Exhibition Lectures + Artist Talks

Record on January 25, 2024

Exploring Chagall’s life, his revolutionary Jewishness, and his aesthetic of beauty, love, and hope. This panel will demonstrate how Chagall’s work led him to become one of the 20th Century’s greatest artists.

Panelists

David Raskin, Ph.D., is the Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a proud graduate of Kentucky Country Day School. He is the author of Donald Judd, and has contributed to publications from the Tate Modern (London), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), MCA-Chicago, the Ludwig Museum (Cologne), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and Ca’ Pesaro (Venice). His scholarship tells stories of art that probe personal experiences for their wider cultural implications. See more at www.davidraskin.com

David Y. Chack is a professor of Jewish and Holocaust Theatre at The Theatre School at DePaul University. He is also Producing Artistic Director of ShPIeL Theatre in Louisville, Chicago, Los Angeles, and is proud to be opening and directing CHAGALL IN SCHOOL by James Sherman at Kentucky Performing Arts February 8 – 17. He is a theatre consultant for Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning in Warsaw and the Illinois Holocaust Museum. He initiated and was program curator for the 2016 Museum of the City of New York’s first major exhibition “New York’s Yiddish Theatre: From Bowery To Broadway.” He was nominated for Best Director by Broadway World for “Indecent” at the Henry Clay, Louisville and the last play he produced was “H*tler’s Tasters” at Kentucky Performing Arts. He has written for American Theater, The Forward, HowlRound and the Harold Pinter Review. His B.F.A. is from Tisch School of the Arts/NYU and studied theatre at Circle-in-the-Square Theatre on Broadway. He did Masters work at Tufts University, and Ph.D. work with his mentor Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel at Boston University. He is on the Honorary Board of the Alliance for Jewish Theatre.

We are excited to host this kick-off event to the play CHAGALL IN SCHOOL by James Sherman, directed by David Y. Chack, and produced by ShPIeL, will be February 8 – 17, 2024 at Kentucky Performing Arts. Ticket link 

ShPIeL Theatre is the grateful recipient of a grant from the Jewish Heritage Fund in Louisville, and we thankfully acknowledge our community partners of Kentucky Performing Arts, the Louisville Orchestra, and our newest community partner the Speed Art Museum.

Moderator: Jabani Bennett, EdD, MAT

Speakers: David Anderson, Associate Professor of English, UofL, and Michael Brandon McCormack, Ph.D., Director, Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, UofL

Recorded on September 7, 2023 as a part of Sunday Showcase

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The Romantic Virtuoso
Patrick Noon: Senior Curator of Paintings at Minneapolis Institute of Art

In this lecture, Patrick Noon, Elizabeth MacMillan Chair of Paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, will examine crucial relationships between the masters of the French and British schools, in particular the group of innovative painters who worked in the orbit of Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, and Richard Parkes Bonington. The extraordinary formal and critical dialogue that resulted from their close association and from the public exhibition of their pictures in the sanctioned exhibitions and the commercial galleries of London and Paris in the 1820s would radically alter the course of painting in Europe.

About the Speaker:
Patrick Noon is the Elizabeth MacMillan Chair of the Department of Paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where he has been the Senior Curator of Paintings since 1997. Prior to his move to Minneapolis he was a founding Curator of Prints, Drawings and Rare Books at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, where he joined that curatorial staff in 1977. He has published and lectured extensively on 18^th and 19^th century French and British art. Most recently he published in 2008/11 the catalogues raisonnés of the paintings and drawings of the British Romantic artist Richard Parkes Bonington.

Among the many exhibitions Noon has organized are The English Miniature (1981) in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum; Richard Parkes Bonington  (1991) with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux; The Human Form Divine, William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection (1997); Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age of Romanticism (2003) with Tate Britain and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and most recently Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art (2015) with the National Gallery, London.

FREE as part of Sunday Showcase
February 9, 2020 at the Speed Art Museum

Museum Director Stephen Reily in conversation with artist and Louisville native Ed Hamilton to discuss Hamilton’s long personal history with the city of Louisville, particularly the Russell neighborhood, as part of the opening for Loose Nuts: Bert Hurley’s West End Story at After Hours at the Speed.

Friday, December 13, 2019

Join us in Tales from the Turf: The Kentucky Horse for an in-depth gallery talk about the history of Kentucky horse farms with a panel of local owners including Walker Hancock, Benny Bell Williams, and John Phillips.

