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Friday 08/11/17 12:30PM
Lobby, Second Floor, and Fourth FloorVisit Us
Tours · Exhibition-Related

New Perspectives Tour

Reconsidering “Contemporary”

Cover Image:

“Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Under-Song For A Cipher,” 2017. Exhibition view: New Museum. Photo: Maris Hutchinson / EPW Studio

Join us for a tour focusing on Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s recent portraiture and Carol Rama’s earliest figurative paintings. Together we will discuss how these two artists, whose works are on view in “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Under-Song For A Cipher” and “Carol Rama: Antibodies,” can help us reconsider the definitions of what makes a work of art “contemporary.” In the case of Rama, an artist who began working in the 1930s, we will question whether contemporary art must always refer to a specific time period, or to the work of a living artist—could it instead be related to subject matter, public attention, or approach to artistic practice? With Yiadom-Boakye, a living artist, we will consider her use of “traditional” media (oil on canvas) and one of the oldest artistic genres (portraiture) alongside her personal point of view. We will analyze how she relies on—and quietly challenges—our assumptions about the visual language, form, and content of premodern and modern painting.

New Perspectives tours are led by the New Museum Teaching Fellow, an emerging scholar in art history or a related field. The topics of the tours are based on the Fellow’s ongoing research and change monthly, engaging participants in uniquely focused examinations of selected objects and installations. New Perspectives tours are free with Museum admission. Due to limited capacity, please preregister here and meet in the Lobby at the time of the tour.

The current New Museum Teaching Fellow is Maggie Mustard, a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, where she is completing her dissertation on postwar Japanese photography.

Sponsors

This program is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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