Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African-American studies at Harvard University. [1] Her research focuses on the intersection of African American and Black Atlantic visual representation, racial justice, and representational democracy in the United States from the nineteenth century through the present.
Sarah Elizabeth Lewis | |
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Born | 1979 (age 44–45) |
Awards | Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, Arthur Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association, Photography Network Book Prize, Freedom Scholar Award, Infinity Award for Critical Writing & Research |
Academic background | |
Education | Harvard University (B.A. 2001), Oxford University (M. Phil. 2003), Courtauld Institute of Art (M.A. 2004), Yale University (PhD 2015) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History of Art and Architecture,African and African American Studies |
Institutions | Harvard University |
Website | sarahelizabethlewis.com |
Lewis attended the Brearley School from kindergarten to high school. [2] She later received her bachelor's degree from Harvard University,an MPhil from Oxford University after she was awarded the Marshall Scholarship,an M.A. from Courtauld Institute of Art,and her Ph.D. from Yale University. [3] [4] Her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation,the Beinecke Rare Book &Manuscript Library,the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University,the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery,Resistance &Abolition,and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.[ citation needed ]
Lewis is the co-editor of an anthology on the work of Carrie Mae Weems (MIT Press), [5] which received the 2021 Photography Network Book Prize, [6] and her upcoming book,The Unseen Truth,will be published by Harvard University Press in 2024. [7] She is author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller, [8] The Rise:Creativity,the Gift of Failure,and the Search for Mastery (Simon &Schuster),a layered,story-driven investigation of how innovation,discovery,and the creative process are all spurred on by advantages gleaned from improbable foundations. Called “lyrical and engaging”and “strikingly original”by The New York Times,The Rise has been translated into 7 languages to date. [9] [10]
Her essays on race,contemporary art and culture have been published in many journals as well as the New York Times ,the New Yorker , Artforum , Art in America and in publications for the Smithsonian,the Museum of Modern Art,and Rizzoli.
Lewis is the founder of Vision &Justice,based on the topic of her core curriculum at Harvard,which "wrestles with the question of how the foundational right of representation in a democracy,the right to be recognized justly,has historically and is still urgently tied to the work of visual representation in the public realm." [11]
Lewis was the guest editor for Aperture ’s Summer 2016 “Vision &Justice”issue,which focuses on the role of photography in the African American experience. [12] This issue received the 2017 Infinity Award for Critical Writing and Research from the International Center of Photography, [13] and launched Vision &Justice.
She organized the Vision &Justice Convening in 2019,a two-day event that considered the role of the arts in understanding the nexus of art,race,and justice. The program was hosted by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and featured a range of dynamic speakers and events. [14] [15]
In 2021,Frieze New York paid tribute to Lewis and Vision &Justice,with over 50 galleries and institutions offering digital events,artworks,institutional contributions,and screenings that responded to the question:'How are the arts responsible for disrupting,complicating,or shifting narratives of visual representation in the public realm?' [16]
Before joining the faculty at Harvard,she held curatorial positions at the Museum of Modern Art,New York and the Tate Modern,London. She also served as a Critic at Yale University School of Art. [17]
She is a frequent speaker and has lectured at many universities and conferences such as TEDGlobal,SXSW,PopTech,ASCD and for a wide range of organizations from the Aspen Institute to the Getty to The Federal Reserve Bank.[ citation needed ]
She has served on President Obama's Arts Policy Committee and on the boards of the CUNY Graduate Center,the Brearley School,and the Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts. She is a board member of Creative Time,Thames &Hudson,Inc.,and Harvard Design Press,and serves on the Yale University Honorary Degrees Committee. [18]
Lewis became the inaugural recipient of the Freedom Scholar Award in 2019,presented by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History to honor her for her body of work and its "direct positive impact on the life of African-Americans." [19] [20]
She received the 2022 American Philosophical Association's Arthur Danto/American Society for Aesthetics Prize for the paper,"Groundwork:Race and Aesthetics in the Era of Stand Your Ground Law." It was published in Art Journal. The prize is awarded for "the best paper in the field of aesthetics,broadly understood." [21]
In 2022,Lewis was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. [22]
Arthur Coleman Danto was an American art critic,philosopher,and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for The Nation and for his work in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of history,though he contributed significantly to a number of fields,including the philosophy of action. His interests included thought,feeling,philosophy of art,theories of representation,philosophical psychology,Hegel's aesthetics,and the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Elizabeth Catlett,born as Alice Elizabeth Catlett,also known as Elizabeth Catlett Mora was an American and Mexican sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the 20th century,which often focused on the female experience. She was born and raised in Washington,D.C.,to parents working in education,and was the grandchild of formerly enslaved people. It was difficult for a black woman at this time to pursue a career as a working artist. Catlett devoted much of her career to teaching. However,a fellowship awarded to her in 1946 allowed her to travel to Mexico City,where she settled and worked with the Taller de Gráfica Popular for twenty years and became head of the sculpture department for the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas. In the 1950s,her main means of artistic expression shifted from print to sculpture,though she never gave up the former.
