6pm ET | 5pm CT | 4pm PT
We are delighted to present Monuments & Memorials: Then & Now, a three part series about the history, context and creation of public monuments and memorials.
This first panel will introduce milestones and controversies of past memorials and monuments. We will hear from Professor Harriet F. Senie, Professor of Art History at C.U.N.Y. and its Graduate Center, who will offer her perspective on The Evolution of Monuments: Paradigms and Underlying Issues based on her 30 years of experience teaching, writing and participating on national selection commissions in the field of public art. She is joined by artist Alison Saar, who will reflect on her much admired permanent 2007 Harriet Tubman Monument in Harlem, a case study, in New York City where there are few monuments to women or non-white males. We will also hear from artist Marisa Williamson, who is known for reimagining under-represented historical subjects by bringing these figures to life through performance art and augmented reality (AR). She will speak about her practice using new narratives and new media for contemporary audiences. Cathie Behrend, ArtTable New York member who co-organized this series, will introduce the program and panelists.
The second panel in this series will be announced in the coming weeks and will focus on Reimagining Public Monuments & Memorials: Through Other Lenses. What have we seen? Whose stories will we now tell? Who will decide? Who will provide funding? What visions do artists now imagine for the future? A third panel in September will wrap up the series with a focus on the Preservation of Public Monuments & Sacred Spaces at Home & Abroad. We hope you will join us for all three!
We also look forward to sharing more information on an upcoming walking tour of Harlem with Cathie Behrend that will highlight monuments and memorials in the neighborhood, including Alison Saar’s “Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial” and the Frederick Douglass Sculpture and Water Wall. Stay tuned for more details!
Admission
- Non-Members – $15
- ArtTable Members – $10
- ArtTable Circle Members – Free
- Members may bring an additional guest for $5
How to take part:
- Click here to Register for this program.
- Following registration you will receive call-in information in the form of a ZOOM link.
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Accessibility: Please note that this program will offer live closed captioning. If you require additional accommodations, please email programs@arttable.org.
About Professor Harriet F. Senie
Harriet F. Senie is professor of art history at City College and the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11; The “Tilted Arc” Controversy: Dangerous Precedent?; and Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy. She is co-editor and contributor to Teachable Monuments: Using Public Art to Spark Dialogue and Confront Controversy; Museums and Public Art?; A Companion to Public Art; and Critical Issues in Public Art. In 2008, she cofounded Public Art Dialogue, an international organization and College Art Association affiliate, and coedited its peer review journal Public Art Dialogue from 2011-17. She has served on the New York City Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers; the She Built New York advisory committee, and selection committees for the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park; the Mexico City 1968 Memorial; and the Flight 587 Memorial. Her current book project is Monumental Controversies: Mount Rushmore, Four Presidents, and the Quest for National Identity.
About Alison Saar
Alison Saar was born in Los Angeles, California. She has been commissioned to create a number of Public Monuments including Swing Low a monument to Harriet Tubman, Terra Incognita a memorial to York of the Lewis and Clark expedition and Embodied a monument to Justice. She received the United States Artist Fellowship in 2012 and has also been awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and two National Endowment Fellowships. Alison has exhibited at many galleries and museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her art is represented in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Baltimore Art Museum, the Modern Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About Marisa Williamson
Marisa Williamson is a project-based artist who has produced site-specific works at Monticello, & by commission from Storm King Art Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monument Lab, & the National Park Service. She has had solo exhibitions at the University of Virginia, the University of Washington, & SPACES in Cleveland. Her work has been exhibited nationally & internationally. Williamson has received grants from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, & the Graham Foundation. Williamson holds a BA from Harvard & an MFA from CalArts. She lives & works in New Jersey & Connecticut, serving as an assistant professor of media arts at the University of Hartford.
Thank you to Cathie Behrend, former Deputy Director of New York’s Percent for Art Program and founder of VenturesinVision, and Lori Shepard, member of ArtTable’s New York Chapter Programs Committee, for organizing this program series.
Images:
- Marisa Williamson, Ruffin Hall: University of Virginia – Seeing that nothing is purely black or white, the Ghost of Thomas Jefferson wanders in this grey area. Charlottesville, VA. From Postcard Book: The Ghost of Thomas Jefferson, 2018. Edition of 150. Photo by Gabby Fuller. Courtesy of the Artist. | Swing Low: A Harriet Tubman memorial by Alison Saar (Photo: Devin A. Hill for TravelMag)
- Harriet F. Senie, courtesy of the speaker
- Alison Saar Self Portrait, courtesy of the artist
- Marisa Williamson, courtesy of the artist
Deborah Fisher is an artist and creative leader working to expand the roles artists play in civic life. She is the founding Executive Director of A Blade of Grass, a non-profit solely dedicated to nurturing socially engaged art. Fisher has served as an art, strategy, and philanthropy advisor to Shelley and Donald Rubin, and has worked in many capacities at the intersection of art and civic life in New York City, including as studio manager at Socrates Sculpture Park, and as an educator and curriculum developer for the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. Her approach to leadership is deeply informed by her training as a sculptor, particularly her experience making public art. She also writes and lectures internationally about arts funding and socially engaged art.
For fifteen years, curator Irene Mei Zhi Shum has actively explored the intersection of art and architecture, organizing ambitious projects and championing the artists and designers with whom she works. Most recently, she was the Executive Director of Art in General in New York City. Prior to this, Shum served as the Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas (2018-2020) and the inaugural curator for the Philip Johnson Glass House, a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in New Canaan, Connecticut (2007-2018). An early and major responsibility at the Glass House was the coordination of the transfer of property from the estates of architect Philip Johnson and art patron David Whitney to the National Trust. Shum shaped the Glass House’s collection and implemented the site’s arts initiative, introducing exhibitions, music and dance performances. Notably, she organized and secured funding for the large-scale, site-specific exhibitions Fujiko Nakaya: Veil (2014) and Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden (2016), as well as a highly acclaimed sound performance by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and visual artist and musician Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), that was recorded and released as Glass (Noton, 2018). Shum holds a Master’s in Architecture from Yale University; a certificate of architecture from the École des Beaux-Arts of the Ecoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, where she was awarded the Prix de Ville de Fontainebleau; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture and Art History from Barnard College, Columbia University.
