Douglas Crimp

In this year’s Lambert Family Lecture, influential art historian, author, and curator Douglas Crimp discusses nine artists—including Cindy Sherman—who explore femininity as a construct. While some are well known, and others less so, the artists have in common the photographic presentation of the female subject, and their work creates what Crimp calls “archives of femininity,” presenting femininity as a project, a task, something to be fabricated. A touchstone among them, Sherman also plays a role in Crimp’s recent memoir, Before Pictures (U of Chicago Press, 2016), a remarkable account of his time in New York from the late 1960s through the 1970s.

Save the date for what’s sure to be an illuminating evening. Come early to see the career-spanning exhibition Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life, open until 8 PM. Crimp joins us for a book signing in the Wexner Center Store following the lecture.

More on Douglas Crimp

The Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester (NY), Douglas Crimp is also the author of On the Museum’s Ruins (1993); Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics (2002); and “Our Kind of Movie”: The Films of Andy Warhol (2012). In 1977, Crimp curated the Pictures exhibition at Artists Space, New York—largely defining the Pictures Generation of artists that included Robert Longo, Sherrie Levine, and later Cindy Sherman. From 1977 to 1990, he edited the influential contemporary art journal October, including the special issue AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism in 1987. With Lynne Cooke, he organized the exhibition Mixed Use, Manhattan for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2010, and he was on the curatorial team for the 2015 iteration of MoMA PS1’s Greater New York exhibition.

The Lambert Family Lecture is made possible by generous support from the Lambert Family Lecture Series Endowment Fund, which promotes dialogue about global issues in art and contemporary culture.