Category: Events

Narrative as Reality: A World Reimagined/ Selections from the Jessica and Kelvin Beachum Family Collection opens Feb. 18

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Several paintings by contemporary Black artists from the Jessica and Kelvin Beachum Family collection will be on view at Hamon’s Hawn Gallery beginning February 18 and continuing to May 22. The exhibition, Narrative as Reality: A World Reimagined, presents the work of artists, Dominic Chambers, Ryan Cosbert, Robert Hodge, Nelson Makamo, Delita Martin, Sungi Mlengeya, Mario Moore, Robert Pruitt, Athi-Patra Ruga, and Ferrari Sheppard. As described by the exhibition’s curator, Dr. Valerie Gillespie, on the installation, “Each composition within the collection offers a unique story. These non-linear narratives on the Black experience, with their own distinct actualities exhibit a reality not often portrayed, yet a collective, lived experience that strives to represent a livelihood untouched.”

Dominic Chambers_The Night is Our Friend
Dominic Chambers, The Night is Our Friend, Oil on Canvas, 2020

This selection of paintings represents a fraction of the collection owned by the Beachums, who began acquiring works by Black artists in 2013. Of the works in their collection, they express a personal approach to their acquisitions, “We want to look back on each piece and know it represents something we love, something we remember, something historically significant, or something we never want to forget. The intergenerational component is what is most special.”

Kelvin Beachum graduated from SMU in 2010 with a B.A. in Economics and earned a Master of Liberal Studies in Organizational Dynamics in 2012. A four-year starter as offensive tackle for SMU Mustang football, he serves as a member of the Executive Boards for the Simmons School of Education and Human Development and Lyle School of Engineering. Named an SMU Emerging Leader in 2018, Kelvin honored the late Dennis Simon, his political science professor and mentor, by endowing SMU’s annual Civil Rights Pilgrimage in Simon’s name.

Drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2012, Kelvin has played for the Jacksonville Jaguars, the New York Jets and now the Arizona Cardinals during his 10-year NFL career.

Jessica Beachum graduated from Baylor in 2011 with a degree in Sociology. She earned her B.S. in Nursing in 2017 from Duquesne University and her M.S. in Healthcare Delivery in 2021 from Arizona State University.

An exhibition catalogue of Narrative as Reality is available in print and pdf through the website.

OTHER SPRING 2022 EXHIBITIONS AT SMU LIBRARIES

Two other exhibitions at SMU Libraries offer excellent opportunities for visitors this spring. At DeGolyer Library, the exhibition, Black Lives, Black Letters: Primary Sources in African American History, opens February 10. It features archival holdings of the Library including rare books, pamphlets, broadsides, sheet music, prints, photographs, manuscripts, and ephemera documenting aspects of the Black experience in America, from the colonial period to the present. Among figures represented in the exhibition are documents from Phillis Wheatley to Toni Morrison, from Frederick Douglass to Barack Obama. Other figures, some who are unknown, portray Black lives in many fields.

Bridwell Library’s exhibition, A Symbiosis of Script, Font, and Form: A Selection of Artists’ Books, open through March 31, draws from the Library’s Special Collection. The selections for this exhibition offers artists’ books “in which artists or circles of collaborators have integrated corporeal elements of the book form into the literature in sensitive and sometimes astounding ways.”

More information: https://www.smu.edu/Libraries, or email hawngallery@smu.edu.

Fall ’21 and spring ’22 screenings for Ghosts of Lost Futures

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Curator and artist, Mike Morris, and his collaborators on the experimental videos, Ghosts of Lost Futures, have been busy with additional screenings of this program of works. Ghosts premiered at the Dallas Museum of Art in the Horchow Auditorium on May 22 with ten works by ten experimental video artists commissioned to re-interpret film footage from the WFAA Newsfilm archive. The footage from the Hamon’s G. William Jones Video and Film Archive was selected from 1970 to recognize the year of the archive’s establishment. Due to COVID, the first screening was postponed over one year later.

Since this screening at the DMA, Ghosts was in the line-up of screenings for the Experimental Response Cinema, sponsored by the Austin Film Society, on November 8. Organized by the artist and program participant, Liz Rhodda, Mike Morris attended virtually to answer questions from a large audience.

