We're bringing together three artists -- a visual artist, a writer and a performer -- whose work has been previously presented at UAlbany for conversations about the arts in this time of the coronavirus pandemic, a reckoning on systemic racism, and civil unrest. The series addresses an urgent need for social and cultural dialogue.
Today's featured guests:
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, a 2013 University at Albany graduate, is the author of the New York Times bestselling short story collection, Friday Black, a satirical look at what it’s like to be young and black in America. Friday Black won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and bestselling author Roxane Gay called it, “dark and captivating and essential... A call to arms and a condemnation.” Adjei-Brenyah visited UAlbany in October 2018 as part of the Writers Institute’s Visiting Writers Series, and Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl interviewed him for a Conversation post on May 28. To learn more about Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, visit: https://www.nanakwameadjei-brenyah.com/ Friday Black is available to order from The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: https://www.bhny.com/book/9781328911247
Jade Solomon Curtis is a dance artist and choreographer. Curtis’s work integrates classical and African-American vernacular movements with mixed-media and hip hop culture. She collaborates with innovative artists to create socially relevant, multi-discipline work. Her signature piece “Black Like Me” had three performances at UAlbany in October 2019 as part of the University-wide 400 Years of Inequality Observance. To learn more about Jade Solomon Curtis’s work, visit: https://www.jadesolomon.com/
Ashley Teamer is a New Orleans based multimedia artist. Her dynamic wall-works employ painting and collage materials such as WNBA trading cards and a variety of sports imagery to explore Black femininity, athleticism, and community. Teamer exhibited at the University Art Museum in 2019 as part of the show ACE: art on sports, promise and selfhood. To learn more about Ashley Teamer’s work, visit: https://ashleyteamer.com/
About Artist to Artist:
The Artist to Artist series is presented by the UAlbany Art Museum, Performing Arts Center, and the NYS Writers Institute.
Support provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Visit www.albany.edu/arts/artist-to-artist for more information on this new series.