(2.15) The RISD Museum has three events planned for this month’s Third Thursday: The earliest ‘The Art of Race’ runs from 6pm to 7:30pm.
This joint program was designed by the Center for Reconciliation with the help of RISD Museum staff to explore slavery, the slave trade, racial identity, and reconciliation through the Museum’s extensive collection of art and design.
Join Elon Cook Lee, CFR Program Director, and Emily Banas, Curatorial Assistant in the department of Decorative Arts and Design, for a conversation focusing on decorative arts in the collection. Participants will engage with experts and each other in this interactive experience, discussing what each work of art is saying to viewers and what it says about race, race relations, and reconciliation.
7pm to 8:30pm, Fain Gallery: 2017 Artist Fellow, Walker Mettling, will discuss his new screenprinted book and present a show-and-tell slideshow,
. . . including images from tours of RISD Museum Storage,his stumbling serendipitous research into a variety of masks in the Ethnographic Art Collection, and other stuff he found and made along the way.
7pm, Grand Gallery, Community MusicWorks: Musicians explore pieces from the 17th and 18th century masterworks to contemporary works.
This event features pianist Jeff Louie, performing Beethoven’s Sonata for Piano and Violin, No. 3 with violinist Luke Fatora and Amy Beach’s Violin Sonata, Op. 34 with Jesse Holstein.
*Seen here is ‘Portrait of a Gentleman,’ ca. 1820, pastel on paper attributed to James Martin. (This photo doesn’t do it justice — the soft pastels glow.) The wall text tells us “The portrait’s history suggests that the sitter lived in New York City, where a number of men of color were merchants, clergymen, and landowners in the early 1800s.” What does it say that the sitter’s name has not come down to us with the portrait?
Third Thursdays admission to museum is free 5pm-9pm, February 15, RISD Museum, 20 North Main Street, (directions)