Flyers for Archive Fever
Promotional collage assembled by Craig Baldwin for Archive Fever program, San Francisco’s Other Cinema

On November 20, selected works from Ghosts screened with other video works at San Francisco’s Other Cinema’s annual Archive Fever program. Selected films were:

Curt Heiner – The Stars of Texas Shine Tonight

Lisa McCarty – Undelivered Remarks

Zak Loyd – Deep River / Ocean of Storms 

Angelo Madsen Minax – Stay with me, the world is a devastating place

Marwa Benhalim – The Void Remembers

This spring, the video works will be featured at another experimental film festival, Experiments in Cinema, in Albuquerque. The dates for this screening have yet to be slated. Please check the EIC website for screening updates. The selections of videos will include:

Curt Heiner – The Stars of Texas Shine Tonight

Lisa MCarty – Undelivered Remarks 

Tramaine Townsend – FRAMES.-DALLUS 

Zak Loyd – Deep River / Ocean of Storms 

Angelo Madsen Minax – Stay with me, the world is a devastating place

Liz Rodda – Amid Flowers, Crowns, and Tears 

Marwa Benhalim – The Void Remembers 

Blog post: Mike Morris, curator and artist; and Beverly Mitchell, Assistant Director, Hamon Arts Library

Skin Hunger – interactive installation in Hamon Arts Library, October 26-31

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Skin Hunger screen shotSkin Hunger is a telematic installation that plays on the zoom-style video-chat that has recently become ubiquitous. Participants can reach across their screens to virtually ‘touch’ one another.  By touching or moving together, participants create visuals and sounds that emerge and evolve from participant relation and interaction making the intangible connection tangible and also giving it life.
 
 
Participants from physically remote locations will be able to interact with each other, connecting participants across Dallas and the United States, including University of Texas Dallas, University of North Texas, and Florida Western University during the same time period, connecting participants in those places.
 
This work was created in response to the stress incurred by lack of touch as a result of social distancing. Lack of touch can result in skin hunger, and leads to feelings of social exclusion. While the remedy for skin hunger is physical touch, we offer a digital alternative.
 
Skin Hunger is a collaborative interactive web-based and telematic installation project realized by Meadows School of the Arts professors Courtney Brown, Melanie Clemmons, Ira Greenberg,  and Brent Brimhall.

Dr. Jacqueline Stewart receives 2021 MacArthur Fellowship

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Dr Jaqueline StewartSMU Libraries congratulates Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, film curator, archivist and scholar, on her recent 2021 MacArthur Fellowship. Dr. Stewart has published extensively on black film and filmmaking in the United States. In her video post for the MacArthur Foundation, Dr. Stewart describes her interest in the genre of black films from the early 1920s – 1930s.

Dr. Stewart has visited SMU for at least two events. In 2011, she spoke as a guest lecturer for the Comini series, sponsored by the art history department. In her talk, “Discovering’ Black Film History: Tracing the Tyler, Texas Black Film Collection,” she warned of the easy appeal to label these, or any, films as rediscovered along with the danger of neglecting them in an archive.

Dr. Jacqueline Stewart’s MacArthur “Genius grant” is a tribute to her important scholarship on the Black-audience movies of the 1920s-1940s, her archival work, and dedication to teaching a broadening and inclusive history of American cinema. No one else in the history of academic cinema and media studies has achieved the positions of influence she has attained in the past two years: Regular host of TCM’s Silent Sunday Nights, Chief artistic and programming officer for the new Hollywood Academy Museum of Motion Picture History, and MacArthur research grant fellow. In each capacity, she is, and will be, a powerful and influential teacher.

– Professor Rick Worland, Division of Film & Media Arts

More recently, she has written about the Tyler Film Collection in the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection. With Yale scholar, Charles Musser, Dr. Stewart curated the films and wrote accompanying materials for the Pioneers of African American Cinema box DVD set, of which the Tyler Film Collection is included. This collection is available for viewing through the Hamon Arts Library.

Image of Dr. Stewart: © MacArthur Foundation.