Walker Hancock is the fourth generation of Hancocks to run his family’s Claiborne Farm which was established in 1910.  Claiborne has been a part of his entire life as he learned to work and handle horses at the early age of eight.

John Phillips is the owner of Darby Dan Farms. Phillips was born in Columbus, Ohio. 3rd generation horseman. BA Denison University, JD Vanderbilt, Partner in Bricker and Eckler Law firm until 1988. Assumed responsibility of Darby Dan Farm in 1988. Married, Beth, three children. Moved to Lexington in 1998, Acquired ownership of Darby Dan in 1995 and actively participates in its operation. Currently, a Steward for the Jockey Club, President Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.

Benny Bell Williams is a former President of the Thoroughbred Club of America, a Sponsor Member of TOBA and a Member of KTA/KTOB, KTFMC, Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation. She has also served as the Director of the Gluck Equine Research Foundation and well as the Kentucky Derby Museum and the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation for multiple terms.

FREE with admission

February 28, 2020 at the Speed Art Museum

Public tour of Tales from the Turf: The Kentucky Horse,1825 – 1950 with exhibition curator Erika Holmquist-Wall, Mary & Barry Bingham Sr., Curator of European & American Painting & Sculpture, with special guest historian Maryjean Wall, author of How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders.

About the Author:
Maryjean Wall served as the turf writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader for twenty-five years. A respected author of Kentucky history, she holds a doctorate and is an instructor in the Department of History at the University of Kentucky.

Sunday, December 1, 2 – 3 pm

Project to Preserve African-American Turf History (PPAATH): Tales of African-American Kentucky Derby Achievements from 1875 – 1902

Join us for a discussion of pioneering efforts of African-American racehorse men who shaped the early legacy of the racing industry. During this period, 13 of the 15 jockeys in the inaugural Kentucky Derby were black. In the following years until 1902, black jockeys won 15 of the first Kentucky Derby editions. Jimmy Winkfield was the last black jockey to win back-to-back Kentucky Derbys in 1901 and 1902. Due to the social ills and Jim Crow laws implemented in the early years of the 20^th century, black jockeys were forced from the sport as the economic gains that ensued excluded them in sharing of the wealth.

This conversation will be led by PPAATH members James Natsis, Calvin Davis, Jerry Fife, and Leon Nichols, in conversation with Erika Holmquist-Wall.

This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Tales from the Turf: The Kentucky Horse, 1825 – 1950.

FREE as part of Sunday Showcase 

A conversation with artist Andre Pater on his new art book A Matter of Light, the Art of Andre Pater with a focus on his journey as a sporting artist and his creative process. The presentation will be introduced by Cabby Boone, Chairman of the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation, and followed by a Q&A session with Pater and a book signing opportunity.

About Andre Pater
Andre Pater is a painter of horses and equestrian subjects first, and a genre painter second. He is, arguably, the finest sporting artist of our time. His  admiration for the power and beauty of the horse began his career as an equine artist more than 40 years ago. Pater translates his vision to the canvas with technical skills of form, line, movement, color and light that are unparalleled. But It is perhaps his curiosity to explore new subjects with passion and a fresh eye that keeps his work at the forefront. While he travels the country and world for his work, Polish-American Pater resides on a farm in the heart of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky.

About Cabby Boone
Long-time Chairman of the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation, Cabby Boone is an art collector, a contributor to A Matter of Light, and a soulful friend of the Artist.

A Matter of Light: The Art of Andre Pater
A long awaited compendium of works by Andre Pater—considered one of the finest sporting artists working today—has just been released. The 240-page hardback art book, A Matter of Light: The Art of Andre Pater, includes over 200 selected paintings and drawings, along with writings, musings, observations and essays about Andre Pater’s life and work.

In 11 visually powerful chapters  A Matter of Light shines light on the artistic periods of Andre Pater, and how his style and technique evolved through a gamut of subjects from equestrian through historical and genre paintings to his recent Native American portrayals.

With a foreword by the Duke of Devonshire , an art essay by sporting art expert Lorian Peralto-Ramos, the images are  interwoven with conversational pieces by contributors including art collector Cabby Boone , Cross Gate Gallery purveyor—Greg Ladd,  jockey Ramon Dominguez and others, whose voices and colorful memories paint an intimate portrait of Pater’s life and journey as an artist.

