Race Matters

Leading artists and writers discuss issues of cultural conflict, identity politics, and expressive freedom that are at the forefront of Glenn Ligon's work--and our current sociopolitical climate.

Panelists are visual artist and Columbus gallerist Talle Bamazi, visual artist and 2006-07 Wexner Center Residency Award recipient Kerry James Marshall, jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran, novelist and essayist Lynne Tillman, and columnist and Columbia University law professor Patricia Williams. Maurice Stevens, associate professor of comparative studies at Ohio State, moderates the discussion.

**Update**
Panelist Lynne Tillman will sign her latest book, American Genius: A Comedy, at 6 PM in the Wexner Center Store.

Keep reading for more about the panelists. Talle Bamazi is a Columbus-based artist who established the KIACA Gallery in the Short North to showcase contemporary African and African American art. Bamazi was born in Togo, West Africa and received his MFA from the New York Academy of Art.

Kerry James Marshall is a Chicago-based artist whose work appears in museum collections around the world. He is the recipient of the 2007 Wexner Center for the Arts Residency Award, has been awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and this June his work will appear in the prestigious Documenta 12 exhibition in Kassel, Germany.

Jason Moran is a jazz pianist whose work is frequently inspired by visual artists such as Adrian Piper. His recent CD Artist in Residence was jointly commissioned by the Walker Art Center, the Dia Art Foundation and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Maurice Stevens (moderator) is an associate professor of comparative studies at Ohio State. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is the author of Troubling Beginnings: Trans(per)forming African American History and Identity (Routledge 2003).

Lynne Tillman is an author and essayist, who is acclaimed for both her fiction and non-fiction work. She has written frequently on modern and contemporary art, most notably on Andy Warhol. Her most recent novel, American Genius, A Comedy, was published in 2006.

Patricia J. Williams is a professor of law at Columbia University whose writing weaves together personal experience, legal research, and critical race theory into potent commentary on contemporary life. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000, Williams is a frequent contributor to The Nation with her column, "Diary of a Mad Law Professor."



image credit

Glenn Ligon
Malcolm X, Sun, Frederick Douglass, Boy with Bubbles (version 2) # 8, 2001
Flashe paint and silkscreen on paper
23 x 16 1/2 in.
Collection of Gregory R. Miller, New York