The Black Home as Public Art
The Black Home as Public Art consists of an exhibition and symposium examining creative notions of the Black home in the United States during the postwar period.
The exhibition will be on display August 26–November 15, and will present eight artist-led practices that employ adaptive reuse and public art strategies to reinterpret the Black home to inflect the demands of Black social movements, contemporary politics, and racial uplift. These include designers like Theaster Gates, Tyree Guyton, and Amanda Williams who have built their practices on reforming the detached housing typologies found in working-class neighborhoods in the United States into a form of publicly engaged art. Contributions of featured projects range from the introduction of new multifunctional interior spaces and the painting of exterior surfaces of a building (as a public canvas) to the commissioning of a building study and the installation of contemplation gardens that transform an empty lot of a dilapidated neighborhood into an open air living room.
The September 11–12 symposium will bring together designers, historians, curators, and archivists for interdisciplinary discussions about these projects, their significance, and the importance of pluralizing the architectural canon for a more holistic understanding of our built environment.
This program is organized by Associate Professor Charles L. Davis II and serves as the inaugural edition of a series that seeks to lay the groundwork to establish a Black Space Archive documenting creative interventions into the built environment, to support and expand future scholarship. It is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, an Arnold W. Brunner Grant, and the McDermott Excellence Fund.
Additional details to follow.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2024
5 p.m. Keynote Address, Goldsmith Lecture Hall (3.120)
Dell Upton, UC Berkeley and UCLA
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2024
All events take place in the Mebane Gallery (GOL 2.105)
9:30 a.m. Light Breakfast and Coffee
10 a.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks
Dean Heather Woofter and Charles L. Davis II
10:30–11:30 a.m. Komozi Woodard, Sarah Lawrence College
Introduced by Charles L. Davis II
Presenting on Botelli, Ohland & Martins’ Kawaida Towers (commissioned by Amiri Baraka)
11:30–12:30 p.m. Scott L. Ruff, RuffWorks Studio and Pratt Institute
Introduced by Bryan E. Norwood
Presenting on Rick Lowe’s Project Row Houses (Third Ward, Houston, Texas)
12:30–2 p.m. Break
2–3 p.m. Curry J. Hackett, Wayside Studio
Introduced by Charles L. Davis II
Presenting on Amanda Williams’ Color(ed) Theory Houses (Chicago, Illinois)
3–4 p.m. Aisha Densmore-Bey, Designer
Introduced by Tara A. Dudley
Presenting on Theaster Gates’s Dorchester Projects (Chicago, Illinois)
4–5 p.m. Closing Discussion
With all presenters, moderated by Charles L. Davis II
This event is free and open to the public, with a live webcast available for the September 11-12 symposium. Seating provided on a first-come, first-served basis; no registration required. If you need accommodations for this event, please contact bridget@austin.utexas.edu at least five business days in advance.
Parking Information: Metered street parking around the school is possible but usually difficult to find during the semester. The closest parking garage to the school is the privately-owned Dobie Mall Parking Garage on Whitis Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets. There are also several surface parking lots (approx. $5–6/day) on Whitis Avenue between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 21st Street. These are all less than a 5-minute walk to the school. The university also operates several parking garages, but these are located farther from the school.