Friday, January 3, 2020 at the Speed Art Museum

Celebrate sculptor Enid Yandell’s 150th Birthday with “What Enid Saw at the Fair: Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893,” a discussion led by Dr. Cristina Carbone, who currently writes and teaches about American architecture and the surviving buildings from American world’s fairs.

Kentucky Women: Enid Yandell presents a fresh look at Enid’s career, contextualizing the world in which she lived, as a young woman living and working in turn-of-the-century Louisville, Paris, and New York City.

October 6, 2019 in the Speed Cinema
FREE as part of Sunday Showcase

Women’s Work: The Legacy of Enid Yandell, Kentucky’s Pioneer Sculptor
Dr. Juilee Decker

Born on October 6, 1869, in Louisville, Kentucky, Enid Yandell was the eldest of four children who ultimately found her passion in sculpture. She trained in Louisville and Cincinnati before taking a position at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which launched her 40-year career. Over these years, Enid found friendship and support among women even as she pursued a professional art career, an area of work in which more men than women excelled. While Enid certainly competed among the men, she also was afforded opportunities through the work of women. In this illustrated talk, author Juilee Decker tells how Enid’s legacy has largely been constructed by women. She shares the story of this Southern dilettante and daughter of a Confederate officer who became an internationally recognized sculptor of large-scale, award-winning works, an independent woman engaging in art and activism, and a pioneer.

The lecture will be followed by question and answer. Decker’s book, Enid Yandell: Kentucky’s Pioneer Sculptor (2019, University Press of Kentucky), will be available for purchase. Following the lecture, attendees are invited to explore the exhibit Kentucky Women: Enid Yandell, on view in the Kentucky Gallery.

This event is one of several throughout Louisville that are part of a community-wide celebration of Enid Yandell’s life by the Filson, the Speed Art Museum, the Louisville Free Public Library, Bellarmine University, the Frazier History Museum, 21c Museum, and other organizations. For more information see: www.facebook.com/projectenid.

FREE as part of Sunday Showcase
November 17, 2 pm at the Speed Art Museum

About the Speaker:
Dr. Juilee Decker’s research and scholarship are at the intersection of museum studies, public history, and public art. She earned her Ph.D. in 2003 from Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She taught from 2004-2014 at Georgetown College (Georgetown, Kentucky) prior to joining the museum studies faculty at Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY) in 2014.

Hidden Histories: Kentucky Art with Mack Cox

Exploring Early Kentucky Furniture of the Bluegrass Region
The first in a lectures series from historian and Kentucky antiques collector Mack Cox.

Starting in 1775, pioneers trekked hundreds of miles into a wilderness to claim fertile Bluegrass lands.  Statehood came in 1792, but Indian hostilities stunted improvements until 1794.  Thereafter development occurred at an astounding pace.  Cabinetmakers came from most American regions, as well as England, Scotland, Ireland, France and other places.  There were no established styles, so they made furniture as they had in far aways places resulting in great stylistic diversity.  This lecture explores early furniture made in Lexington, Frankfort and other communities in a graphic rich presentation that reveals Kentucky’s cosmopolitan beginnings.

September 15, 2019
FREE as part of Sunday Showcase

Hidden Histories: Kentucky Art with Mack Cox

Tracking New England Footprints in Kentucky Furniture
The third in a lectures series from historian and Kentucky antiques collector Mack Cox.

Kentucky was the first region settled west of the Appalachian Mountains.  With wealth generated by fertile Bluegrass soils, Kentucky attracted craftsmen from faraway places with high wages and low living costs.  This lecture introduces early Kentucky furniture and explores the footprints left by New England cabinetmakers in the first American west.

This event will take place at the Speed Art Museum for FREE as part of Sunday Showcase; reservation is encouraged.

November 10, 2019

Friday, July 19, 6 pm
Led by curator Erika Holmquist-Wall and Thompson scholar Dr. Rory Feehan as part of After Hours at the Speed.

Join exhibition curator Erika Holmquist-Wall and author Tim Denevi for a tour of Gonzo! The Illustrated Guide to Hunter S. Thompson. Following the tour, there will be a reading and signing from Denevi’s book, Freak Kingdom: Hunter S. Thompson’s Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism.

FREE with admission as part of Late ‘Til 8 on Fridays.