Report from the Red Carpet – The Velvet Underground at the Cannes Film Festival

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Grand Theatre Lumiere red carpetAfter a thorough bout of negotiations, the previously lost film footage of the Velvet Underground performing at a Vietnam War protest at Dallas’ White Rock Lake in 1969 has made it into The Velvet Underground, a documentary directed by Todd Haynes. The documentary, mirroring the name of the band itself, contains this special footage that was initially discovered and digitized by the G. William Jones Film and Video Archive Team right here at SMU.

Canne Film Festival logo on chairs

The Velvet Underground premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the South of France this past July at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the festival’s largest and most prestigious theatre. The event was attended by many, including director Todd Haynes, singer/model Jane Birkin, actress Helen Mirren, and me, a recently graduated SMU film student. The documentary was well received by audiences and ended up being the favorite Emily Cook and friendof many out of the entire festival’s lineup of films. The clips from White Rock Lake appear towards the middle of the film and are very “blink and you might miss it.” As I was a student intern at the G. William Jones Archive, I was delighted when I recognized the clips from White Rock Lake. It was amazing to see a special piece of SMU abroad, especially in such a personal way.

CannesFor all of those in the SMU community who want to see our contribution to this incredible documentary, The Velvet Underground will make its American debut October 15, 2021 on Apple TV+.

 

 

 

Blog post: Emily Cook (standing on right), SMU film student graduate (2021) and G. William Jones Film & Video intern

CML talk with curator, Lilia Kudelia on Oct. 6 at 5:30 pm

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Curatorial Minds Lab: Virtual Lecture with Guest Curator Lilia Kudelia

 

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

5:30 p.m.

Zoom lecture

FREE

Sophia Salinas and Lilia Kudelia

Lilia Kudelia is a curator and art historian. Her research focuses on the artistic movements and infrastructures in the post-communist states, cultural heritage and restitution, television and art from the 1960s onwards. As a guest curator at Residency Unlimited in New York, she develops residencies for the laureates of the Young Visual Artists Awards, a network of 12 awards in countries of Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. She has previously held curatorial and research positions at Dallas Contemporary in Dallas, Texas, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Art Arsenal in Kyiv, Ukraine. In 2017, Kudelia co-curated the Ukrainian National Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, which featured work by photographer Boris Mikhailov. She holds an M.A. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and a B.A. in cultural studies from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto, Canada. The talk, moderated by Sophia Salinas, is presented as part of the Curatorial Minds Lab, a new initiative of the Hamon Arts Library’s Hawn Gallery and the Pollock Gallery at SMU that gives five Fellows – made up of alumni and current students – an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the historical development of curatorial practices and study contemporary art display theory and practice.

To attend the virtual lecture, visit https://smu.zoom.us/j/95072889069. For more information, visit https://pollockgallery.art/Curatorial-Minds-Lab or email Sofia Bastidas-Vivar, director of the Pollock Gallery, at abastidas@smu.edu.

 

 

CML talk with curator, Taylor Renee Aldridge on Sept. 22 at 5:30 pm

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Taylor Aldridge photo

Curatorial Minds Lab: Virtual Lecture with Guest Curator Taylor Renee Aldridge

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

5:30 p.m.

Zoom lecture

FREE

Taylor Renee Aldridge is the visual arts curator and program manager at the California African American Museum (CAAM). Prior, she worked as a writer and independent curator in Detroit, Michigan. She has organized exhibitions with the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Artist Market, Cranbrook Art Museum, and The Luminary (St. Louis). In 2015, along with art critic Jessica Lynne, she co-founded ARTS.BLACK, a journal of art criticism for Black perspectives. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, The Art Newspaper, Art21, ARTNews, Frieze, Harper’s Bazaar, Canadian Art, Detroit Metro Times, and SFMoMA’s Open Space.  The lecture is presented as part of the Curatorial Minds Lab, a new initiative of the Hamon Arts Library’s Hawn Gallery and the Pollock Gallery at SMU that gives five Fellows – made up of alumni and current students – an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the historical development of curatorial practices and study contemporary art display theory and practice.

CML logoTo attend the virtual lecture, visit https://smu.zoom.us/j/91045080064.For more information, visit https://pollockgallery.art/Curatorial-Minds-Lab or email Pollock Gallery Director Sofia Bastidas at abastidas@smu.edu.