Lorna Simpson is an American photographer and multimedia artist whose works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 1990,she became one of the first African-American woman to exhibit at the Venice Biennale. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with photo-text installations such as Guarded Conditions and Square Deal that questioned the nature of identity,gender,race,history and representation. Simpson continues to explore these themes in relation to memory and history using photography,film,video,painting,drawing,audio,and sculpture.
Johanna Drucker is an American author,book artist,visual theorist,and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language:letterforms,typography,visual poetry,art,and lately,digital art aesthetics. She is currently the Martin and Bernard Breslauer Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. In 2023,she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Dawoud Bey is an American photographer,artist and educator known for his large-scale art photography and street photography portraits,including American adolescents in relation to their community,and other often marginalized subjects. In 2017,Bey was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is regarded as one of the "most innovative and influential photographers of his generation".
Griselda Frances Sinclair Pollock is an art historian and cultural analyst of international,postcolonial feminist studies in visual arts and visual culture. Since 1977,Pollock has been an influential scholar of modern art,avant-garde art,postmodern art,and contemporary art. She is a major influence in feminist theory,feminist art history,and gender studies. She is renowned for her innovative feminist approaches to art history which aim to deconstruct the lack of appreciation and importance of women in art as other than objects for the male gaze.
Coco Fusco is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist,writer,and curator whose work has been exhibited and published internationally. Fusco's work explores gender,identity,race,and power through performance,video,interactive installations,and critical writing.
Deborah Willis is a contemporary African-American artist,photographer,curator of photography,photographic historian,author,and educator. Among her awards and honors,she is a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts of New York University. In 2024,she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri is an Indian artist,film director,and photographer.
The participation of women in photography goes back to the very origins of the process. Several of the earliest women photographers,most of whom were from Britain or France,were married to male pioneers or had close relationships with their families. It was above all in northern Europe that women first entered the business of photography,opening studios in Denmark,France,Germany,and Sweden from the 1840s,while it was in Britain that women from well-to-do families developed photography as an art in the late 1850s. Not until the 1890s,did the first studios run by women open in New York City.
Deana Lawson is an American artist,educator,and photographer based in Brooklyn,New York. Her work is primarily concerned with intimacy,family,spirituality,sexuality,and Black aesthetics.
Nona Faustine is an American photographer and visual artist who was born and raised in Brooklyn,New York.
Giuliana Bruno is a scholar of visual art and media. She is currently the Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She is internationally known as the author of numerous influential books and articles on art,architecture,film,and visual culture.
Ming Smith is an American photographer. She was the first African-American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Kia Michelle Benbow is an American fine artist. Her most well known series,24, is a sociopolitical commentary on the effects of growing up as a young woman of color with HIV. She is a former Mother of the Royal House of LaBeija.
Che Gossett is an American writer,scholar,and archivist. They have written extensively on black and trans visibility,black trans aesthetics,capitalism,and queer,trans and black radicalism,resistance and abolition.
Nicole R. Fleetwood is an American academic,curator,police abolitionist,prison abolitionist,and author. She is the inaugural James Weldon Johnson Professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture,Education,and Human Development. Previously,Fleetwood was Professor of American Studies and Art History at Rutgers University.
Tiziana Andina is full professor of theoretical philosophy at the University of Turin.
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Ilene Sova is a multidisciplinary visual artist,arts educator,curator and community organizer based in Toronto,Canada. She is well known for the Missing Women Project, a series of thirty large-format portraits of missing Ontario women from 1970 to 2000. Sova is the Ada Slaight Chair of Painting and Drawing at OCAD University,Toronto.