initiative exploring African American poetic traditions.”*

Presented by the Library of America and the Schomburg Center, the event also celebrates celebrates the publication of the new LOA anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song, edited by Kevin Young.

See link below for details.

LIFT EVERY VOICE LAUNCH

A NATIONWIDE CELEBRATION OF 250 YEARS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY*

Thursday, September 17.

3:30 pm–6 pm on the West Coast; 6:30 pm–9 pm East Coast.

From top: Nikky Finney, photograph courtesy and © the author and the University of South Carolina; Sonia Sanchez, photograph courtesy and © the author and Mezzocamin; Jericho Brown, photograph courtesy of the author; Tyehimba Jess, Olio, cover image courtesy and © the author and Wave Books; Jess, photograph courtesy and © the author; Elizabeth Alexander, photograph courtesy and © the author; Kevin Young, editor, African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song, cover image courtesy and © the Library of America.

THE POWER OF THE ARTIST

AIDS completely changed American culture. People always say “pop culture.” As if we have some high culture to distinguish it from. The effect of AIDS was like a war in a minute country. Like, in World War I, a whole generation of Englishmen died all at once. And with AIDS, a whole generation of gay men died practically all at once, within a couple of years. And especially the ones that I knew.

The first people who died of AIDS were artists. They were also the most interesting people. I know I’ve said this before, but the audience for the arts—whether it was for writing or films or ballet—also died and no longer exists in a real way. So all the judgment left at the same time that all this creativity left. And it allowed people who would be fifth-rate artists to come to the front of the line. It decimated not just artists but knowledge. Knowledge of a culture. There’s a huge gap in what people know, and there’s no context for it anymore. — Fran Lebowitz*

Daniel Mendelsohn will moderate the panel THE POWER OF THE ARTIST at the Kitchen.

Presented by David Zwirner and the New York Review of Books, panelists include Jeremy O. Harris, Fran Lebowitz, Elizabeth Alexander, and Lisa Yuskavage.

THE POWER OF THE ARTIST—ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, JEREMY O. HARRIS, FRAN LEBOWITZ, and LISA YUSKAVAGE

Monday, February 3, at 6:30 pm

The Kitchen

512 West 19th Street, New York City.

*“The Voice: Fran Lebowitz,” interview by Francesco Clemente, Interview, March 2016.

From top: Jeremy O. Harris; Fran Lebowitz with Andy Warhol; Elizabeth Alexander. , photograph by Djeneba Aduayom. Photographs courtesy and © the subjects and the photographers. Above and below: Lisa Yuskavage, Bonfire, 2013–2015, oil on linen, diptych; Lisa Yuskavage, Naked Neighbors, 2019, oil on linen. Images courtesy and © the authors, the artist, the photographers, and David Zwirner.

LORNA SIMPSON IN CONVERSATION

Image result for lorna simpson document journal cover 2018

This week at the Whitney, Lorna Simpson and Elizabeth Alexander will discuss the artist’s new book LORNA SIMPSON COLLAGES.

“Using advertising photographs of black women (and men) drawn from vintage issues of Ebony and Jet, Simpson’s collages explore the richly nuanced language of hair—as Alexander writes in her introduction: ‘Black women’s hair are galaxies unto themselves, solar systems, moonscapes, volcanic interiors.’ ”*

After the Q & A, Simpson will sign books.

 

LORNA SIMPSON IN CONVERSATION WITH ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, Wednesday, July 18, at 7:30 pm.

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York City.

whitney.org/lorna-simpson-conversation

chroniclebooks.com/lorna-simpson-collages

Above: Lorna Simpson, Document journal cover, issue 12, Spring–Summer 2018. Image courtesy of the artist and Document.

Below: Image credit Chronicle Books.

Lorna Simpson photograph.

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FOR DEREK WALCOTT

“What better way is there to memorialize a writer than to read what he has written and remember who he was in all those worlds of words he was brave and confident enough to imagine in the first place?” Hilton Als on Derek Walcott

Join Elizabeth Alexander, Robert Antoni, Carolyn Forché, Lorna Goodison, Jamaica Kincaid, Karl Kirchwey, Yusef Komunyakaa, Glyn Maxwell, Caryl Phillips, and Als in this celebration and remembrance of the late poet.

 

A CELEBRATION OF DEREK WALCOTT, Thursday, January 18, at 7:30 pm.

KAUFMANN CONCERT HALL, 92ND STREET Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, New York City.

92y.org/a-celebration-of-derek-walcott

Derek Walcott. Photograph by Horst Toppe, Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

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