Film Screening at the DMA: Ghosts of Lost Futures on May 22

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Ghosts of Lost Futures video stillIs a spectre haunting the archive? Do the films collected there proclaim a history that is no longer or a future that is not yet here? Is there something to reclaim in the bits of visual history that have been rescued in the archive? Have you felt the horizon closing before your eyes, the promise of the future you’ve been waiting for becoming a perpetual, timeless present? Cultural theorist Mark Fisher describes a tendency in contemporary culture he refers to as “hauntological” that refuses to give up on a lost future that no longer seems possible. “This refusal gives the melancholia a political dimension, because it amounts to a failure to accommodate to the closed horizons of capitalist realism.”

In partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art, the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection and the SMU Libraries will present Ghosts of Lost Futures, a screening of new, commissioned videos from 10 artists using footage held in the WFAA News Film archive. The screening will be held in person at the DMA’s Horchow Auditorium on Saturday May 22nd at 3pm. This screening is Free, but for safety, it will have limited capacity and requires RSVP via the DMA’s website here: https://dma.org/programs/event/film-screening-ghosts-lost-futures

This program, Ghosts of Lost Futures, features new video works by 10 artists commissioned by the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection. Each artist was given access to the same cache of footage from the WFAA Newsfilm Collection shot in Dallas in 1970, the year of the archive’s founding. The program was intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the archive, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns, the program was not completed until the spring of 2021. The artists were given complete freedom in how they reinterpreted the footage and its historical context. The resulting works are profound meditations on mourning, melancholy, disaster, and various reinterpretations of the events of 2020 and 2021 through images of Dallas’s past.

Artists in this program:

Amber Bemak (Dallas, TX)
Marwa Benhalim (Cairo, Egypt)
Melanie Clemmons (Dallas, TX)
Curt Heiner (Denver, CO)
Zak Loyd (Dallas, TX)
Lisa Mccarty (Dallas, TX)
Sean Miller (Dallas, TX)
Angelo Madsen Minax (Brooklyn, NY / Burlington, VT)
Liz Rodda (Austin, TX)
Tramaine Townsend (Dallas, TX)

Program curated by Michael A. Morris

Commissioned by the SMU Libraries and the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection
SMU Libraries Staff Advisors: Jeremy Spracklen, Scott Martin, Jolene De Verges, Beverly Mitchell

In 1970 the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection was founded at Southern Methodist University and was then known as the Southwest Film/Video Archives. Currently part of the SMU Libraries, it is home to many important collections of films and videos from the region, including the WFAA Newsfilm Collection.

Get Zen @ Hamon: Tame your Brain – May 3 – 7

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Get Zen and Tame Your Brain with meditation! During the week of May 3 – 7, the Hamon Arts Library offers a guided meditation series. Practicing just 10 minutes a day may enable a greater sense of well-being, alleviate mental stress, and promote sustained focus.

Get Zen @ Hamon: Tame your Brain

Blog post: LaGail Davis, General Operations Manager and zen master, Hamon.

Curatorial Minds Lab: Virtual Lecture with Guest Curator May Makki on April 28

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Curatorial Minds Lab: Virtual Lecture with Guest Curator May Makki

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

5:30 p.m.

Virtual lecture; advance registration required.

FREE

May Makki is an independent curator interested in developing new networks of exhibition and distribution. Her current research focuses on practices that build out autonomous and collective approaches to cultural production in the Arab region. Most recently, she co-founded RISO BAR, aHuff_Makki publishing initiative and cooperative space that facilitates collaboration and experimentation using risograph printing. A RISO BAR exhibition is currently on display at SMU’s Pollock Gallery. Makki holds a B.A. in art history from the University of Chicago and is an M.A. candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. The lecture is presented as part of the Curatorial Minds Lab, a new initiative of the Hamon Arts Library’s Hawn Gallery and the Pollock Gallery at SMU that gives five Fellows – made up of alumni and current students – an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the historical development of curatorial practices and study contemporary art display theory and practice. To register to attend the virtual lecture, visit https://smu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAtcO6hqzkvG91qUMzx_B2T6i9jrCrWcxaX. For more information, visit https://pollockgallery.art/Curatorial-Minds-Lab or email Pollock Gallery Assistant Curator Everton Melo at emelo@smu.edu.

Moderated by Elise Huff, CML fellow and SMU alumnae.