University Art Museum Opening Reception Thursday, September 5th 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

not but nothing other: African-American Portrayals, 1930s to Today
Titled after a poem by Fred Moten, “not but nothing other: African-American Portrayals, 1930 to Today” presents depictions of and by Black Americans, providing a wide-ranging survey of how artists over the last eighty years have responded to the challenge of picturing African-American selfhood.

Key eras of creative production—the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, as well as our present moment—are represented by artworks drawn from four prominent US public collections: the Art Bridges Foundation; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; and the Fisk University Galleries.

From portraits to re-imaginings of historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, from realistic renderings to conceptual experiments, these works evidence the ongoing struggle to affirm Black identity within an America marked since its founding by the legacy of slavery, segregation, and racial discrimination.

For a detailed listing of related public programs click here.

This exhibition was organized by Tom McDonough, Associate Professor of Art History. Generous support for this project is provided by Art Bridges.

OPENING RECEPTION

Thursday, September 5th
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Featuring a poetry reading by local resident Brenda Cave-James

Lecture by Heghnar Watenpaugh, September 9, 2019

Professor Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh will speak at the Binghamton University Art Museum on Monday, September 9, 2019 at 4 pm. Her talk is entitled, “The Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript, from Genocide to Justice,” and draws from her recent book about the Zey’tun Gospels. Art history, histories of genocide, cultural heritage, and the questions of the continuity of the medieval and the modern intersect in the biography of this medieval Armenian Gospels manuscript. Eight of its illuminated pages were discovered in the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2010, prompting a lawsuit. The tale of the separation of the pages from the manuscript tells a story of genocide and survival, and makes the case for a human right to art. Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. She researches the visual cultures of the Middle East, including issues of architectural preservation, museums, and cultural heritage.

Hosted by the Middle East and North Africa Studies Program (MENA). Generously co-sponsored by the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (I-GMAP), the departments of Asian and Asian American Studies, Art History, and Classical and Near Eastern Studies, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Material and Visual Worlds TAE, and the Binghamton University Art Museum.

Graduate Activities: Nicole Wagner

Pietro Longhi, The Ridotto, 1740s, oil on canvas, Raccotta Salon, Venice

PhD Candidate Nicole Wagner received the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Grant for 2018.  She was funded to perform archival research in Venice, Italy for eight months. Most of her research was in the State Archives of Venice, for the third chapter of my dissertation on female gamblers, namely sex-workers, in early modern Venice, and the rise of the ridotto as a space for card play. Her dissertation title is “Women Working the Table: The Material Culture, Gendered Spaces, and Visual Representations of Female Card Players in Early Modern Italy.”

In addition, Ms. Wagner also received the Edward H. Prentice Award for 2018-2019 year. This award is for graduating seniors and graduate students who have, during their college careers, most distinguished themselves by character,  scholarship, and contributions to the academic and extra-curricular life of the University.”