John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art 2019, Artists and American Communities: Part 11

Devin Allen, artist and 2017 fellow, The Gordon Parks Foundation; Eric Gottesman, artist and co-founder, For Freedoms, and assistant professor of art, Purchase College, State University of New York; Rick Lowe, artist, founder, Project Row Houses, and clinical professor of art, University of Houston; Maséqua Myers, executive director, South Side Community Art Center; moderated by Philip Brookman, consulting curator, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art For artists Devin Allen, Eric Gottesman, and Rick Lowe, art is inextricable from community. As a photographer, Allen’s ethic considers what he owes his subjects; Gottesman’s For Freedoms project uses art to engage with citizenship; and Lowe’s Project Row Houses embrace the art of community development. As director of the South Side Community Art Center, Maséqua Myers orchestrates connections between residents of Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood and art. The four discuss the stakes of the relationship between artists and communities, as Philip Brookman moderates, in this panel conversation at the John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, “American Communities, Then and Now,” held on February 8, 2019.