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News from the Center

View updates from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, including upcoming and recent programs, fellowship deadlines, recordings, and publications.

Fellowships

2024–2025 Academic Year Appointments

Every year, the Center brings distinguished scholars from around the world to its internationally renowned research institution at the National Gallery of Art. We’ve announced this year’s appointments, including Mary Beard, award-winning author and professor emerita of the ancient world at University of Cambridge, as Kress-Beinecke Professor.

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New video series

5 Pictures for a New World
Aruna D’Souza, Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, spring 2022

Former Edmond J. Safra Professor Aruna D’Souza presents a new series, 5 Pictures for a New World. Stay tuned for more episodes.

On Chakaia Booker’s “Egress”
On Eve Hesse’s “Test Piece for ‘Contingent’”

Woven with copper wire against a muted dusky-pink background, this tapestry replicates an early computer circuit board. Long, thin rectangles in two columns take up most of the height of the composition. A few rows of smaller rectangles are in three columns below and larger shapes are above. Numbers and letters, like serial numbers, including “INTEL,” can be made out on the rectangles. The copper gleams, creating a shimmering effect.

Recent program

Braided Histories: Modernist Abstraction and Woven Textiles
Friday, May 31

An afternoon in celebration of the exhibition Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction. Presenters included Jenni Sorkin, Horacio Ramos, Fernanda Pitta, and Candice Hopkins, plus a conversation between artist Analia Saban and curator Lynne Cooke.

Mellon Lectures

Chasing That Which Is Not Me / Chasing That Which Is Me
73rd A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
Sundays, April 28–May 19

Anna Deavere Smith, award-winning actress, playwright, author, and professor at New York University, presented the Mellon Lectures this spring. Final recordings will be posted to our YouTube channel soon.

Learn more and watch

Recent video

Sofonisba Anguissola: Recent Discoveries and Debates
Michael Cole, Columbia University
Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art

We’re pleased to make available a recording of the 27th Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art, delivered on November 12, 2023, by Michael Cole of Columbia University.

Watch

New publication

Contact: Art and the Pull of Print
Jennifer L. Roberts, May 2024
Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series

Published by Princeton University Press in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, this publication follows Roberts’s 2021 presentation of the 70th A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts.

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Recent video

Latinx Art and the Intimacy of Dislocation
Roberto Tejada, University of Houston

We’re pleased to make available a recording of the 2023 Wyeth Lecture in American Art, delivered on December 2 by Roberto Tejada of the University of Houston.

Watch

Our annual report

Center 43: Record of Activities and Research Reports, June 2022–May 2023
This year, the Center’s residential community is affiliated with institutions in the United States, Canada, and Italy, with representation across 18 states and the District of Columbia. From 17th-century Dutch and Chinese art exchanges to ancient narratives of madness, to Latin American video art, to the performance of Indigenous feminist futures in Native American art, this year’s cohort is broadening our understanding in myriad art-historical and architectural fields. 

Explore

Recent conference

Women in Art and Music: An Early Modern Global Conference
Friday and Saturday, October 20–21
East Building Auditorium and Virtual

“Women in Art and Music” was a two-part conference hosted jointly by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts and the Juilliard School in New York. Part 1 was October 18 at Juilliard in New York, NY, and Part 2 was October 20–21 at the National Gallery of Art.

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Recent book discussion

Black Modernisms in the Translatlantic World
Saturday, September 30

A discussion about Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World with coeditor Huey Copeland and contributing author Kellie Jones, moderated by Steven Nelson.

Recent publication

Beauty Born of Struggle: The Art of Black Washington
Edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart

In a 20th century during which modern art largely abandoned beauty as its imperative, a group of Black artists from Washington, DC, made beauty the center of their art making. This book highlights these influential artists, including David C. Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Lois Mailou Jones, and Alma Thomas, in the context of what Jeffrey C. Stewart describes as the Washington Black Renaissance.

Purchase