Adrienne Edwards, the Engell Speyer Family Curator and Curator of Performance at The Whitney Museum, conducted a free, online public conversation on September 30, 2020, virtually hosted by The Department of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Accompanying Adrienne for the conversation was Huey Copeland, Arthur Andersen Teaching and Research Professor at Northwestern University. In addition to this event and as part of Art & Dialogue, Adrienne conducted virtual studio visits with eight Chicago Artadia Awardees over the course of one week.
Adrienne Edwards is a curator, scholar and writer. She is the Engell Speyer Family Curator and Curator of Performance at The Whitney Museum and a PhD candidate in performance studies at New York University. Prior to her appointment at The Whitney, Edwards was the Curator at Performa since 2010, and Curator at Large for the Walker Art Center since 2016. Edwards’ curatorial and scholarly work focuses on artists of the African Diaspora and the Global South. In addition to her curatorial practice, Edwards is a contributor to numerous exhibition catalogues and art publications including, Art in America, Aperture, and Parkett, among other publications.
Huey Copeland is Interim Director of the Black Arts Initiative, Arthur Andersen Teaching and Research Professor, and Associate Professor of Art History at Northwestern University, where he also enjoys affiliations with African American Studies, Art Theory & Practice, Critical Theory, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Performance Studies. His research focuses on modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on articulations of blackness in the Western visual field. An editor of OCTOBER and a contributing editor of Artforum, Copeland has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals as well as in numerous international exhibition catalogues and essay collections. At present, he is at work on two complementary volumes: “In the Shadow of the Negress: Modern Art in the Transatlantic World,” which explores the constitutive role played by fictions of black womanhood in Western art from the late 18th century to the present, and “Touched by the Mother: On Black Men, Artistic Practice, and Other Feminist Horizons, 1966–2016,” which brings together a selection of his critical essays.
The Department of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies brings to Chicago audiences the work of acclaimed and emerging artists, while providing the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the public opportunities for direct involvement and exchange with the discourses of art today. With shows and projects often led by faculty or student curators, the School’s exhibition spaces are teaching galleries that engage process as a pedagogical model and mode of research.