The Black Index
The Black Index
Curated by Bridget R. Cooks
January 14 - March 20, 2021
June 18, 2021 | 12:00 PT
Online
Exhibit space (closed to public):
Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) Gallery
The Black Index exhibition features works by artists Dennis Delgado, Alicia Henry, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell, and Lava Thomas. They build upon the tradition of Black self-representation as an antidote to colonialist images. Using drawing, performance, printmaking, sculpture, and digital technology to transform the recorded image, these artists question our reliance on photography as a privileged source for documentary objectivity and historical understanding. Read more at the UAG site here.
Image: Titus Kaphar, "Redaction (San Francisco)," 2020. Etching and silkscreen on paper. Courtesy of Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts. Photo by Christopher Gardener.
June 18, 2021 | 12:00 PT
Join the Palo Alto Art Center and Hunter College Art Galleries for a virtual book launch celebrating The Black Index, co-published by the Hunter College Art Galleries and Hirmer Verlag
The event will feature a conversation with the publication editors, Bridget R. Cooks, curator of The Black Index and Sarah Watson, Chief Curator of the Hunter College Art Galleries with appearances by catalogue contributors Re’al Christian, CalvinJohn Smiley, Vivian Sming, and Ella Turenne.
A discussion will follow focused on the Redaction font commissioned by Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts and featured in The Black Index with the designers who created it: Forest Young, Global Principal and Head of Design at Wolff Olins and Jeremy Mickel, Type Designer and owner of MCKL; moderated by Stephen Coles, Associate Curator at Letterform Archive in San Francisco.
This event is organized in concert with the presentation of The Black Index at the Palo Alto Art Center (May 1–August 14, 2021). For more information on the exhibition and tour, visit this page.
The publication is available through Hirmer Verlag and University of Chicago Press.
The Black Index publication is made possible by the support of the Ford Foundation, Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, and the Leubsdorf Fund at Hunter College.
Artist & Scholar Zoom Events Hosted by UCI:
- January 14, 2021, 3:15 - 4:30 p.m.
"Black Manicule: Pointing Elsewhere"
Courtney R. Baker, Professor, Department of English, UC Riverside
Watch on YouTube here. | More Info
- February 4, 2021, 3:15 - 4:30 p.m.
"A Study in Blackness and Black Identity"
Cherise Smith, Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, UT Austin
Watch on YouTube here. | More Info
Other Artist & Scholar Zoom Events:
- January 15, 2021, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
"The Black Index: Artists in Conversation"
Lava Thomas, artist, with Leigh Raiford, Professor of African American Studies, UC Berkeley; and Whitfield Lovell, artist, with LeRonn Brooks, Curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections, The Getty Research Institute
This event is hosted by The Getty. Watch on YouTube here.
- January 21, 2021, 3:15 - 4:30 p.m.
"The Dark Database"
Dennis Delgado, artist, with Calvin John Smiley, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Hunter College
This event is hosted by The Hunter College Art Galleries. Watch on Vimeo here.
- February 18, 2021, 3:15 - 4:30 p.m.
"Analogous"
Alicia Henry, Professor of Art, Fisk University with Bridget R. Cooks, Professor and Exhibition Curator, UC Irvine
Join us for a conversation between exhibition artist, Alicia Henry and exhibition curator, Bridget R. Cooks about Henry's art practice, influences, and her installation, Analogous III, featured in The Black Index.
This event is hosted by the Palo Alto Art Center. Watch on YouTube here.
- February 19, 2021, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
"The Black Index: Archiving Black Creativity and Resistance"
Simone Fujita, Bibliographer, African American Art History Initiative at The Getty Research Institute with Krystal Tribbett, Curator for Orange County Regional History, UC Irvine
This event is hosted by the Getty. Watch on YouTube here.
All performances will be pre-recorded and shared at a later date. Read more at the UAG site here.
All events are free to the public.
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(Free UCI Hosted Events)
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Thursday, January 14, 2021 - 3:15pm to 4:30pm
The Black Index presents:
"Black Manicule: Pointing Elsewhere"
Courtney R. Baker, Professor, Department of English, UC Riverside
Hosted by UCI
RSVP for the event here.
The manicule (☚) is a typographic symbol of a hand with a pointing index finger. This talk will discuss art practices and images that point to, away from, and beyond fixed ideas of Black life.
Dr. Courtney R. Baker is a specialist on the impact of visual culture in Black life. She is an Associate Professor in the department of English at University of California, Riverside. Her book, Humane Insight: Looking at Images of African-American Suffering and Death, was published in the New Black Studies series, edited by Darlene Clark Hine and Dwight McBride, by the University of Illinois Press in 2015. She has written academic and popular essays on African-American film, the history of the image in African-American activism, and the ethics of narratives about death. She teaches courses on Black film, African-American literature, race and ethnicity in American Studies, cultural studies, and critical theories of the human and the visual.
Discussion moderated by Bridget R. Cooks
This event is made possible by the UCI Black Thriving Initiative.
Thursday, February 4, 2021 - 3:15pm to 4:30pm
The Black Index presents:
"A Study in Blackness and Black Identity"
Cherise Smith, Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, UT Austin.
Hosted by UCI
RSVP for the event here.
Scholar Cherise Smith discusses the art of Michael Ray Charles, an artist who rose to prominence in the 1990s for works that engaged American stereotypes of Black Americans. Based on her research and collaboration with the artist to produce the recent book, Michael Ray Charles, Smith addresses Charles’ redeployment of stereotypical images from the indexes of Black Americana, popular culture, and politics.
Discussion moderated by Bridget R. Cooks
This event is made possible by the UCI Black Thriving Initiative.