Presented by Tom Williams
Learn more about themes in contemporary art through the work of Jeffrey Gibson, Otobong Nkanga, and Matthew Ritchie in this three-part course presented on Zoom. At the end of the course, participants can visit the exhibitions with Tom Williams during an in-person meet up.
Wednesday, February 15
Focus on Matthew Ritchie
This class will introduce contemporary art through the lens of Ritchie’s work. Focusing first on some important points of reference in twentieth-century art, we will go on to discuss the ways that Ritchie and some of his contemporaries have used the language of modern art to address complex political, social, and economic realities.
Wednesday, February 22
Focus on Otobong Nkanga
This class will address contemporary art in the context of globalization. Looking first at Nkanga’s critiques of neocolonial and ecological exploitation, this session will explore the ways that contemporary artists have responded to globalization in social, economic, and cultural contexts.
Wednesday, March 1
Focus on Jeffrey Gibson
This class will focus on multiplicity and identity in contemporary art. Beginning with Gibson’s blending of different aesthetic traditions as a vision of a pluralist future, this class will discuss contemporary artists who have forged new sensibilities and imagined alternative worlds by working between and across different cultures and social practices.
About Tom Williams
Tom Williams is an art historian based in Nashville. He has taught at the School of Visual Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, Watkins College of Art, and elsewhere. He is currently teaching at Belmont University. His writings have appeared in Art in America, Grey Room, and other publications. Since 2013, he has co-facilitated an art workshop in the Death Row unit of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, and he has co-curated (with Robin Paris) exhibitions of prisoners’ art, including Life After Death and Elsewhere at apexart in New York City.
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