October 4, 2019

A diverse multi-generational mix of artists, organizers, administrators, educators, and motivators converge and converse around the evocative work of Ebony G. Patterson and her solo exhibition, Ebony G. Patterson…while the dew is still on the roses…, Led by Idris Goodwin, playwright, break beat poet, educator, and Artistic Director of StageOne Family Theatre.

Sunday, July 14, 2 – 3:30 pm
React! Art as the Spark to Necessary Conversation and Galvanizing Community
Jaqui Blue, singer-songwriter
John Marshall, Chief Equity Officer for Jefferson County Public Schools Diversity, Equity, and Poverty Division
Wes Tolbert, Membership Management Campaign for Black Male Achievement and spoken word artist
FULL AUDIO RECORDING

Sunday, August 18, 2 – 3:30 pm
Represent! The Black Body on Page, Wall and Stage
Matt Wallace, Artistic Director of Kentucky Shakespeare
Larry Muhammad, playwright and journalist
Jessie Glover, Director of Theatre of Conviction and the Ohio Prison Arts Connection, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre at Otterbein University
+ Performance from musician Jacqui Blue

Sunday, November 24, 2 – 3:30 pm
Revitalize! Black Women Artists of Louisville
Lucy Azubuike: A multimedia artist, Lucy specializes in photography, film, and performance.
Sandra Charles: A visual artist, Sandra originally worked as a batik fiber artist before developing a passion for oil painting
Ramona Dallum Lindsey: An artist working with traditional quilting and fine art techniques, Ramona employs discarded, abandoned, and reclaimed materials.
Toya Northington:  An artist working in mixed media and across disciplines, Toya speaks of her work as pushing back at societal expectations, as an act of resistance. She currently also works as the Community Outreach Manager at the Speed Art Museum.
+ Performance from resident musician Jacqui Blue

Lance “Mr. SpreadLove” Newman will guide middle and high school students in a poetic reflection meant to engage this poignant exhibit, Ebony G. Patterson …while the dew is still on the roses…. Using poetry, participants will create a conversation around the themes presented by Patterson’s work. Themes ranging from religion and violence to femininity and identity will be explored through the written word.

Ebony Patterson’s work is unapologetically focused on black bodies and their aesthetic representation around the global. This focus is often a difficult talking point in everyday society and as Louisville finds itself atop of the most segregated cities in the nation, we find a need to have these hard conversations by different means. Ebony G. Patterson …while the dew is still on the roses… inspires this conversation visually, and with this program, we will attempt to aspire, verbally.

January 5, 2020 at the Speed Art Museum 

Panel Discussion with artist Ebony G. Patterson, Pérez Art Museum of Miami Curator Tobias Ostrander, and local poet and activist Hannah L. Drake, moderated by Curator of Contemporary Art Miranda Lash.

Part of After Hours at the Speed and the opening of Ebony G. Patterson …while the dew is still on the roses…

“A somber moment within a dynamic night garden,” by Curatorial Intern Jourdan Cunningham.

A conversation on how Ebony G. Patterson’s work functions as a way to depict the humanity of the black body through the act of witnessing and acknowledgment through discussion of her piece …three kings weep…

December 4, 2019

Borders and Movement, a two-part community discussion led by the University of Louisville Cultural Center’s Hispanic and Latino Initiatives and La Casita Center

Part 1: Blanketed Thieves: The Historical Roots of Racist Depictions of the Mexican Body in the Borderlands. Presented by Dr. Katherine Massoth.

Sunday, April 7, 2019, 2-3:30 pm
Grand Hall, FREE with admission as part of Sunday Showcase.

An in-depth discussion about the stereotypes associated with immigrants, focusing specifically on the Mexican body. Dr. Katherine Massoth delivered a lecture on nineteenth-century stereotypes of Mexican bodies in order to contextualize how contemporary depictions of Mexicans as dangerous immigrants is not new. Dr. Massoth focused on nineteenth-century representations of Mexican men and women’s bodies as “blanketed thieves and hooded whores.” She also discussed the role of clothing as creating a form of “border” between Mexico and the United States.

Dr. Massoth’s talk was followed by a discussion led by Sarah C. Nuñez, Assistant Director of the Cultural Center at the University of Louisville and Karina Barillas, Director of La Casita Center, incorporating community members and focusing on the importance of positive representations of immigrants and how this can affect public policy.

