november
Event Details
Don’t miss this special opportunity to hear from artist Diedrick Brackens in conversation with Blanton Curator Veronica Roberts. From Mexia, Texas, and currently based in Los Angeles, Diedrick Brackens honors
Event Details
Don’t miss this special opportunity to hear from artist Diedrick Brackens in conversation with Blanton Curator Veronica Roberts. From Mexia, Texas, and currently based in Los Angeles, Diedrick Brackens honors Black and queer histories through textiles that imagine new futures through symbolic elements and evocative gestures. The Blanton’s presentation of ‘darling divined’ includes nine narrative weavings that draw inspiration from diverse sources ranging from European tapestries and quilts from the American south to popular culture, such as the film Moonlight. Join us for this free talk to hear more from the artist about his inspirations and his practice.
“Diedrick Brackens: darling divined” is on view through May 16, 2021. Learn more about the exhibition here.
About the Speakers
Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989, Mexia, TX) received a BFA from University of North Texas, Denton, TX (2011) and an MFA in textiles from California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA (2014). His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; New Museum, New York; Various Small Fires, Los Angeles; Sewanee University Art Gallery, Tennessee; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas. In 2019, he became the first recipient of the Marciano Artadia Award and in 2018 he was awarded the Wein Prize by the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. His work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Oakland Museum of California. Brackens is represented by Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA / Seoul and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Veronica Roberts joined the Blanton in 2013 as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Among the exhibitions she has organized are: Converging Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt, Nina Katchadourian: Curiouser, and Ed Ruscha: Drum Skins. Prior to working at the Blanton, Veronica worked at the Museum of Modern Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Feature Image: Diedrick Brackens, “break and tremble,” 2019. Woven cotton and acrylic yarn, 89 x 93 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; museum purchase funded by the African American Art Advisory Association, the Art Colony Association, Gregory Fourticq, the Arthur Robson, Jr. Bequest, Joan Morgenstern, Judy Nyquist, Penelope and Lester Marks, Kerry F. Inman, and by exchange: Marti Shlenker, Mrs. Thomas J. Gordon, Teresa and Dennis Ranzau, Rosalie Meador Thompson and Mrs. Robert Robertson, Jr. Image courtesy New Museum, New York. Photo by Dario Lasagni
Time
(Tuesday) 5:00 pm
december
Event Details
The 1960s in Argentina were marked by experimentation and the expansion of the limits of art. Artists like Julio Le Parc, Rogelio Polesello, and Alejandro Puente explored new realms of
Event Details
The 1960s in Argentina were marked by experimentation and the expansion of the limits of art. Artists like Julio Le Parc, Rogelio Polesello, and Alejandro Puente explored new realms of abstraction. Influenced by science, they probed human perception and the laws of vision, creating paintings that appear to dance and buzz before the eye. Technology and new social perspectives changed the visual culture of the period, and other experiments centered on the link between art and reality, often incorporating new materials into groundbreaking works.
Dr. Mariana Marchesi, Artistic Director of Argentina’s National Fine Arts Museum in Buenos Aires, will begin with an overview of 1960s Argentine art in international and regional contexts. Dr. Marchesi and the Blanton Curator of Latin American Art, Dr. Vanessa Davidson, will then join in a conversation about Argentine pioneers of the 1960s. They’ll take viewers on a virtual tour of Expanding Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Painting in the Americas, 1958–1983, focusing on Latin American artists and their contributions to international languages of abstraction.
REGISTER FOR EVENT HEREAbout our Speakers
Dr. Mariana Marchesi is an art historian and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires where she focuses on Argentine and Latin American modern and contemporary art, and museum studies. She is Artistic Director at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. She is president of the Argentine Center of Art Historians (CAIA)
She is editor of the academic journal Caiana. Revista de historia del arte y cultura visual and the visual art magazine Blanco sobre Blanco. Miradas y lecturas sobre artes visuales. Marchesi’s research on Latin American and Argentinean contemporary art has been included in local and international publications on the subject. Her most recent exhibitions include: Arte de sistemas. El CAYC y el proyecto de un nuevo arte regional (2013), Abstracción y tradición americana(2015), La explosión de la forma (2015), Venecia en clave verde. Nicolás García Uriburu y la coloración del Gran Canal (2018), Julio Le Parc. Transición Buenos Aires-París. 1955-1960. (2019) y CAYC: Chile 1973 / Argentina 1985. La exposición olvidada y una lectura a cuatro artistas chilenos (2020).
Vanessa Davidson received a B.A. in Hispano-American Literature from Harvard University, and studied Latin American art and Argentine poetry at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as Portuguese at the Universidade de São Paulo. She has worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to conduct dissertation research in Argentina and Brazil in 2009, and received her Ph.D. in 20th Century Latin American Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, in 2011. She worked at Phoenix Art Museum as Shawn and Joe Lampe Curator of Latin American Art for eight years, during which time she organized twelve major exhibitions, two of which traveled internationally. She assumed her role as Curator of Latin American Art at the Blanton Museum of Art in October 2019.
Image Credit: Rogelio Polesello, Dos diagonals [Two Diagonals], 1980, acrylic on canvas, 63 3/8 x 63 3/8 in., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Barbara Duncan, 1991
Time
(Tuesday) 5:00 pm
january
Event Details
How does someone start collecting art? When is a print an original work of art? The happy confluence of two events offer a prime opportunity to explore these questions. At
Event Details
How does someone start collecting art? When is a print an original work of art? The happy confluence of two events offer a prime opportunity to explore these questions. At the Blanton, the exhibition Off the Walls: Gifts from Professor John A. Robertson celebrates the voracious eye of one print aficionado. From January 15 to February 15, 2021, the exhibition coincides with the annual fair organized by PrintAustin, an artist-led nonprofit organization working to showcase traditional and contemporary approaches in printmaking. Together, these shows spotlight the incredible richness that prints have to offer—both technically and aesthetically. In advance of PrintAustin’s February 6th fine art print fair, PrintExpo, Annalise Gratovich and Pepe Coronado, two artist leaders on PrintAustin’s board, will offer their insights on contemporary printmaking, publishing, and collecting. Genevra Higginson, a co-curator of Off the Walls and Curatorial Assistant for Prints and Drawings, will host the discussion. Join them for a dive into the wonderful world of prints.
About our Speakers
Annalise Gratovich is a print-centric artist specializing in etchings and woodcuts. She exhibits nationally and internationally and travels as a guest artist and lecturer to Universities and print shops where her work is published. Annalise has a professional background in print publishing, curating, and collections management, and currently resides in the Prints and Drawings Department of the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. She sits on the Board of Directors of PrintAustin and Marfa Community Print, organizations promoting printmaking through education and community engagement.
Annalise’s work engages themes of personhood and identity at the intersection of longing and belonging. Her figurative work draws upon personal and cultural identity and ancestral stories, alluding to a time and place that is far away and perhaps cannot be returned to. She creates her prints by hand from start to finish, carving wood, etching metal, dyeing paper, and using manual printing presses to create multiple originals.
Genevra Higginson is the Curatorial Assistant for Prints and Drawings at the Blanton Museum of Art. She recently highlighted five women artists in the print collection for the museum’s blog. Prior to joining the Blanton, Genevra held positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Genevra earned her master’s degree in early modern print culture at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and her undergraduate degree in art history at the University of Virginia.
Image Credit: Philip Guston, Pile Up (detail), 1980, lithograph, 19 x 29 in., Blanton Museum of Art, Bequest of John A. Robertson, 2018 © The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Time
(Tuesday) 5:00 pm
