Monday, April 4, 6:30pm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
5th Ave at 89th St
New York City
The Sixth Robert Rosenblum Lecture
Huey Copeland: “Solar Ethics”
The Sixth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will be delivered by Huey Copeland. Titled “Solar Ethics,” the lecture will focus on the legacy of the musician, writer, and composer Sun Ra and will be followed by a reception in the Guggenheim’s iconic rotunda.
Free with RSVP
Since his death in 1993, Sun Ra—a self-styled intergalactic prophet hailing from Saturn by way of ancient Egypt—has become a frequently referenced touchstone for cultural producers of various stripes. In this lecture, art historian Huey Copeland explores Ra’s representations of space-time and their implications for contemporary artists, such as Edgar Arceneaux, Glenn Ligon, and Mai-Thu Perret, who identify with his utopian aspirations and have taken up the challenge thrown down by his life and work. While commentators have made much of Ra’s brilliant troping on black alienation, particularly his embrace of outer space, equally important to his intellectual project was a radical reassessment of the logics of Western temporality. Ultimately, Copeland argues, Ra’s thinking points us toward new criteria for the evaluation of recent art that takes seriously both the recursiveness and simultaneity of time as it unfolds within, beyond, and across the black world.
Huey Copeland (PhD, History of Art, University of California, Berkeley, 2006) is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Graduate School at Northwesten University, where he is also Associate Professor of Art History and has affiliations with the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program and the Department of African American Studies. His writing focuses on modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on articulations of blackness in the Western visual field. A contributing editor of Artforum, Copeland has also published in Art Journal, Callaloo, Camera Obscura, Nka, Parkett, Qui Parle, Representations, and Small Axe, as well as in numerous international exhibition catalogues and edited volumes, including Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art, edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz. Notable among Copeland’s publications is Bound to Appear: Art, Slavery, and the Site of Blackness in Multicultural America. He has cocurated exhibitions such as Interstellar Low Ways (with Anthony Elms), co-organized international conferences like “Black Collectivities” (with Naomi Beckwith), and coedited several journal volumes, including the Representations issue “New World Slavery and the Matter of the Visual” (with Krista Thompson and Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby).
The Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture honors the wide-ranging career of Robert Rosenblum (1927–2006), former Guggenheim Swid Curator of 20th Century Art, and Henry Ittleson Jr. Professor of Modern European Art, New York University, whose celebrated work included projects on Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and the depiction of dogs in art.
Credits
This series is facilitated by the donors to the Robert Rosenblum Fund who are gratefully acknowledged for their generosity.
The Sackler Center for Arts Education is a gift of the Mortimer D. Sackler Family. Endowment funding is provided by The Engelberg Foundation, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, The Elaine Terner Cooper Foundation, and the Esther Simon Charitable Trust. Educational activities and/or public programs are made possible in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Edmond de Rothschild Foundation, The Hilla von Rebay Foundation, and The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation. Funding is also provided by The Keith Haring Foundation; Deutsche Bank; the Windgate Charitable Foundation; the Sidney E. Frank Foundation; The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; Guggenheim Partners, LLC; the Robert & Toni Bader Charitable Foundation; the Rose M. Badgeley Residuary Charitable Trust; and The Barker Welfare Foundation. Additional support from the Gap Foundation; Katherine and Peter Kend; the Jane A. Lehman and Alan G. Lehman Foundation; Con Edison; the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Inc.; the Henry E. Niles Foundation, Inc.; and the Metzger-Price Fund, Inc. is gratefully acknowledged. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation thanks the members of the Education Committee for their support.