This event is presented in conjunction with the Speed exhibition Yinka Shonibare CBE:The American Library, co-presented with 21c Museum Hotel.

About Dr. Katherine Massoth:
Katherine Sarah Massoth is an Assistant Professor of History and Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society Faculty Fellow at the University of Louisville. Prior coming to Louisville, she received her Ph.D. and M.A. in History from the University of Iowa and two Bachelor of Arts degrees in History and Social Science-Secondary Education from the University of California at Irvine. Her research focuses on the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, specifically gender roles, domesticity, transborder trade systems, foodways, and cultural networks. She is currently revising her book manuscript, “Her Many Duties: The Borders of Gender Roles, Cultural Practices, and Domesticity in Arizona and New Mexico, 1846-1941.”

About Sarah C. Nuñez:
Sarah Nuñez is a 1.5 generation immigrant born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in North Carolina. She’s a cultural worker and healer, weaving storytelling, art, practice, and movement building throughout her work, research,organizing and activism. She has lived in Louisville for 4 years and works at the University of Louisville as Assistant Director of Cultural Center and a Lecturer with the University Honors College. She is also the Core Team Leader with Louisville Latino Education Outreach Project, Co-Director or Louisville Latinx Oral History Project and an organizer with Mijente. Sarah holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from Western Carolina University as well as Bachelors in Art in Interdisciplinary Studies from UNC-Asheville.  She is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Counseling & Personnel Services (College Student Personnel) at the University of Louisville.

About Karina Barillas:
Karina Barillas is a native from Guatemala. Through a Fulbright scholarship in 1996, Karina earned her BA, with a minor in English, Psychology and Education, at the University of Louisville. She received her Masters in Education with a concentration in Counseling Psychology from the University of Louisville in 2002. Karina worked for eight years advocating, accompanying and supporting Latina victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault at the Center for Women and Families. She is one of the co-founders and currently works as the Executive Director for La Casita Center, a Community of Latinx Hospitality, unique in the state of Kentucky that enhances the well-being of Louisville’s Latino community through education, empowerment, advocacy, and wellness. In April 2017 Barillas was awarded the University of Louisville Community Spirit Award by the College of Arts and Sciences. The Spanish Newspaper, Al Dia en America, awarded Karina as one of the three 2017 Most Outstanding Latin@s in Louisville. Most recently, in April 2018, the Community Foundation of Louisville named Karina one of the 13 “Forces of Good” in our community, honoring her work by featuring her work with a billboard.

About the Cultural Center at the University of Louisville:
The University of Louisville Cultural Center’s Hispanic and Latino Initiatives works to promote Latino student success through campus and community engagement, student coaching, leadership development, and cultural programming and events.

About La Casita Center:
La Casita Center enhances the well-being of Louisville’s Latinx community through education, empowerment, advocacy, and wellness. La Casita Center works intentionally to build a thriving community based on mutual support and respect.

About Latin American and Latino Studies:
Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Louisville is an interdisciplinary program that promotes an understanding and appreciation for the diverse cultures of Latin America and Latino communities in the United States, with the ultimate objective of preparing students to become engaged citizens in our global society.

About the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society:
Established at the University of Louisville in academic year 1997, CCHS is charged with enhancing humanistic scholarship, research, creative activity, teaching, and public awareness at the University of Louisville, in the Louisville metropolitan area and, in collaboration with other universities, colleges, and humanities organizations, throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky. To this end, the Center offers a variety of programs, some focused internally on faculty research, but many designed to appeal to the public and to help make the University a cultural center for the city and the Commonwealth.

Borders and Movement, a two-part community discussion led by the University of Louisville’s Cultural Center’s Hispanic and Latino Initiatives and La Casita Center

Part 2: “U.S. Foreign Policy, Refugees, & Immigrants” presented by Dr. Theresa Keeley

Sunday, September 8, 2019, 2-3:30pm
Grand Hall, FREE with admission, part of Sunday Showcase.

Join us for an in-depth discussion on U.S. and Central America relations and transnational activism. Dr. Keeley will explain how the current migration problem is not an isolated event, but the result of U.S. military intervention and U.S. policy toward Central America more generally. Beginning with a focus on U.S. policy in the 1980s, Dr. Keeleywill lead the conversation towards a broader focus on migration.

