Tag Archives: Columbia University

PIONEERING WOMEN OF AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

In celebration of Beverly L. Greene (1915-57)—the first African American women architect licensed to practice in the United States—and Norma Merrick Sklarek (1926-2012)—the first African American woman to be made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects—join architect Roberta Washington, professors Mary McLeod and Patricia Morton, and Victoria Rosner (Dean of Academic Affairs, General Studies at Columbia University) for an online discussion.

McLeod and Rosner are the editors of the Pioneering Women of American Architecture website. See link below to register for the program.

BEVERLY L. GREENE and NORMA MERRICK SKLAREK—NEW RESEARCH IN BLACK WOMEN’S HISTORY IN ARCHITECTURE

Columbia University
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

Friday, January 15.

10 am on the West Coast, 1 pm East Coast, 6 pm London, 7 pm Paris.

From top: Unknown photographer, Contact sheet of Norma Merrick Sklarek, circa mid-20th century, silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper, collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, image courtesy and © the Smithsonian; Sklarek in the meeting room at Gruen Associates, circa 1960, image courtesy and © Gruen Associates; Beverly L. Greene, photograph courtesy and © University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne; the Gruen Associates projects Sklarek managed included the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, image courtesy and © Gruen Associates; Greene worked with Marcel Breuer on the design of the UNESCO United Nations Headquarters in Paris, image courtesy and © UNESCO.

ARTHUR MITCHELL

“I am a political activist through dance. I believe that dance, and the arts more broadly, can be used as a catalyst for social change—this is why I started the Dance Theatre of Harlem. With my archive at Columbia, artifacts of American dance history and African-American history are accessible to young scholars, academics and the general public.” —Arthur Mitchell

ARTHUR MITCHELL—HARLEM’S BALLET TRAILBLAZER—curated by Lynn Garafola at the Wallach Art Gallery—features an extensive selection from Mitchell’s archive, as well as performance films from throughout his career as a dancer with the New York City Ballet through the founding and directorship of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

 

ARTHUR MITCHELL—HARLEM’S BALLET TRAILBLAZER, through March 11.

WALLACH ART GALLERY, Columbia University, 615 West 129th Street, New York City.

wallach.columbia.edu/arthur-mitchell-harlems-ballet-trailblazer

See: dancetheatreofharlem.org/legacy

Arthur Mitchell and George Balanchine, New York City Ballet. Photographs by Martha Swope. Image credit: New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

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SCHIZO-CULTURE EVENT AT OOGA BOOGA

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Sylvère Lotringer was in conversation with Dorothée Perret in the Paris, LA #10 article ‘The Importance of Being Unfinished,’ with an introduction by Barlo Perry.

On Wednesday night he was at Ooga Booga’s second space at 356 Mission Road, to celebrate the launch of Semiotext(e)’s new publication Schizo-Culture, along with Semiotext(e)’s Noura Wedell and Hedi El Khot. For those of us who were only somewhat familiar with Semiotext(e), as an independent publisher inhabiting a lofty space in the art world (Semiotext(e) is included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial) and academia, and who brought the work of many French theorists to the United States, the evening was only somewhat informative. A basis of knowledge and understanding of the topic was already assumed, so the panelists dove straight in.

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Chris Kraus introduces Schizo-Culture at Ooga Booga

The Schizo-Culture conference took place at Columbia University in November of 1975. Lotringer described it as a complete shock. He had expected about fifty people to show up, but instead there were a thousand. He said the conference erupted into creative chaos. Of those who presented at the conference were French philosophers and thinkers Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Félix Guattari, and a wide range of Americans such as William Burroughs, John Cage, and Judy Clark. Lotringer said that when he thinks about schizo-culture, it is all about New York City, and the good energy that was felt there at the time. At the time it was joyful to be in New York City with all of the creative people there, the “old art world,” the punks, the young radicals, and the young academics. “People were afraid to go to New York back then, and they could have never predicted that 42nd St would turn into Disneyland,” said Lotringer.

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Noura Wedell, Sylvère Lotringer, and Hedi El Khot

Three years later, Semiotext(e) published the Schizo-Culture issue of their journal. He described the issue as being very fun to put together, and introduces it in the book as being “…not the same as the Schizo-Culture conference. The issue was put together three years after the conference in a very different context with very different intentions and with different material. …[It] doesn’t recount the shock encounter that took place between French and American philosophers and artists at ‘the Event,’ but instead consummated the magazine’s rupture with academe. It also took Semiotext(e) one step closer to the New York art world at an exciting and innovative time. No one could have anticipated that in just five years it would mutate into an art market, and then into an art industry. It was more than anyone had bargained for.” (v)

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Jack Smith, Jungle Island, 1967

Lotringer’s introduction to the Schizo-Culture conference and the Schizo-Culture issue of the journal was followed with Jack Smith’s film Jungle Island from 1967. Lotringer said that Smith knew nothing about French philosophy, yet he embraced the same ideas. He said he had a presence and a simplicity, that you just need to look at the world around you. His beautiful film was a jungle island dream, a layering of images of tropical plants, water, and a drag queen in heavy colorful makeup sparkling in the sun.

After the film, Noura Wedell and Hedi El Khot asked Lotringer a few questions, trying to start a discussion, but it was mostly Lotringer who spoke. The questions were opened up to the audience, and with each one, Lotringer became more and more impassioned. Towards the end he stated, “We are taught to be individuals, to draw attention to ourselves. That is how we are raised. Subjectivity is a false problem. You have to break from individualism by being mad.”