CANCELED: "Black in the Garden: Ecologies of Art, Race, and the Outdoors"

The talk takes as its starting point the reinstallation in Chicago of the gazebo where twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was gunned down by a police officer in Cleveland in 2014. The gazebo now sits outside the Rebuild Foundation, the brainchild of Chicago artist Theaster Gates, where it occupies an uncertain status as memorial, possible artwork, and usable leisure space. The installation provokes questions about the construction of (or absence of) leisure, play, and safety for young people of African descent in North America, which will be addressed through an examination of racial ideologies embedded in the history of parks and gardens along with a series of works by contemporary artists.

Rebecca Zorach teaches and writes on early modern European art, the Black Arts Movement, and contemporary activist art. Her books include Blood, Milk, Ink, Gold: Abundance and Excess in the French Renaissance (2005); The Passionate Triangle (2011); and Art for People's Sake: Artists and Community in Black Chicago 1965-1975 (2019), along with several edited volumes. She has curated several exhibitions, including most recently The Time Is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago's South Side, 1960-1980 at the Smart Museum of Art in 2018. She also serves on the executive board of Chicago's South Side Community Art Center.

Talk is free and open to the public.