Aruna D’Souza, Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, Spring 2022, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
In this lecture, Aruna D’Souza will consider fundamental questions about the power dynamics inherent in writing about art. How might art historians and critics write about the art of others—of artists who are dealing with histories of and creating work for racialized, minoritized, colonized communities of which one might not be a part—without resorting to extractive models of writing? How might one pursue curiosities without treading on what poet and theorist Édouard Glissant calls “the right to opacity” of our objects of study?
D’Souza’s talk will draw on lessons from artists and writers who challenge us to sit with silence, secrecy, and invisibility.