Dr. Keeley’s talk will be followed by a discussion led by Sarah C. Nuñez, Assistant Director of the Cultural Center at the University of Louisville and Karina Barillas, Director of La Casita Center, incorporating community members. This discussion will focus on responses to U.S. immigration policy.

This event is presented in conjunction with the Speed exhibition Yinka Shonibare CBE: The American Library. This exhibition is co-presented with 21c Museum Hotel.

The “Borders and Movement” series was organized in partnership with La Casita Center, and the University of Louisville’s Cultural Center’s Hispanic and Latino Initiatives, the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society, and the Department for Latin American and Latino Studies.

About Dr. Theresa Keeley:
Theresa Keeley is an Assistant Professor of U.S. and the World at the University of Louisville. Her first book project is under conrtact with Cornell University Press.  Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns: Intra-Catholic Conflict and U.S.-Central America Relations examines how debates among U.S. and Central American Catholics over the meaning of Catholic identity shaped Ronald Reagan’s policies toward Central America. Her teaching and research interests in human rights, religion, transnational movements, gender, and law draw on her experience as a human rights activist and attorney. She earned her PhD from Northwestern University and her JD from the University of Pennsylvania.

About Sarah C. Nuñez:
Sarah Nuñez is a 1.5 generation immigrant born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in North Carolina. She’s a cultural worker and healer, weaving storytelling, art, practice, and movement building throughout her work, research, organizing and activism. She has lived in Louisville for 4 years and works at the University of Louisville as Assistant Director of Cultural Center and a Lecturer with the University Honors College. She is also the Core Team Leader with Louisville Latino Education Outreach Project, Co-Director or Louisville Latinx Oral History Project and an organizer with Mijente. Sarah holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from Western Carolina University as well as Bachelors in Art in Interdisciplinary Studies from UNC-Asheville.  She is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Counseling & Personnel Services (College Student Personnel) at the University of Louisville.

About Karina Barillas:
Karina Barillas is a native from Guatemala. Through a Fulbright scholarship in 1996, Karina earned her BA, with a minor in English, Psychology and Education, at the University of Louisville. She received her Masters in Education with a concentration in Counseling Psychology from the University of Louisville in 2002. Karina worked for eight years advocating, accompanying and supporting Latina victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault at the Center for Women and Families. She is one of the co-founders and currently works as the Executive Director for La Casita Center, a Community of Latinx Hospitality, unique in the state of Kentucky that enhances the well-being of Louisville’s Latino community through education, empowerment, advocacy, and wellness. In April 2017 Barillas was awarded the University of Louisville Community Spirit Award by the College of Arts and Sciences. The Spanish Newspaper, Al Dia en America, awarded Karina as one of the three 2017 Most Outstanding Latin@s in Louisville. Most recently, in April 2018, the Community Foundation of Louisville named Karina one of the 13 “Forces of Good” in our community, honoring her work by featuring her work with a billboard.

About the Cultural Center at the University of Louisville:
The University of Louisville Cultural Center’s Hispanic and Latino Initiatives works to promote Latino student success through campus and community engagement, student coaching, leadership development, and cultural programming and events.

About La Casita Center:
La Casita Center enhances the well-being of Louisville’s Latinx community through education, empowerment, advocacy, and wellness. La Casita Center works intentionally to build a thriving community based on mutual support and respect.

About Latin American and Latino Studies:
Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Louisville is an interdisciplinary program that promotes an understanding and appreciation for the diverse cultures of Latin America and Latino communities in the United States, with the ultimate objective of preparing students to become engaged citizens in our global society.

About the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society:
Established at the University of Louisville in academic year 1997, CCHS is charged with enhancing humanistic scholarship, research, creative activity, teaching, and public awareness at the University of Louisville, in the Louisville metropolitan area and, in collaboration with other universities, colleges, and humanities organizations, throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky. To this end, the Center offers a variety of programs, some focused internally on faculty research, but many designed to appeal to the public and to help make the University a cultural center for the city and the Commonwealth.

Internationally-renowned painter Sean Scully joined in conversation with Curator of Contemporary Art, Miranda Lash as part of the Speed’s Sunday Showcase. Scully discussed the layers of his artistic practice, one that continues to impact the greater landscape of contemporary abstract art.

