Lecture | All We Have is Each Other: Black Artists and Collective Visions

In this presentation, scholar and curator, Bridget R. Cooks, will discuss works by Black artists made to inspire. Her talk will feature objects that have been informed by our present and irrepressible past and draw on Woodmere’s upcoming exhibitions Soul, Sound, and Voice: The Art of Jerry Pinkney, Planting in Place, Time and Memory featuring the art of Syd Carpenter, and the current group exhibition, Strange Narratives/Resilient Bodies. Dr. Cooks will also explore how museums can envision Black futures in their exhibitions.

This lecture is made possible through the generous support of the Robert Lehman Foundation’s Edwin L. Weisl Jr. Lectureship program in Art History.
 
Dr. Cooks is widely known for her book, Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum, which explores the historical representation—and exclusion—of African American artists within museum spaces. It received the inaugural James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History.
She serves as the Chancellor’s Fellow and Professor of African American Studies and Art History at the University of California Irvine, where she is core faculty in PhD Programs in Visual Studies and Culture and Theory. Her research focuses on visual art by African Americans, Black visual culture, and museum criticism.

Dr. Cooks has also worked in museum education at the Oakland Museum of California, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has curated several exhibitions including, Grafton Tyler Brown: Exploring California at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (2018), Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective at the California African American Museum (2019), The Black Index (four venue national tour), and Lava Thomas: Homecoming at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and Spelman College Museum of Fine Art (2022).