January 20, 2019

About the artist:

Sean Scully was born in Dublin in 1945, and grew up in the south of London, where his family moved in 1949. He began painting in the late 1960s, and moved to New York City in 1975; he became an American citizen in 1983. Scully has shown extensively, both nationally and internationally, including, most recently, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, England and the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Upcoming solo exhibition venues in 2019 include the Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut; the National Gallery of Art in London; San Giorgio Maggiore for the Venice Biennale, the Albertina, Vienna, and in 2020 a major retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Sean Scully is known for rich, painterly abstractions in which stripes or blocks of layered color are a prevailing motif. The delineated geometry of his work provides structure for an expressive, physical rendering of color, light, and texture. Scully’s simplification of his compositions and use of repetitive forms—squares, rectangles, bands—echoes architectural motifs (doors, windows, walls) and in this way appeals to a universal understanding and temporal navigation of the picture plane. However, the intimacy of Scully’s process, in which he layers and manipulates paint with varying brushstrokes and sensibilities, results in a highly sensual and tactile materiality. His colors and their interactions, often subtly harmonized, elicit profound emotional associations. Scully does not shy away from Romantic ideals and the potential for personal revelation. He strives to combine, as he has said, “intimacy with monumentality.”

Human 3, 2018
Oil on aluminum
4 panels – 85 x 75 in. each
Private collection
©Sean Scully

Photo credit: Felix Friedmann

Sunday, October 7, 2018
Artist Keltie Ferris gave a personal walk through of her solo exhibition, Keltie Ferris: *O*P*E*N* . Born in Louisville, Ferris has risen to acclaim nationally for her dynamic body prints and abstract paintings. Keltie Ferris: *O*P*E*N* provides an overview of her career and debuts several new works made in 2018. ASL interpretation provided.

Watch the recorded live-stream.

Sunday, November 4, 2018
Jenny McComas, Curator of American and European Art that the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University and a partner curator on Picasso to Pollock: Modern Masterworks from the Eskenazi Museum of Art  gives a lecture: Henry Radford Hope at Indiana University: Collecting Modern Art in Mid-century America.

Friday, October 19, 2018
Director Stephen Reily hosts a conversation with Artist Gaela Erwin and Psychologist and UofL Professor of Communication Dr. Michael Cunningham on the art and psychology of Norman Rockwell’s Study for Breaking Home Ties. Part of After Hours at the Speed.

Friday, December 17, 2018
Director Stephen Reily hosts a conversation with artists Monica Mahoney and Darrick Wood on American Storybook: The Imaginary Travelogue of Thomas Chambers as part of After Hours at the Speed.

In conjunction with Strange Fruit Podcast and the exhibition Breaking the Mold: Investigating Gender at the Speed Art Museum.

Y’all Better Quiet Down: Trans Advocacy, Justice and Safety on June 24, 2018 – a panel conversation with Dr. Kaila Story, Jaison Gardner, Victoria Syimone Taylor, and Dawn Wilson

Living a Feminist Life through Art, Education, and the Media on July 20, 2018 –  a panel discussion with Dr. Kaila Story, Jaison Gardner, and art critic and found of Art F City, Paddy Johnson.

It Do Take Nerve: Drag as a Subversive Tool of Resistance on August 17, 2018 – a panel discussion with Dr. Kaila Story and Jaison Gardner followed by a drag performance by PLAY Louisville.

Saturday, April 21, 2018
Dr. Susan Jarosi, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Louisville, explored ideas of feminism in Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism.

Saturday, January 27, 2018
Art and the Beat Generation. Dr. Alan Golding, Professor of English at the University of Louisville, explored connections between the work of Bruce Conner and the Beat poets as part of the exhibition BRUCE CONNER: FOREVER AND EVER.

Sunday, February 4, 2018
Lecture and film screening of a selection of Bruce Conner’s ground-breaking films as part of the exhibition BRUCE CONNER: FOREVER AND EVER.

Conversations Video Archive
Friday, October 13, 2017
Cities throughout the United States are removing public statues, flags, and monuments associated with the Confederacy. As a nation, we are revisiting how we remember the legacy of slavery, the Civil War, and our history of racial discrimination. In association with the exhibition Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art, the Speed Art Museum hosted a public conversation led by prominent artists and historians exploring the South’s complex history and its symbols.

Thursday, June 1, 2017 
[Then: Interim] Director Stephen Reily shares his understanding of the American South, and how he built a collection of photography focused on the South as a terrain of loss, beauty, ruins, and remembrance as part of the exhibition Southern Elegy: Photography from the Stephen Reily Collection.